Beside the Seaside

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In Which I Try To Clear My Conscience

May 21, 2008 by Mike

Castel Fusano

Day Two in Rome. What with waking up, getting up, clicking my back back into place, hoovering up some coffee and making the walk-Metro journey in to the city, I impress myself by getting there before I have to turn round and catch the last train back to the campsite.

In between, I manage to squeeze in an open-top bus tour of the capital in which we are all forced downstairs by a prolonged rainstorm. All those wet tourists, half wrapped in rainproofs and half wearing football drenched football shirts in a confined space? Can you imagine the smell?

And a return to the Colisseum. A return? I was here in, ooooh, 1983, when Rome wasn't quite so ancient, and neither was I. It was the summer before I started University: I was hitching (kids, ask your parents what 'hitchhiking' means) and wish to share two things from that time with you. Please bear with me, they won't take long.

One
I have specific memories of the Colisseum. Not just the immensity of the history I was witness to. A tiny, old couple from the south of Italy approached me. "This is our first visit to Rome," he told me. "But we have no camera. Will you take a photograph of us with yours? And send a copy to us back in the village? As our souvenir of this momentous day?"

All this in Italian, but with so many gestures, feints, rolled eyes and smiles that it was clear just how much it would mean to them.

I steadied myself, conscious of the responsibility, and took a couple of pictures, to be safe. No digital camera with playback facility, remember. This image would be going on the mantlepiece of their tiny, old home, next to Jesus. In my mind, I recall that I even had to write down their address for them because they were illiterate.. and that may well be true. They'd have been born at the turn of the last century in one of the poorest, toughest areas of Europe. Can't imagine they had much schooling. Can't imagine what they'd seen, and been through.

Don't hate me, dear reader. I lost the piece of paper with their address. I've felt guilty for the last 25 years and I'm half hoping I'll bump into them in the next few weeks.

(And today, I tried, I *really* tried, to find someone who needed me to take their picture. But every single person, couple or group in the Colisseum today had a camera - bigger (or smaller) and shinier than mine.)

Two
When I left Rome in 1983, I hitched straight back to Norwich. It took 22-and-a-half hours -- knocking over an hour off the family record set by my brother a few years before. (A highlight: hitching on the back of a bike from Dover-London: I met the rider on the ferry. His mate had crashed in the south of France so he happened to have a spare helmet with him. I was scared witless all the way and I've never willingly ridden pillion ever since.)

It was the Champions League Final tonight. Happy birthday, John?

I watched it in a city centre Oirish pub surrounded by Brummies. Two of them own a hair salon in Sutton Coldfield. They took one look at me and gave me their card "in case you're ever passing through." I'm not sure if they looked on my hair as a challenge or a charity case.. but they were lovely people and bought me a beer.

A Roman, earlier today.

Beside the Seaside

In Which I Try To Clear My Conscience

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