Jailbreak 2012 - 'doing a Mal'

Looking excited before we all set off

My university's charities committee runs an event called jailbreak, where participants raise money for their chosen charity by hitchhiking as far as they can. I always thought it sounded exciting, and this year my fellow-minded friend Amina was enthusiastic enough to encourage us both to sign up. So we donned every item of neon we owned and filled our bags with snacks, blissfully unaware of what was ahead of us. At 7am on Thursday 7th June, we gathered at Durham Courthouse with other adventurous students, and as the cathedral bells struck 8, we all ran for freedom, and for charity!

 Having previously realised our first challenge was going to be getting out of the town, we had enlisted the help of another friend, Freya, who drove us to the nearest out-of-town service station. However, not long after we arrived, many familiar-looking students in fancy dress turned up, who'd clearly had the same idea as us! After feeling disheartened about how long it was taking to get a ride, we proved that it's not what you know, it's who you know! Two other Durhamites (who were on a bassoon-collecting mission (!)), knew my partner, and so gave us a lift to a service station a little further out. Although we were dubious about the location of our new base - a petrol station on the side of an A-road - it wasn't long until we were offered another lift. Mal, a handbag salesman from Darlington, offered us a seat in his van on his way to re-stock in Leeds. His dog, Megan, seemed only mildly disgruntled that we'd taken her space and sat on our laps (very unsteadily and uncomfortably), which Amina braved despite her dislike of dogs. Mal seemed initially friendly and keen to help us. He suggested we should try Leeds-Bradford airport, so we agreed that he'd take us there. He then proceeded to drop us in a random lay-by. When we expressed our concern that the lay-by did not look like the airport we'd pictured, he just said "you didn't expect me to take you all the way did you?"... er... yes, actually we did. He told us it was only 12 minutes down the road so we reluctantly got out and started walking. As we walked further, we checked where we were going on Amina's phone. The airport was not 12 minutes away, it was a 4 hour walk away! Thus the practice of dropping us hitchhikers in a random, highly unsuitable place became known as 'doing a Mal'.

It was raining, both us and our signs were getting wet, we were desperate and we were still at the lay-by. We decided to abandon all dignity and etiquette and approach a blue van that had been parked up for a while. The occupier of the car, a wedding dress salesperson named Lisa, nervously agreed to give us a lift. She took pity on us and said she'd give us a lift to keep us safe and dry for a bit! Of all the lifts we received, Lisa was our favourite. She was really enthusiastic about what we were doing, and rang up local radio stations appealing for help. She drove us all the way to Manchester Airport, gave us a donation and her phone number to let her know we were safe and where we ended up.

Manchester Airport was a bust. No airline could let us on their plane, although annoyingly it sounded like they used to but there had been a recent change in policy. Every desk we visited also sad they'd just talked to another Jailbreak team, who we finally met at the exit! We also couldn't blag a bus or train out of the airport. A friendly policeman recommended we tried to hitch out on a roundabout at the exit, which was very tricky indeed. But luckily the kindness of strangers saved the day again, as a taxi driver took us to the next services. He was in a particularly good mood as he was just finishing up his last shift before he went on holiday. When we got to the services, he reccommended that we tried to hitch with lorries, rather than cars - a tip that made the rest of our journey a LOT easier. We were back in the game!