My frequent long absences from home and the selfish neglect by a busy dutiful husband and parent, while being accepted by Marjorie with remarkable equanimity, was patently a serious impediment to a good relationship. But even without this neglect, I think we both accepted our relationship was based on slender foundations. In the few weeks before being shot down we hardly knew each other, but on my return from three years’ confinement and three years in which she had anticipated a marriage, I was in a very vulnerable state. It must be remembered that my experience of the opposite sex was very limited. Marjorie had faithfully waited for three years and on my return I faced what seemed a ‘fait accompli’. We did marry and I did my best to make it work, and I was rewarded by three splendid sons. Even so, with different interests and friends, not to mention my own selfish motivations, we drifted apart and often spoke of a separation.
Of course I was meeting other ladies platonically in the climbing world, which may have added to Marjorie’s feeling of inadequacy. While enjoying female company, no significant relationship developed, but there was one enduring friendship that I did value above others and this was with Sylvie Nickels. We first met for a London lunch and by accident and good fortune again in Finnish Lapland. This was a friendship that was sustained almost entirely by correspondence, I receiving many of her letters from overseas. Later when my lecture engagements took me to Essex I was pleased too accept invitations to her home to meet her parents, Stanley and her Swiss mother Yvonne. Later, after the death of her father, Sylvie and her mother moved to Girton outside Cambridge and close to her sister. It was there that I stayed whenever lecturing in East Anglia, and there developed between us much understanding and a warmth of affection. Sylvie was very much the independent professional woman and marriage or any permanent relationship had not come up for consideration, but now for the first time serious thought was given to a life together following the death of her mother.
Sylvie was then a highly successful free lance travel writer, already with several books to her credit and, among other commitments, a regular travel correspondent to the Financial Times. In addition she was shortly to become editor of several of the Fodor Guides to Eastern Europe, initially to former Yugoslavia. She was a dedicated, hard working writer. Fortunately, it was about this time that the she was commissioned by Drive Publications, on behalf of the Automobile Association, to contribute the Yorkshire section of the mammoth Illustrated Guide to Great Britain. It was a good choice for she had a knowledgeable Yorkshireman already at hand to advise and assist. Marjorie was fully aware and uncomplaining of our co-operation and indeed travelled with me to fill in details of some places that had been omitted.
I suppose that it was about this time that the hitherto regular visits to the mountains and club activities were neglected in favour of visits to Cambridge, and for the first time there was talk of divorce or separation. To my surprise and relief it was a situation that Marjorie seemed to accept without bitterness or blame. I think she had come to accept that I was not the dutiful husband and parent that she would have anticipated, but was still the selfish, ambitious traveller adventurer determined to follow his way of life. With Sylvie I had met someone who could at least understand and to some extent share my ambitions. Furthermore she was one who, as opportunity developed, could accept with warmth the close friends who had been companions on many travels and adventures over the years. One of the first was Alastair Allen now studying in Cambridge; Eric Arnison, Tom Price and Peggy Caird Peel were soon to follow. Sylvie was a person of unusual compassion and integrity, the last person to want to break up a firm and loving relationship. In this respect she accepted my assurance that the years together with Marjorie had descended into a state of fast decline.
For the remaining months of 1968 and into the following year I spent much time with Sylvie and I was soon to learn that there were enormous advantages in being associated with an established travel writer. I was not yet able to accompany her to far flung destinations such as Japan, India, the West Indies, but free travel in Europe was perfectly acceptable. The first of these was Easter, 1970, when we enjoyed two weeks of travel in the Basque area of northern Spain, travelling free and with car by Stena Line to Bilbao. For many years, so long as Sylvie continued to write travel, particularly for the prestigious Financial Times, I was to enjoy free travel by car or by air to every country in Europe with the exception of Albania, including free accommodation in some of the best hotels in the countries concerned. My only contribution was that of photographer. I felt very privileged.
Many of our visits, until its break-up, were to former Yugoslavia, a country in which Sylvie had specialised, learning some Serbo Croat and writing The Travellers’ Guide to the country. We were to make annual visits for in addition to her usual travel article demands she accepted the editorship of the Fodor Guide to that country. This was later to be extended to most of the other countries of East Europe, not to be popular tourist venues for many years, but arguably the more interesting for being so neglected. In addition she continued to sustain her interest in Scandinavia and Finland in particular, providing material for more books.
The first long journey with Sylvie was not until 1971 and was one of the few that was not entirely sponsored by some National Tourist Office or paper. It had to be Romania of course to collect further material for my forthcoming lecture. It was my first overseas trip in a new second hand Volvo.
My diary entry for that journey is lost and my memory is fading but certain places and incidents stand out, the first perhaps in Hungary. Of course I knew of the Great Plain, the Nagjálfald which covers much of the country and is typically Hungarian. It is of little interest scenically but to the west of Debrecen is the Hortobágy retaining some of the old atmosphere. For centuries the only inhabitants were shepherds and herdsmen, weatherbeaten men called Ckikós. We made our way by some prior arrangement to the Great Inn, Nagyasárda, built in 1699, from where we were taken out to see the splendid horses and their riders, the Ckikós, wearing the long colourfully embroidered cloaks, the szur.
