LORRY JUMPERS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 28, 14 November 1935, Page 7

LORRY JUMPERS

.VAMPS OF THE ROAD. "- Glrl 101'1')’ inmpers have become one of the major pests of the roads in England. 011 the track of these female Stowaways I travelled last night by lorry from London to Manchester (writes a special correspondent of the “Sunday Chronicle”) ‘ . Hardly beyond the outskirts of London. tivo girls stood in the road signalllng us to stop, and this happened intermittently during the whole jourJ ney. Every time we stopped on the road we were badgered by girls and women beseeching lifts with the wiles of practised vamps. Less than an hour beyond London we found a wayside cafe full of girls, many of them young and good—looking, and most of them in hoisterously bright spirits. There were plenty of night prowling males, too, to whom the presence of these would-be lorry jumpers was obviously a source of attraction. In conversation with a couple of the would—be stowaways at another halt‘ I found that they- were originally vil—lage girls who spend their whole time‘ travelling up and down the country on; lorries. ‘ ‘1 They don’t work and they don’t wanti work. They want to “see life,” as they call it. I found that many of the wayside cafes refused admittance to women at night. “They give your place a. bad name,”j said a cafe proprietor near Coventry,; “and the drivers don’t like being wor—ried every time they drop in for a. cup of tea. and a short rest.” The most infested part of the road iwas between Newcastle-nuder—Lyme l and Manchester. At one stop we found a, girl trying to conceal herself underneath our lorry. 1 Other. drivers told me that that was la trick against which they had always to be on the look out. Several times I saw girls stOp lorries and private cars in this district, but 'ndt one of them looked as if she was genuinely poor and stranded. 0n the contrary, they were all well dressed and carefully groomed.