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Articles by Bridget Ashton
Algeria, 1960's, and an unexpected overnight overture
Domestic Harem Les Attafs, 4 August 1965 At the end of the afternoon, we are given a lift by a lorry driver who invites us to his home in the small town of Les Attafs. He is a polite and slender young man who has been speaking to us in French. His name is Bounedjar Tahar Ben Ali. We are happy to accept because here in his house we will learn about family life in rural Algeria. To enter, we pass through a wall into an enclosed courtyard surrounded by many rooms.
Funny Experiences on the Road - Bridget Ashton
17 March 2024 Bridget Ashton gives us a truely fascinating piece that reveals how her hitch-hiking days during her teenage years of the 1960's really was and the motivations and fun she had. Author Bridget Ashton Digga Digga Dong – two charming French boys are teaching us a lovely song about the King of Spain who dances all night with the black-eyed girls on the mountains.
Spain in the 60's: the past is a different country
Village, Córdoba, 23 July 1964 “Señor, stop, por favor!” The driver who has given us a lift in his car is puzzled. “Aqui? Por que? No hay nada aqui!” Here? Why? There’s nothing here. We are out in the countryside near Córdoba and have seen a village a short distance from the road. We want to investigate. We are endlessly curious about rural life where the animals and crops are so different from those in Britain.
Hit the Road, Gals
Description Travel back in time to the vibrant 1960s, and join Bridget and her friends, students at the Hereford College of Education, as they dare to defy convention and hitchhike their way through an era of change. Armed with sixpenny Esso road maps and thumbing rides from friendly lorry drivers, they journey through Wales, Scotland and onwards to London.
In praise of the domestic skills of a 1960's Serbian houswife
Gordana tells me: “Bridget, you can make some money in Czechoslovakia by selling cocoa, chocolate powder. They don’t have nice chocolate over there. People want to buy the Yugoslavian kind.” They do? I decide to risk it, following up on my experience of cross-border smuggling with Isobel into Bratislava. I buy a kilo and wrap it up in small portions. Skills of a Serbian housewife In her kitchen, Silvy’s mother is mixing something in a big bowl. I watch carefully.
A history lesson in Hungary under Soviet rule
“Tomorrow is Saturday, and I propose that we visit Gyula,” Marika suggests. This involves a lengthy journey of two train rides each way. The town of Gyula amazes me. There is a gigantic castle made of brick three metres thick. We have plenty of castles in Northumberland, and I am used to them, but this something quite different. What is the purpose of such a great castle here on the extreme eastern boundary of Hungary? “The Turks were here,” explains Marika. “Gyula was on the battleground.” Turks?
Smuggling shirts pays for travel to 1960s Bratislava
Over the gloomy border to Bratislava I am not sure how Isobel has persuaded me to go with her. She returned from Venice the next day, her unaccompanied journey there and back having been successful. I am not naturally attracted to illicit smuggling activities, and nor under normal circumstances would I have thought that she was either. But here we are, hitching out of Vienna on a cold, bleak winter morning, on the 9th of December, along the main road east.
Bitten by bedbugs hitching across Poland in the 60s
Pangs of homesickness overtake me again, and I begin to imagine just getting on a train and going straight back home. In these days, despite the new freedoms of society, the push for a young woman like me to catch her man and get married is still strong. I feel a failure. My younger sister is married, and some of my friends are heading in the same direction.
Get back on the train! - hitching through Poland in 1966
Travelling without a Man Poland, August 1966 A few uniformed soldiers approach quickly. Are they looking for enemies? Am I officially acceptable in this land of Poland? “Dzien dobry,” they say. “Dzien dobry,” I reply. Good day – among the few words of Polish I’ve learned. I surely can’t look much of a threat to the great socialist world I am entering in August 1966. But they are unsure.
Win a copy of ‘Cold War, Warm Hearts’ by Bridget Ashton
competitions-leaderboard-billboard-1 About the book: Where were you in 1966? Most of Bridget’s friends, in their early twenties, were settling down with jobs and/or husbands… She, on the other hand, was wandering the highways and byways of Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia: behind the Iron Curtain. Travelling in these countries with virtually no money was not only a problem but also an opportunity: it enabled a rare and deep insight into the lives and experience of ‘ordinary’ people.
Bridget Ashton Attended the Morpeth Book Festival in Northumberland
This is our UK/International web site. Do you want to go to the US/Canada site? Our amazing author, Bridget Ashton, attended the Morpeth Book Festival in Northumberland on 31 March 2022. The author spoke about her book, Hay Before the Bookshops or the Beeman's Family, and shared the history behind the book. The images of the event are attached with the news. Hay Before the Bookshops or the Beeman's Family is a historical autobiography about the Beeman’s family.
Bridget Ashton’s Book Gets Featured by Northumberland Gazette
A newspaper feature based on Bridget Ashton’s new book, Hay Before the Bookshops or the Beeman’s Family, got published in the local newspaper, the Northumberland Gazette, on 15th April 2022.
Hay Before the Bookshops or the Beeman's Family
This is our UK/International web site. Do you want to go to the US/Canada site? Much as we all love Hay-on-Wye’s bookshops, what was life like in Hay before they arrived? Bridget Ashton, a well-respected local historian, lived here as a child. In this compelling account, she sets out to recall, from the perspective of her girlhood self, what Hay was like in the 1940s and ’50s – with trains, a half-ruined castle, and a cinema (we all know what happened to that).
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