We entered Romania, giving the friendly customs officer a lift into Oradea. This must have been a time before Ceauşescu imposed his restrictions on contact with travellers from the capitalist countries. I was still confident of the friendship of the Romanian people and it was a time as before when I could camp wild. In order to find such a place, a friendly farmer and a corner of a field perhaps, we turned off the main road and drove up a narrow lane to the first village. It was called Säcodet and probably we were the first foreigners ever to visit the village and certainly to order drinks in the local bar. It was a moment of joy for me to introduce Sylvie for the first time to the colourful scene within, peasants old and young, men and women and gypsies too, all colourfully dressed in country peasant costumes. I wondered where else in Europe you would see this.
Our arrival in the bar aroused much curiosity, friendly curiosity. We spoke no Romanian but camping is an international word but it aroused only shaking heads. Finally a lady was summoned from some part of the village who spoke some French. Of course, we couldn’t camp, but we could stay in her house, she said, and there we slept. No payment was requested or expected but the offer of a pair of nylon tights was received with great joy. She had heard of such items, she said, but never expected to own a pair. We were shown round the farm where she and her husband seemed particularly proud of their potato crop and indifferent to the infestation of Colorado beetle.
Following this hospitable break the next day we took the main road south-east to Deva and a little beyond to visit the flamboyant 14th century Hunendoara Castle. The return journey north was less predictable. Neglecting to seek local advice, I followed my desire for travel on remote lesser known routes through the hills of rural Romania. Such a route was clearly marked, passing through a string of villages and over a pass and so through more villages to the main road at Cluj. Of course we knew it would be a rough earth road, slow travelling but passable with care. Failing to seek local advice I had not anticipated that the clear marking on the map was premature; the road, or at least its central section was still under construction. The foundations were there but remaining as a bed of irregular large stone blocks, the largest of which we had to cast aside before we could proceed.
At the summit of this unused pass we made camp only to discover that we had punctured the petrol tank. Our only means of travel down an unmade road was dripping away. Our only solution was to let it drip into our largest cooking pan and at frequent and regular intervals throughout the night pour it back again. There was little sleep for either of us that night. We set off the next morning hoping the remaining fuel would sustain us to the main road, but unexpected aid came within half that distance when, still in semi wilderness, we reached the roadworkers’ camp complete with some vehicle maintenance unit. Forgetting their roadmaker duties, a team of skilled men removed and emptied the tank and welded the puncture. All this was done with no common language but much enthusiasm. No payment would they take but a full bottle of whisky was happily accepted to be drunk then and there with some rapidity.
My memories of this, my third journey to Romania, are confused and are perhaps mingled with others both earlier and later. We must have passed and perhaps stayed at Cluj, Sibiu and Braşov, the first the Hungarian capital of the country, the latter two part of Saxon occupation, before reaching Bucharest. Sylvie, with a press card and perhaps a commission from the prestigious Financial Times, called on Carpati, the National Tourist Office, the outcome of which, apart from a mass of literature, was free accommodation at the Athénee Palace, a hot bed of spies and informers for certain, staffed no doubt by the Securetate with each room containing its concealed listening device. We were to stay there again in future years and, as always, any payment for drinks or other extras had to be in dollars.
We drove to the coast for a glimpse of the recently developed Black Sea resorts then largely patronised by East German holidaymakers, pausing on the way to participate in the therapeutic mud baths where both sexes stood naked and unashamed but their bodies concealed in a layer of mud. Then we drove north to see more of Moldavia and Maramures with their wealth of peasant cultures. A few memories stand out. Returning to our car after an excursion on foot we found it being washed by a complete stranger. No payment was accepted for the much inflated lira had little value, but he was pleased to receive a more valued currency, a few cigarettes. Later, pausing at some village, we were ushered to a well stocked table to participate, strangers though we were, at some memorial ceremony to a villager who had died just six weeks earlier.
We were to return to Romania many times in the next thirty years but with some knowledge of the country and what seemed adequate photographic coverage, I felt as did Sylvie that this journey would be the last. We did not then anticipate the fall of Ceauşescu, Sylvie’s further literary commitments nor a close friendship that would later develop.
On this occasion we left via Bulgaria where at the frontier, along with weary-eyed, travel-stained Trabants and Ladas, we were handed a leaflet advising us that on “entering the city of Varna absolute security should be ensured in the ton and that our car should be in trim appearance. Before entering the ton you’d better stop and look over your vehicle and put it in order and clean it free from dust.”
It was my increasing success in the lecturing field that caused me to consider a complete change of occupation. I was soon to abandon the teaching profession and devote my entire life to lecturing: precarious perhaps but it proved a wise decision. I earned no great wealth but gained an interesting and varied quality of life. It was also good for the ego. This decision was partly due to the success being achieved by my two London agents with bigger fees and repeated return bookings, some as far afield as Cork in Ireland and many others in Scotland to which each year I did a two-week tour. I was particularly favoured by being booked each year by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society with its several branches. I was to speak seven times at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh and I confess I felt very lonely being presented from that large platform to a largely unseen but substantial audience. I had come a long way from the single figure fees in village halls to three-figure fees and substantial expenses.
I was to continue to lecture professionally for some fifty years, the majority of bookings being during the winter months, and accepting a little more than three thousand engagements, the great majority being return visits. I enjoyed the praise given to my meticulously prepared talks. It was good for the ego, of course, but it was a profession that provided for my restless spirit an interesting way of life. The travel itself could be rewarding to every part of the country, combined with country walking. Often I was entertained and met interesting people. Otherwise I selected a suitable pub to leisurely enjoy good food and wine. To save unnecessary expenses and provide independence I often slept, and did so comfortably, in the car. All my many cars had been carefully selected, and measured, for that purpose.
georgespenceley4 