Below is an abridged excerpt from ‘The Lonely Planet Story: A Personal Account of the Company that Revolutionised Independent Travel’ (pages 1–5). Published by/copyright © Lonely Planet Publications Ltd, 2010.
TONY:
I can pinpoint the place where it started. It was a bench in Regent’s Park in central London on the afternoon of Wednesday, 7 October 1970. There are pivotal points in many people’s lives and this was to be one of ours. I was 23 and had just begun a postgraduate degree course at the London Business School, located in the fancy new quarters in a restored Mash Terrace on the edge of Regent’s Park.
A week into the course, on that fated day, I was shopping for a new coat. It was unusually warm for October, so shortcutting through Regent’s Park on my way back to the campus I paused on a park bench to look at a car magazine I’d bought. A young woman – of course she was beautiful! – noticed the same sun-lit bench, sat down on the other end and took a Tolstoy novel out of her bag.
MAUREEN:
I’d arrived in London on the previous Saturday afternoon. My mother had come to the airport in Belfast to sat goodbye. My plan was to go to London, find a job, stay for a year or so, then return home as thousands of Irish girls before me had done. London was the big city, full of excitement and possibility, but it was time out, not real life.
As I returned to say goodbye, my mother gave me a searching look, then a hard hug, and said: ‘You’ll not come back.’
Secretly, I hoped she was right; I wanted to be one of those who got away.
I stayed at a women’s hostel off Tottenham Court Rd, an enormous place with a million rules. There were two to a room and communal bathrooms and kitchens. My mother was relieved that I had a curfew; I was just glad to have an address. I dumped my bag, then set out to look around. I wandered for hours, taking in the sights and sounds, trying to get my bearings, thrilled at the thought that no one knew me here. In a small town like Belfast you couldn't go far without meeting someone you knew.
I had worked as a secretary at home so with my shorthand and typing qualifications, two weeks’ rent paid in advance and about £12 in my pocket, my priority was to find a job. I spent Sunday soaking up London, still buoyed by my freedom. On Monday I hit the employment agencies. By the end of Tuesday I had accepted a job as assistant to the marketing manager of a wine merchants. I liked my boss, the office was a beautiful terrace at York Gate, Regent’s Park, and the salary was twice that I would have earned in Belfast. I wandered home in a daze – it has almost been too easy.
I was to start work on the following Monday, so that left the rest of the week free. Since theatre was one of my passions, I went to Drury Lane, where ‘The Great Waltz’ was playing, and tried to buy a ticket for the matinee session. Although it was Wednesday afternoon there was not one seat left. My other passions were music and reading, so passing a bookstore I bought a copy of Tolstoy’s ‘Boyhood, Childhood and Youth’. Then, since it was a beautiful day, I went to the park to read my book.
I found a bench that was in full sun. There was someone sitting there already, but I couldn’t see until I was quite close that it was a young man. In the short time that I had been in London, several men had approached me, so I was a bit wary. However, I was committed, and it was the only bench in the sun. So I sat down on the extreme edge and purposefully opened my book.
Within a few minutes there was shuffling and sighing from the other end of the bench. ‘Uh oh’, I thought, ‘here we go’.
‘So, this is the place to read on a Wednesday afternoon?’ he said.
I looked up slowly and deliberately, determined to freeze him off the bench with an icy response, and looked into the most beautiful green eyes I had ever seen. I quickly rearranged my expression, smiled and said, ‘I don't know, I’ve only been in London since Saturday’.
TONY:
That night, our first date was to see the movie ‘Mash’. It was the start of a magic year…
‘Tony and Maureen Wheeler in Regents Park (contemporary re-enactment of 7th October 1970)’.
By Carl Randall. Oil on canvas. 60 x 100cm. 2016