The Accidental Hippie

By Roger Fleming

The Accidental Hippie

The author kept a diary that he wrote using carbon paper. The carbon copies provided the letters that were sent home whenever there was an opportunity to post a letter. The diary itself, which has survived to this day, provides the basis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paper Leaf Agency
• Release date: May 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638122852

Roger Fleming

Roger Fleming was born and raised in Florida. He served as Legislative Director to a U.S. Congressman, as Majority and Minority Counsel on the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, and as a political appointee in the Administration of President George H.W. Bush. Roger is a graduate of Emory University, and lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

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The Accidenta l Hippie

The Bus Driver’s Tale

Copyright © 2022 by Roger Flemming.

All rights reserved. No part in this book may be produced and transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Published by Paper Leaf Agency 05/12/2022

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Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1     How did it all begin?

Chapter 2     A change of direction

Chapter 3     A dress shop in Chatham

Chapter 4     Who cares about the weather?

Chapter 5     Over the Bosphorus and into Asia

Chapter 6     The Holy Land

Chapter 7     Distant horizons

Chapter 8     The land of the Peacock Throne

Chapter 9     Pakistan

Chapter 10   Progress at MY speed into India

Chapter 11   Unforgettable cities

Chapter 12   The Kingdom of Nepal at last

Chapter 13   Who wants a useless bus?

Chapter 14   Exploring Katmandu

Chapter 15   Extracts from the photograph album

Chapter 16   The Leyland that nearly didn’t make it

Chapter 17   The Commer, the bus that never made it

Chapter 18   Making history again, with trucks

Foreword

This is a memoir written to record, not only some extraordinary journeys which the author made over fifty years ago, but also to bring to the reader’s attention the enormous changes that have occurred between then and now.

In the 1960’s most travellers, in the author’s experience, were considered to be guests and treated with courteous generosity by the local people who were proud of their culture and happy to share a meal, their family life and their ceremonies.

The author travelled across an enormous area from Turkey to India and the friendly encounters along the way created memories of a world very different from that which we see today.

I am sure that generosity of spirit and cultural pride have not died out but they have been submerged and scattered by military upheaval and corruption.

I hope that when order is restored and people are able to live lives that are not bound by the barbed wire of refugee camps, these real values that really matter in life will still be there to rebuild stable and happy communities in the future.

CHAPTER ONE

How did it all begin?

This was the first night that it had been too warm to sleep in the tents so we spread them out over the gritty desert sand to provide some protection from sharp stones before we unrolled our sleeping bags. The bus cast a moonlit shadow over a circle of weary travellers and the beauty of the desert night encompassed everything, the silence was almost comp lete.

I don’t know how many of my fellow passengers were asleep but for me this was an experience I did not intend to waste. I lay there gazing into the starry heavens trying to recognise the constellations hanging in the blackness of the night sky. This was life as I had never experienced it before and there in the silence I began to think back on the years of my life that had brought me to this spot on a lonely road in Syria.

I left school at seventeen and began, what I hoped would be an interesting career in the textile industry. The starting point for me was a doubling mill in my home town of Mansfield. The mill was powered by a magnificent steam engine which drove four large rooms of machinery via a rope race to each floor. The doubling machines twisted cotton thread into different thicknesses and the finished yarn went on to the weaver to be made into fabrics ranging from fine shirt material to heavy denim.

My training was interrupted by compulsory military service most of which I spent in Germany. When this was completed I decided not to make a career in the RAF as my station commander suggested, but to return home and continue the work I had left two years before.

The next stage of my working life took me to friendly, smokey Bolton where I worked for six years. Bolton was the heart of Lancashire textiles at that time but by the late 1950s it was evident that cheap fabric imports from Taiwan and the far east were having a serious impact on the local industry. Mill after mill began to close. The age of steam driven textile manufacture was finished and it was time for me to move on. A knitwear company in the south east of England was advertising and I applied for an interview. I knew very little about the knitwear industry but my general knowledge of textiles was an advantage and I got the job I had applied for. I found myself in a clean, modern factory where for the next year it was up to me to keep the circular knitting machines supplied with the yarns needed, and in the correct colours required to meet orders.

CHAPTER TWO

A change of direction

Every month there was a group management meeting when production targets were examined. Had those set for the previous month been achieved, and what targets do we have to set for next month to meet or ders?

It was at one of these meetings that my colleague in the Fabric Inspection department leaned over and whispered to me Only two more of these for me and I’m going to Kathmandu.

The name Kathmandu was so exotic, so remote that I stopped concentrating for a moment and nearly failed to take note of the targets for next month. No sooner was the meeting finished than I cornered this young lady to find out how she intended to make this extraordinary journey.

She told me she was going overland with an enterprising ex nurse who had decided to abandon her career and had bought a long wheelbase Landrover to take five paying passengers