No Such Thing as a Free Ride..?

What do Mike Leigh and Sir Alan Parker, Eric Burdon, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Arnold Wesker, Sir Max Hastings and Alastair Campbell have in common?

Perhaps surprisingly, together with Nobel prize winners, stand-up comedians, journalists, poets, TV presenters, teachers, hauliers, all in all some 80 notable contributors to this fascinating book, they all hitched in their youth. Each has a traveller’s tale to tell and all responded with enthusiasm to Tom and Simon Sykes’ request for a short piece relating their adventures.

For many young people in the 1960s and 70s – the heyday of hitching, before the dawn of cheap travel and mass tourism – this form of travel was a key means of local and international mobility. In the era of sexual revolution, political activism and artistic experimentation, it was a fundamental aspect of their personal and social development.

But is there such a thing as a free ride? The hitcher arrived near to or at his or her destination without money changing hands, but the dynamic involved, for both driver and passenger, in negotiating a journey with a never to be seen again stranger, involves all manner of social transactions.

Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes frightening, often inspirational, and always entertaining, No Such Thing As a Free Ride?