Speaker - Jack Daniels - Travelling

Tue, Jun 19th 2018 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm


Have rucksack, will travel…..

The mantra of Jack Daniels, a St Andrews Rotary Club member who regaled the Kilrymont Rotary members with a varied, detailed and highly amusing account of his many travels to the furthest of corners.

Brought up in a remote farm in Southern Ireland, Jack realised his lust for adventure at an early age and determined his ambition would to be travel. When he joined St Andrews University some 40 years ago and became the head of careers and guidance, Jack insisted 30% of his working life would be spent on University business overseas.

Since his retiral, Jack has only increased his travels, including four years in Namibia assisting the University with development and some recruitment.

As a result of his constant sojourns all over the world, Jack has spent many nights locked up in foreign jail cells. Purely for safety reasons, rather than because of criminal activities!

Always travelling alone, Jack told the company his preferred mode of travel was on foot, followed by local buses and trains as second and third choices. He carries virtually no possessions of value, having suffered from some losses early in his travels and an endless list of bizarre happenings. As an example, Jack recounted how he had fallen asleep in the bunk on an over-crowded Indian train and woken to find his dentures missing. They had been passed round almost all passengers for inspection and were then returned to him.

During his first visit to Japan he was introduced to the rather odd custom of visitors being presented with a glass case containing a stuffed cat. Departing his hostel room for the next small town on his schedule, Jack hid his unwanted gift on top of a wardrobe. On arrival at his new lodgings, Jack was once again presented with his cat and told “You left this behind in your room, so we delivered it for you”.

When the Soviet Union collapsed and much of Eastern Europe was in turmoil, Jack recalled that many new Rotary Clubs had been formed in the new Communist states. He had been invited to such a club in Bucharest at 10.00 on a Tuesday morning. As he approached the venue, a large group of be-suited men awaited him at the top of the steps. Jack was immediately accosted by what he described as “a heavily painted lady”, who led him two streets beyond the hotel….whereupon he finally caught the drift that she was not a meeter-and-greeter for the Rotary Club, but instead plying what clearly was her trade.

Jack took off and ran back to the hotel where he found all of his hosts laughing uproariously at his obvious embarrassment.

Neither this article, nor indeed the entire St Andrews Citizen, has enough space to report all of Jack’s enormous fund of travel stories.

Club member Jim Douglas in proposing a vote of thanks echoed the audience’s feelings when he described Jack’s address as “a wonderful look at the world”. And, said Jim, he would never again think of a holiday to Benidorm as an adventure.

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