THE MYSTERIOUS WAYS OF SYNCHRONICITY

A Story
August 1977.

Its August 1977 and I had just completed a teaching diploma at Sussex University (then Brighton Polytechnic) and was living in a room on the top floor of a house on the Old Shoreham Road, Hove.

When the course ended I found temporary employment teaching English as a Foreign Language in a school round the corner, and my landlady, who would normally have let my room to foreign students over the summer, allowed me to stay on.

The end of August was fast approaching and as my time there was nearing an end I was considering my options for the start of the school year in September, and as I had not applied for a full time job in a secondary school I was to all intents and purposes free to do what I wanted.

I had few possessions; some clothes, a mandolin, and a little Renault 4 so my choices were somewhat limited. I had this idea that I could take a year out before settling down and do some travelling, although I was not sure where to go nor how I was going to make money to live.

I had heard that some students would make their way around Europe doing seasonal work like grape picking, but as I had only ever once been abroad, as a boy on a school trip to Italy, I was very uncertain how to go about this.

A few months earlier my mother had lent me a book called The Day of St Anthony’s Fire, which recounted events in the communes of Pont-Saint-Esprit and Saint-Paulet-de-Caisson in the Rhône Valley, France.

In 1951, it seemed, the inhabitants of these areas had been victims of poisoning after eating bread contaminated by a fungal disease called ergot. This fungus, found on cereal crops such as wheat and rye, had been fairly common in medieval times and caused hallucinations not unlike those produced by the hallucinogenic drug LSD. The book was wonderfully descriptive and left me with a vivid mental image of the place.

So I began thinking about France, about going there to find work. I mentioned this idea to my sister one day and she told me about an old friend of hers, a fiddle player who, following in the footsteps of Laurie Lee, the author of As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, had earned a living travelling round Spain busking.

Her friend’s name was Seph, and before leaving England Seph had written to Laurie Lee to ask his advice and the author had replied with the help and encouragement he was looking for. My sister suggested I speak to Seph, but then realised she had no forwarding address and no way of getting in touch with him.

So there I was, with my mandolin, one night in August out on my balcony overlooking the Old Shoreham Road, with two Spanish girls who were students at the school where I was teaching, on the balcony below chatting and smoking cigarillos.

As the smell of the cigars wafted up in the warm evening air it got me dreaming of what I could be doing after this; going abroad, perhaps grape picking, and even a bit of busking like Seph had done. A risky adventure? Perhaps. It would be a big step, but time was running out and my employment at the school was due to end in a few days.

I let my mind wander, if only I had been able to talk to Seph, he could have advised me. I could really have done with the sort of advice and encouragement that Laurie Lee had given him. It was that or go home and stay with my parents until I found a full time teaching job, an idea to which I was becoming increasingly resigned.

I stared into the distance down the length of the Old Shoreham Road in the Seven Dials direction, and imagined it as a road along which I could be travelling to an adventure. The road was dead quiet at 10pm and nothing moved, ‘pas un chat’, as they say in France.

Then far in the distance a lone figure appeared, walking slowly and heading my way. I paid little attention to it at first, but as it drew closer I noticed it was some guy hitch hiking.

I was picking out a tune on the mandolin as he arrived on the pavement below my balcony, and he stopped to listen.