Back in (I think) 1984 I was a regular visitor to the Oddfellows in Leicester and usually hitch-hiked down from Bradford. It didn't usually take too long, maybe 3 hours or so.
This one particular winters Saturday night I set off, got the bus to the top of the M606 and stuck out my thumb. I got my first lift to the M1/M62 junction fairly quickly and then managed to get to Leicester in only another 2 lifts. Result!
I made my way to the venue only to find that i'd got my dates wrong (I was on strong painkillers ) and the nighter was actually the night before.
It's now after midnight and I'm over 100 miles from home, it's raining and freezing. I walked back to the M1 and stuck out my thumb. Two hours later it's started snowing and still no lift so I decided to start walking up the hard shoulder. I'd got about 2/3 miles and a van pulls up with a bunch of lads in and offer to take me as far as Derby.
They look a right lairy bunch, but by this time I can't feel my fingers or toes and they've got cigs and booze and, more importantly, a heater. So I dive in the back of the van and off we go.
I start chatting and it transpires that they've nicked the van and turned over an off-license (hence all the cigs and booze). They guy driving was competely mashed and kept "lightly" clipping the central barrier for a laugh!
After about 10 minutes the police turn up and chase us off the motorway and the nutter driving goes straight over the roundabout at the bottom of the exit slip and into a tree.
Everyone in the van including me are carted off to the local nick in, I believe, Coalville (or some other town round that area).
It took me until 6pm the following evening for me to convince plod that i was an innocent in all this. They dropped me off at the M1 junction 23 and it took me until 7am Monday morning to hitch back home.
Phil