12 March 2026
Wanderlust is a demanding mistress. It’s a siren song that cannot be ignored and I should know. Much of my life has been spent far from home searching for, well, I’m not exactly sure. Whatever it was, I’ve never found it but I’ve had a heck of an interesting time looking.
Perhaps I inherited this restlessness from my mother; she travelled from her home in Shetland to England when she was a young woman to pursue a career in nursing. Or perhaps it came from my paternal grandfather who made it as far as northern France to fight in the First World War.
And speaking of my granddad, he took me aside just before I left my native England for Canada. “Never gamble for money,” he told me, “and never forget that you’re English.” Being young, naturally I ignored the first piece of advice but I’ve honoured the other. Being English is a quiet pride I carry with me, sharing space in my soul with my adopted Canadian identity.
But back to my wanderlust. It beckoned me in the early 1960s when I was in my late teens and working in my first job. I became smitten with French movie actress Brigitte Bardot, me and every other red-blooded British male. Except, in my case, I decided to hitch-hike to the South of France, drop by her home and say hello. (As my Lancashire granny would say: “Nowt like cheek!”)
My parents were stunned but didn’t forbid the adventure and so, with £50 in my pocket, two-weeks’ vacation at my disposal and a rucksack on my back, I stood alongside the main Manchester-to-London highway one warm July evening, thumb out and confidence high.
An hour later, I was feeling disillusioned and ready to head home when a large transport truck stopped just ahead of me. As I ran towards it, a body flew out of the passenger side door and collapsed in a heap on the hard shoulder. Stepping over the unfortunate soul, I looked up at the driver.
“Er, any chance of a lift to the South mate?”
“Get in but behave yourself,” he growled. “I gave that other guy a lift and he tried to steal my wallet.”
And so the adventure began. No turning back, not then and not for the rest of my life.
By mid-afternoon the next day, I was standing outside the Boulogne ferry terminal, my thumb out and hopes high. In no time, I was happily ensconced in the back seat of a Citroen, heading for Paris. The driver was a young man in his 20s with his mother in the passenger seat.
We chatted for a while with my schoolboy French really put to the test. Eventually, we all lapsed into silence, much to my relief. With dusk descending, we reached the Paris suburbs and I began to experience a rising panic. This was a big city, it was my first time away from home and I didn’t know a soul. Where to go? Where to stay?
As if sensing my dilemma, the mother turned to her son.
“What about the Englishman?” she asked.
Her son shrugged. “He’s not our problem,” he said.
“But he’s so young and alone,” the mother persisted. “We should take him home, at least for tonight.”
“No!” the son snapped.
And this was the moment I learned my first and most invaluable lesson of real life.
“This Englishman is a traveler,” said the son. “It is not our fault that he is in this situation.”
Hunched in the back seat, I silently cursed the son for being so callous. And yet, as they dropped me off near a subway station, deep down I knew he was right. I was old enough now to understand that my life was in my own hands, no-one else’s.
The kindness of strangers would always be welcome, but I was my own responsibility. Lesson learned in a hurry.
Tired and hungry, I made my way to a big university in the southern part of Paris. I hoped to find cheap lodgings on the campus there but everywhere was closed. By now it was after midnight and, since the night was quite warm, I crawled under a bush and began to doze. A few moments later, I felt someone grab my ankles and drag me out.
There stood half-a-dozen young African students; they’d were on their way back to their dorm after a night out and had spotted my feet. When they heard of my predicament, they insisted I go with them, which I did gladly.
For the next week, my new friends were kindness itself. One of them insisted I take his bed while he slept on the floor. Each morning, they would take me to the student cafeteria and treat me to breakfast, a meal I tried to make last me the rest of the day, augmented by the baguettes I smuggled out.
During the daytime, I roamed Paris, taking in the sights and trying to determine the best routes out of the city and on to the South where Ms. Bardot awaited.
Before I knew it, however, both my money and my holiday time were almost spent. Sorry Brigitte, it’s not going to happen.
On my last evening in Paris, I met a young German about my own age. He, too, had the wanderlust.
Kindred souls, we proceeded to buy several bottles of cheap red wine and wander the city streets, laughing and joking. Eventually, we found ourselves sitting at the foot of a huge statue of the great French general, Marshall Foch. My German friend gazed up at the World War I hero, then put his arm around my shoulder and hugged me.
“You know, Englishman, we were on the wrong sides,” he slurred happily. I nodded, not quite making sense of what he had just said.
The next morning, hung over and bleary-eyed, I said goodbye to my African friends, found the main highway north and stuck out my thumb. My first ride was in a flat-bed truck loaded with unsecured steel girders, all of which threatened to tumble forward and crush us each time the driver hit the brakes. The next ride was with a university professor who insisted I speak French to him and, whenever I mispronounced a word, would hit me on the head with a rolled-up newspaper.
By noon, I was back at the ferry terminal in Boulogne with just enough money left to buy a ticket across the Channel. A few hours after landing, I was at my own front door.
My mother answered my knock, took one look at me and turned white with shock.
“My son!” she cried, “You’ve lost so much weight! Didn’t you eat while you were gone?”
“It’s a long story, Mum, but I’m fine, honest!” I assured her.
And fine I was. And always would be.
Next time: I meet a young Canadian destined to supercharge my wanderlust, change my life and drive me crazy.
English-born Peter Duffy sailed for Canada in 1965 as a young man, took a liking to what he saw and stayed to further his career as a newspaperman. Something of an ink-stained nomad, Peter has worked on papers in England, Canada, New Zealand and even, briefly, Las Vegas! He retired from The Chronicle-Herald in 2009 and worked for then-Mayor Peter Kelly for 3 years. Peter is married to Barbara and has two grown step-children. He lives in Bedford, N.S., and is happy pottering in the basement with his model train layout. He is the Secretary of the Royal St. George’s Society of Halifax.
