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A Nibble at Normandy For a picture version of this story go to webshots album/binliner
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By the Spring of 2000 we felt our relationship was worn to shreds, never mind our nerves! Realising if we didn't do something soon it would end in divorce, I seized on the Binliner brochure when it fell through the letterbox. We’d had the brochure previous years, but had never booked with them. They had an early trip to Normandy, it sounded idyllic - staying in a holiday village, two-person chalets, dinner with wine every night. That might do the trick and restore marital happiness.
Also, Normandy being near, we wouldn’t have to spend a night on the bus. They are a similar operation to Bolero, passengers in the bus, bikes in a large trailer. Ideal for getting from A to B without the hassle of carrying your bikes up and down large flights of steps, waiting around at midnight on draughty station platforms full of drug users, BUT a form of endurance test - 23 hours in the same seat? For a person who can’t even face an hour’s journey to Keighley to see her Mum?
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After we booked we found out we would have to spend the night on the bus after all - this one picked up at 1am in Prestwich. Never mind, I thought, gives us the whole day to get ready, it’ll be leisurely. We asked Wolf’s friend to drive us down, Wolf can't manage busy roads. The pickup was on Tesco’s carpark - although Tesco’s is a 24hr operation, NOT ON A SUNDAY! so we found nothing open, everywhere locked, no shelter. I gave Wolf's friend a tenner for his trouble, and I at least expected he would wait with us in the car till the bus came. Not a bit of it! He’s the sort of chap that has his coat on half an hour before he has to leave, arrived early, dropped us off in a freezing gale at 11.15, and went home to his own warm hearth. Thanks mate! Endurance is my middle name. I put on all the spare clothes I had, topped off with waterproofs and straw hat, and ended up looking like the Invisible Man!
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Some other people turned up about midnight. Tim and
June, said they had been before, and it was wonderful! That was good
news. Said they had stayed in a chalet with its own kitchen, bathroom,
everything. Huge place all to themselves! The cold didn't seem so bad
after that.
Then the bus arrived, but it
didn't come on the carpark, we could just
make out its squat shape in the distance. It looked like there was
nobody on it, but when we got close, we saw it was full of very small,
very old people - their white-crowned heads had turned them into so many
ghosts in the dark. It looked like Binliner was where Bolero sidelined
cyclists too old for its image - or do cyclists shrink over the years
from being out so much in the wet?
I definitely needed a toilet, but
didn't like to ask
the driver to find one - just hoped he would stop before long. Not to
worry, the bus wasn’t capable of travelling for more than two hours
without a serious rest!
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The brochure described it as ‘a1986 Mercedes, the original seating removed and replaced with full-size coach seats. Not quite the comfort of Bolero, but just right for our operation. Apart from regular maintenance checks, day to day inspections are carried out by the driver to correct any faults that may develop.’
Like estate agent speak, the truth lay in the omission - for
instance, it would be natural to assume that the replacement seats were
newer than the bus - but you would be wrong. They were a good deal
older, in fact I recognised them, or some very like them, from my
teenage years - surely those were original teddy-boy knife slashes in
the upholstery? There was a very unpleasant smell coming from the
ashtrays fitted in the back of the seat in front - pulling one open, I
found it crammed full of fag ends - which I was sure had been there
since the 1950s! That smell could have been bottled and sold at a
premium.
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Not quite the comfort of Bolero
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Only one side of the bus held double seats, the others were single. Good thing it was not by any means full - I would not have liked to travel any distance in one of those extremely small spaces. In all there were ten of us on board - Wolf, me, Tim and June, another two couples - the driver (Fat Colin) and Esmerelda his mother in law. Just what her role was in this we were not sure, but had a pretty good idea by the end of the trip.
In the back, where we were sitting, the thick plate glass windows rattled loudly in their moorings, their original rubber seals long since perished, the putty someone had used as a replacement not doing a very good job. Air was whistling up through the seats, coming through cracks in the chassis and I regretted stowing our spare clothing in the trailer - could have done with some of it to plug the gaps.
We realised before long that all this extra air was a good thing, as there was a strong smell of exhaust fumes.
The phrase ‘not quite the comfort of Bolero’ came to mind. I have never found Bolero particularly comfortable - new, yes, well-upholstered, yes, but I find their buses overstuffed and hate every minute. At least here you had space to move about and weren’t suffering death by moquette. After all, I reasoned, back in the fifties and sixties I had travelled the length and breadth of England in buses like this, and enjoyed every minute. I resolved to do just that. |
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At the next pickup no one appeared and Fat Colin
informed us that we now had the full complement of passengers, the rest
having failed to turn up. I found this odd, but Wolf said that they
probably saw the bus and decided to cut their losses. Talk on board was
that Binliner was on the downhill slide - many regular runs had been cut
back, and new ones started. That figured, said Wolf, no one would come
twice.
Our first run-in with Fat Colin
came when we pulled in at Portsmouth for the morning ferry. We got out
to stretch our legs and get some breakfast, and when we came back,
pulled up alongside was a scruffy old hippy van - a kind of garden shed
built onto a lorry chassis. It looked like it had evolved over the years
with extra rooms added on. Its curtains were ragged and filthy and it
had a general air of dilapidation. Seeing
Fat Colin beaming at us, I jerked a thumb at the trailer and said, ‘Must
have felt at home next to us’ It
was clear by the change of expression that he did not like this at all.
