It was the year 2000 and I was living in the east end of London. As I lay on my bed looking at the peeling ceiling, I glanced right to my atlas map on the wall. Here was the great globe laid flat and I had visited so few of these multicoloured countries. I was seized with an uncontrollable urge to travel to places for free, sit in uncomfortable hotel bars and then come back and make people envious. I wanted to see the world and not just Whitechapel!
I was between jobs at the time and my daily routine had become one of hopeless drudgery. I would email my CV to random recruitment consultants and have desultory conversations with them over the phone. One male voice on the other end of the line would try to elicit confessions from me that I was not seriously looking for work and I would never be a bonus for him. Another would come up with wildly improbable suggestions that I should be a taxi driver or taxidermist.
And then the call came. I was summoned to a small room near Liverpool Street one Tuesday morning. I was then led into a even smaller room where I sat opposite an attractive young woman wearing glasses and holding a clipboard. She explained that I was to be put forward for a position as a travel journalist. There were stipulations, however. First, I had to surrender my passport. She explained that this was to ensure I was not poached by a rival agency during the recruitment process and that I would get it back when I needed to go somewhere. Secondly, there were some odd conditions attached to my meeting my potential employer, a Mr. Maciej.
I was to meet Mr. Maciej in a bar near Embankment tube station but on no account was I to let on that I was there to see him. Instead I was to strike up a random conversation with him which would eventually lead to him offering me a job. I was given a grainy photograph of Mr. Maciej for this purpose.
I arrived at the selected venue at about seven in the evening wearing a dark suit and recently polished shoes. A man was at the bar resembling Mr. Maciej. I walked up to him and said good evening.
"Do I know you?" said Mr. Maciej. I explained we had not met before and asked if he could recommend a red wine. Mr. Maciej said that he did not know who I was and that, if I continued to annoy him, he would have me thrown out by the bar manager who he was on very good terms with.
Embarrassed, I walked towards the door only to feel a light touch on my elbow as I grasped the handle. I turned round. It was Mr. Maciej. He asked me if I would like to be a travel journalist.
My first assignment did not seem to offer much travel. I was to approach members of the public and, opening with the simple question of "going somewhere?", record their responses.
I began my investigation at Euston station. I would say about forty per cent of people gave me a reply. The rest just looked alarmed and walked away. The first few responses were simple enough: Birmingham or Crewe. One man told me he had just arrived in London and he had nowhere to go. One woman said she was late for a funeral and did I know the best way to Golders Green.
Things became more interesting when I moved outside the station towards Marks and Spencers. I approached a small, dark man with a moustache. He froze in terror when he heard my opening gambit. I later recognised the man from the newspapers. I had inadvertedly apprehended a wanted criminal. Thinking the game up, the man went meekly with two policemen who happened to be passing.
Soon I had been handed my passport back and I was on the run. Now I was travelling the world for real to avoid the notorious crook and his cronies I had offended. Ah, the countries and places I saw: the streets of Paris, the byways of Italy and the budget hotels of some uncertain central European country. Unfortunately, I was unable to file any reports back to London for fear of disclosing my location.
Become a travel journalist and see the world. That is what they tell young people or at least they say it to themselves. Who is ever compromised by getting things for free? Thanks to the internet, there are now a million people asking the questions for nothing and not even necessarily travelling as they are already there. Once the combination of travel and journalist was a heady mix of noble intentions and getting something for nothing. Now I prefer to research potential destinations in the local library, take out some books and then lie on my bed looking at the ceiling, which has increasingly come to ressemble a map of the globe.
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