Rols

Posting this on 11 September 2017 - 45 years late.

Rols (officially Roland) was a good school friend in the era 1968-1972. A bit of a wild character, probably a throw back to one of his ancestors, Lord Byron.

We had been on a skiing trip after Christmas last year and had both done our final A level exams in the summer of 72 and finally parted school life in July.

I was now trying to sort out my future. My A level results were not quite as good as needed to take up an offer from Birmingham University to study German and they suggested I retake one of the A levels in December and for this en-roll at a local higher education establishment, which for me now living in Norfolk, was Norwich Tech as it was called then, nowadays (2017) City College Norwich. With 11,000 odd students one of the largest colleges in the UK.

So late August I had gone to get en-rolled. I had nobody to advise me, Norfolk was new to me and I had no friends there, my father had gone out to work in Turkey some time in the spring and my mother who had picked me up from school in July had shortly afterwards gone out their to join him.

The lady at the enrolment desk questioned why I should want to just do one A level course for the one term and take the exam in December - "Why don't you do a proper course?" and there followed a careers counselling session. Somehow I came out having committed myself to a 3 year Higher National Diploma in Hotel Management course! I hadn't previously had even the slightest  thoughts along such lines. A career counsellor a year or two before at school , had suggested "Diplomatic Corps" but they required a University degree.

And so it came to pass that I was in the starting blocks, trying to work out how on earth I was going to get to and from Norwich every day, 17 miles of very rural roads and a minimal bus service. At this point I had no car. I had turned 18 a few days before, had a driving licence but no "Daddy" to fund wheels.

On this day about 1800 miles away in Thessaloniki, Greece, Rols was clearly taking a more relaxed attitude to his future. He was lucky enough to have some family "assets" around a famous very steep hill near Minehead in Somerset.

I doubt Rols had been on a cultural tour as his passion was motorcycles and he was always to be seen covered in oil and grease. While at school, he had a motorbike hidden in a local farmers barn, absolutely against school rules.

More likely he was financing the holiday, living off his family's connection to Lord Byron, a national hero in Greece after he had fought on their side in the Greek War of Independence to push out the Turkish Ottoman Empire who had occupied the country.

I have since not had any connection with him but know from Google that he's still about and seemingly still a bit "unconventional" and still connected in part with motorbikes.

PS Rols' last line on the card mentions "not breaking his arm" - On our Christmas skiing trip, he broke his leg on the first or second day and spent New Years Eve and the rest of the time in hospital.