He gave me a nasty look, and informed me that the last person to say
that found themselves walking home. I thought he was just jumping to the
defence of his bus, but as the trip progressed it became clear that he
suffered from the delusion that there really was nothing wrong with it,
and he needed neither prompt nor provocation to sing its praises.
Because we were on it, we were assumed to share this delusion.
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| A new, modern bus |
On the way up the ramp to board the ferry, a new, modern bus ahead of us failed to make the gradient and started slipping back. Fat Colin’s joy knew no bounds. He almost bounced off his seat jeering at the driver, and turning round to look at us to see if we were cheering him on.
We weren’t quite into the spirit of the thing at that point, having been through a sleepless night, but by the end of the trip, he had us where he wanted, if that meant we spent all our time praying that it would get us home before finally disintegrating into its component parts.
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We rattled into the hotel car park in the late afternoon and were shown into separate apartments, opening off both sides of a walkway connected to the main building. They weren’t little homes as described by Tim and June, but they were comfortable enough. There was a main room with two beds and sliding windows opening into the grounds. The toilet, shower and washroom were on the same level, and a small flight of stairs led to an attic room with another three beds. Ample room for two.
We all met in the bar at seven, to find that Fat Colin intended to treat this as one big party. All of us were seated at one table, and Colin wanted us to sit next to different people every night - to ‘mingle’ he said, but really so that he could monopolise the conversation. I told him I had come on this holiday with my husband, and we would be sitting together every night. Everyone else followed our lead, and that was the end of that.
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That was the night Fat Colin outlined his ‘drinking plan’ for the week. We should have known he ‘doth protest too much’. It went something like this
"Now I like a drink as much as the next man. Anyone who says he doesn’t drink is a liar. But I drink to a plan. If I’m not taking you out next day, I push the boat out. If I’m taking you out for half the day, I drink in moderation. But the night before I take you home, you won’t see me touch a drop. No,’ here he made a gesture, as if pushing temptation (or a bottle) away from him, ‘your safety is more important to me than anything"
He then proceeded to push out several boats, as he did on each and every night, including the night before our departure.
Someone asked about the ‘excursions’ giving him an excuse to sing his own praises, " People tell me I’m too good, providing these free excursions. You ought to charge for this’, they say. But I say ‘no, I’m here, I’ve got the bus, I’m not doing anything, why shouldn’t I take you out?’"
Why indeed. We were to find out why there was no charge for these excursions.
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First day - we ride to Coutances
Fat Colin gave the impression he was the fount of all
knowledge, and as he made this trip regularly, we did not doubt his
grasp of local geography, assuming him to be an authority on the area.
He was not a man to distance himself from his customers, indeed, he
positively invited our queries, giving the impression his day
would be ruined if he were not asked at least ten questions. We asked him how far it was to the nearest large town, Coutances, "Only
8 miles" he said, "you’ll soon do it".
First we called in at the little fishing village of Agon, a couple of
miles down the coast, and were searching for somewhere to buy maps when who should
pop up but Colin and Esmerelda, happy to help.
‘Funny,’
I said to Wolf, ‘do
you think he is following us around in the hope we will need to ask
something?’ But it was Esmerelda found the bookshop. Fat Colin was
pointing in entirely the wrong direction.
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Coutances turned out to be 15 miles. A heavy
rainstorm began as we were struggling up the hill into the town, and all
the shops were shut. We thought it odd that Colin had not mentioned
Monday was early closing day. The Cathedral being colder and damper than
the rain outside, there
was nothing for it but to spend the afternoon sheltering in a doorway,
looking at things we could not buy. Far from regretting listening to Fat Colin, we found this a
valuable lesson, for now we knew that, like Manuel, he knew ‘nersing’.
The brochure had spoken of ‘five course meals’ which
concerned me, as I am not a heavy eater - little and often - but not ‘one
meal a day, and it lasts all day’ as my husband describes it. I need
not have worried, what happened was that they just brought the food a
bit at a time and spun it out, which is very annoying when all you want
is a good plateful.
‘Oh goody,’
I said on one occasion, as a
dish of what looked like onion rings appeared. But it was squid, and so
chewy they might have been deepfried rubber bands.
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Second day - first attempt on Mont St Michel
Fat Colin’s Trips were two in number - one to Mont St Michel,
another to the landing beaches and Bayeux Tapestry. As it was too far to
cycle to the Mont and back in a day, Fat Colin would take us halfway in
the bus, we would cycle the rest, see the Mont and he would be in the
car park at 4pm to take us back. Getting back in the bus served to remind us how far home was. As we
rattled off through the villages, the smell in the back was noticeably
worse. Wolf said it was obvious the exhaust was knackered.
Just before we arrived at the drop off point there was a tremendous
‘bang!’ We limped the rest of the way, and pulled into a sandy
lay-by. Standing up, Fat Colin made a speech, which sounded so well
rehearsed I was convinced he made it often.
"Now I’m just
going to get out and look at the damage," he said, "and
if it’s a minor job, I’ll repair it here and be at the Mont to pick
you up at 4 as arranged. If, however, it’s as bad as I think, your
best bet is to turn round now and head for home". |
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Can Fat Colin mend the bus? Go to next page in the story
For a picture version of this story go to webshots album/binliner |
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