When he died he took a thousand stories with him. And just as many songs. He was a guarded man. The few stories we shared only offered a glimpse of the life he’d lived.

Born in a field in the Ukraine. Before the First World War. Before the Russian Revolution. His mother cut the umbilical with her teeth. A break from picking potatoes. His childhood years saw rural adventures punctuated with death and hunger.

His brother, shot dead for stealing fruit. His father, an officer of the Tzar, died in a prison for being anti-Communist. He left the Ukraine and travelled Russia during the famine. Searching for food and work. Some of the stories I overheard as a child were the background for my first nightmares.

What I most remember, and in some ways is his legacy in place of the missing stories, were his skills. A proud man, an emotional man, his first passions were poetry & music, but denied an education because of his fathers politics, he chose to repair things, to make things, create things.

The first time I fixed something was with him. It was the sole of a shoe. He could make shoes and told me that a handful of simple skills had saved his life more than once. His early life had involved walking countless miles. Away from prisoner of war camps, away from famine. From meal to meal, job to job. I only now understand what he meant when he said  ”If you can fix soles you can save lives.”

He taught me to tie my laces, but with a special knot. He taught me change a plug, to solder, to fix a radio, a TV. He taught me nothing was broken that couldn’t be fixed. And I believed this. Even as I watched him lose the ability to walk, as a worsening limp forced him into a wheelchair. As failing eyes made him blind.

Most of the stories I now remember came from afternoons sat with my housebound Grandfather. A man too proud to seek medical attention until forced. A man who occasionally told me how proud he was of me. Of where I had been, of what I had seen, but mostly that I had listened to him. Learned from him. And that those skills would live on after him.

He shared more stories and tales in his last year than all of the years before. I would sit and listen to him, or we would both listen to his treasured short wave radio. Like our lives depended on it. He could translate the crackled tales from five different languages. He told me words were the only tools left to him.

He gave me his hat telling me there was no weather indoors. He gave me his watch as he could no longer see it. He gave me his shoes with the metal heel taps.

It’s his words though that I treasure the most. That I’m writing here in case I forget to pass them on.

It made him sad to fade away. To avoid death for 91 years and yet have his physical abilities stripped slowly away in the last 20.

He told me “You must make and create while you can. For as long as you can… When I couldn’t find food, I made music. When I couldn’t buy a ticket, I made shoes. There is always hope. It’s the simplest of tools.”

When helping my Grandmother tidy her house the other day, I came a cross a carrier bag under the stairs. It was like I’d found treasure. Inside were a handful of tools and a cast iron shoe repair anvil, a cobble.

These were my Grandfathers tools. His words sit in my memory and now these tools sit in my hands.

I find a beautiful momentum in the journey both these tools and my Grandfathers words have made. It’s comforting to think that there may be a certain immortality to our ideas and creations.

If we share.

That said. I love adventure.

And I also love travel. Be it by train, by bike, by foot or by boat. It’s the people I meet along the way. The people and their stories.

So what would I do with $10,000. Well I wouldn’t blow it all on one trip. I’d pick out a few of the worlds festivals I’ve always wanted to go to and visit them. I may have been to most of the places I ever dreamed of.. but i’ve not travelled to a fraction of the amazing events and festivals that go on around the world.

I’d pick a selection.. music, art, food, literature, there are so many out there. I’d probably ask for recommendations form my online places and then report my findings back using audio, video, geo and photos to share the stories I find.

Obviously.. without a sack of cash sat on my desk this is just a pipe dream. Still. It’s nice to dream.

What kind of trip(s) would you do with $10,000 to spend?

I starting writing a book called the ‘Blaggers Guid To The World’. I never finished it. At the time I felt I could easily justify some of my money making and free travel methods I was exploring but now.. written down.. they don’t look entirely ethical, so the book sits half finished in a tatty notebook.

My social network at the time lived in the same leather bound notebook. The pages were split into countries and under each country heading were listed names, addresses and phone numbers. Most of the travellers I met on the road would exchange details with me. No emails or mobile numbers.  Just an address & home number that if you rang and someone answered, you could be sure of a bed for the night as you travelled through.

There was an unwritten code of mutual assistance for anyone wanting to follow a nomadic way of life. We were the voluntary homeless, the student tramps on a never ending year out, Backpackers without an itinerary.

The noticeboards at youth hostels would give you the latest local information. Even where you could eat, shower and sleep for free. I soon learn’t that marinas offered a comfortable night under an upturned boat and occasionally had unlocked warm showers for shivering windsurfers.. or me.

Markets and Hari Krishna temples always had free food and in Italy I could be sure to feast on salami, bread and cheese should I wander into a church looking hungry. Yes I’d have to listen to a religious sales pitch but that was a small price to pay for such luxurious tastes.

At one point on my travels I met a guy on the run form the French Foreign Legion. On a short overnight boat trip, I listened to his acquired wisdom and he gave me half the contents of my unfinished book. He scrawled out some symbols into my notebook and told me to keep an eye out for chalked of stone scratched graffiti.

Years later I found out this was an almost identical code to American Hobo signs.

I took to carrying a chalky stone in my pocket and adding the relevant marks where I could. I liked the idea that if spotted, the owner could remove it but also that with time it would fade. A fresh mark meant a recent update and fresh news.

Today, many people still don’t get location based social networking but we have very similar features to those above in apps like Foursquare and Gowalla.

If I had the time, energy and know-how I’d build an app based on the above system used in Hobo Graffiti. I’d also also include some of the more known Wardriving symbols that also used to be spotted on our streets in order to highlight open Wifi. I am not sure the newly digitally equipped Hobo would be ready for the WorkSnug kind of interface but something smart and simple.. Why not?

Of course there are more than a few location apps showing available hotspots, power points etc. But as more people travel with technology or shun our normal static lifestyles, how about an app aimed at the travellers, the voluntarily homeless?  One that does not necessarily conform to societies norms.

I can’t imagine how my 10 years exploring the world would have looked should I have had a smart phone in my pocket. As it stands I’m quite glad I trod the analogue path.

But should I ever do it again, these kinds of apps would certainly travel with me. Along with my digitised and leather bound social networks.

I took only my iPhone 4 for photos, video and audio and a macbook air 11″ to edit on the move.

Thanks to @RichardMackney and @Buddhamagnet there was a visual mashup of my trip linked off http://Freebees.me

I made a list here of some of the people who gave lifts and accommodation.

There were so many cool moments that were not captured in video or photos. Some were captured by others..(thanks @SimFin)  Some I will do my best to add to the Storify page here..

Thanks to @TristanPoyser for the image of me hitching and there is more info of the Vodafone FreeBees SIM on their site.

Thinking of hitching a ride back to Nairobi tomorrow with Moses Lelesit.

A massively respected bush pilot.

UPDATE:

I did hitch a ride.. and it was more than a little fun..

It was hard leaving home today. Harder than it has ever been. I guess it’s being part of my own little family. Not someone else’s family, my own. Weird.

This is part three of our trip.