Another brick in the wall....

The 'going overseas' thing that me and all of my friends did when we were in our late teens and early twenties, was something hard to describe to our parents, how could we tell them that all of the things that they thought were so important, like university and a good steady job were like an anathema to us and we were horrified. They never thought to do anything like going overseas and they were sure that we would turn out 'bad' by trying drugs, become prostitutes or getting sold by white slavers!


I started out in London when 'Aussie' girls were the next big thing. I worked at a bar called 'Angels' in Soho and what I didn't learn there, I never needed to
learn! It was a 'nice clean' bar where the girls wore fishnets and corsets as their uniforms and made so much money doing bar and waitressing, they didn't have to become 'prostitutes', because the Arab money was exploding across London and the Arabs used to ask could they talk to us because they had never spoken to a 'white woman' before! They were mad times but exciting. Although working in 'Angels' was fabulous, I didn't go 1/2 way around the world to work in a bar, it was almost the same as being at home!


I applied to become a 'Bunny' but since I was quite small chested and much more timid in those days, I didn't have the necessary 'qualifications' to be considered as a 'Bunny' and had to swallow my pride and get on with finding another, different job. I was lucky to apply for a job as a camp counsellor and I went to work on a holiday camp called Tan Troed in the Brecon Beacons. 


It was a gorgeous, wild and untamed place back then and I loved it. I started out as a activities counsellor, and got a new batch of arrivals every week. The kids came from inner city London, Edinburgh and elsewhere and most of them had never been to the country before and there were loads of tears for the first hour or so, and then they were having such a great carefree time they never missed their town life at all. Most of them were sent to the camps by the Government and they stayed for a week, and they usually loved being wild and free in Wales doing things like horse riding, archery, soccer, rafting and rock climbing. In the school holidays, Tan Troed was given over for the more affluent kids to give them some 'rural experience'. 


By now, I was part of the horse riding team and we had great times with the other 'campies' from all over the world, as well as some not so nice experiences too.  One horse that I was riding was bitten by a bee and boy, did that horse take off! I ended up falling of the him and had to walk 1/2 way home, and ended up trying not to let the more experienced horse riders see that I was holding my bottom very gingerly when I tried to sit down! 


That was the beginning of my trip to Europe in 1973.