Gorweddai’r cês, wedi’i bacio’n barod am wythnos yn Khalkidhiki, ar y bwrdd yn y lolfa yn nhŷ Marian. Mae hi’n dewis gwrthrych, ei phasbort, ac yn dweud,

A suitcase sits, packed and ready for a week in Khalkidhiki, on the lounge room table in Marian’s house. She chooses an object, her passport, and says,

“…I escape. And it’s the only adventure I’m likely to have at my age, plus needing that damn thing…”

Mae hi’n pwyntio at ffon gerdded, // She points to a walking stick,

“I get lots of assistance. Even on the train journey, I don’t need a ramp, I just need another hand.”

Mae hi’n oedi, a gyda thôn freuddwydiol, mae hi’n disgrifio // She pauses, and with a dreamy tone, she describes,

“The first thing I do when I get there. I put the kettle on, then I make a cup of tea, sit on my balcony, couple of cigarettes, then I unpack, shower, get dressed for dinner. I’ve started to learn Greek, I can manage, but my problem is I can’t understand when it’s spoken to me, it’s too fast, but I’m mistaken for being Greek!”

A dyna ddechrau ei hawydd i deithio, // And then, the start of her travel bug,

“My second husband was in the army, and he was posted. It was the first time I’d ever left Lancashire, first time on a plane and when they opened the door in Cyprus, the smells, the pines, the citrus, and it was ‘Wow! Everything was wow!’

…And there was a man on a donkey riding past!”

Mae pawb yn chwerthin, // Everybody laughs,

“After Cyprus, the children really benefitted [from the travel]. My two daughters went to Penrhos school here, and they were able to fly over on their own at the age of 13, 15. My son stayed, he didn’t fancy boarding school, and he had a whale of a time, I mean the education system in the Army is very good, so he gained a lot.

After my second marriage broke down, I bought a little cottage in Lancashire, Accrington – I needed to do it up as it was falling apart - and it was hard. My son stayed with me for quite a while. He would say, ‘Mum, I’m sure I should have left home by now!’”

Mwy o chwerthin // More laughter

“I said, ‘Hey, don’t listen to other people, it’s lovely having you here!’ We got on extremely well, we all did. We always have. And that’s why, when they were all working, when they were all enjoying what they were doing, I thought, ‘me time! What shall I do?’ Well, my divorce settlement came through, it wasn’t that much, but I thought well I’ve got two choices, I can either pay off some of the mortgage or I can travel round the Med for a year, so, I packed my bags! I made it alright with the children of course, well they weren’t children then, and off I went! No plans!”

Mae hi’n chwerthin cyn rhannu atgof teithio anhygoel, // She laughs before sharing an epic travel memory,

“I took a year out. It was New Year’s Day. The only flight I could get was Malta. It was the year of the Gulf War, and I was setting off for a year. Wow!

Malta was first, then, because there were no flights anywhere and the ferries weren’t moving, I went to the yacht club, very la-di-dah, and put a little note on the notice board to offer myself as crew. I can’t swim! Anyway, when I met the skipper of this yacht, he said, ‘oh well that’s good, you can look after my yacht then!’ But I did say, before you accept me, there’ll be no hanky-panky! We travelled from Malta to Sicily, Sicily to Italy, and up the coast.”

Believe it or not, I was kidnapped at sea! On the Yacht!

It was all smoking, and I said to the Skipper,

‘you’ve got a leak.’

‘Oh no, no, I’ve just had a refit.’

‘No, honest, you’ve got a leak, the petrol is leaking.’

‘No, no!”

He didn’t believe in listening to women. One of them. Well, we ran out of fuel! He got in the dinghy and said,

‘You coming?’

‘Like hell I am!’ I said, ‘No way!’

And of course, he over-turned as he reached the coast, and I’m still on the yacht! He’d smoked all my cigarettes, and I’m going berserk! Then, I heard this noise, and I went up top, and it’s two guys, two Sicilians, from a little boat, and they’re raising the anchor! So, I said, ‘what you doing?!’, I didn’t speak Italian. I tried to stop them, and they yanked me so hard - luckily there was a rail, I ended up banging my arm on it. In the end, he got out a knife! I thought, ‘What do I do now?’ Anyway, they went down below and raised the other anchor, and I thought ‘Oh my God, who’s going to help?!’ I had nothing to defend myself. I knew there was a spear gun somewhere, but I didn’t know where, and it was a bit extreme. So, they pointed ‘steer!’

They didn’t know I was aboard. They’d spotted this guy leaving, they thought it was salvage.

Anyway, once we’d arrived at shore, back to the village we’d previously been in, and they’d dropped anchor, I heard this bump, and it the skipper. He threw a carton of cigarettes before he got up on board. I said, ‘you better let me have a smoke before I do anything!’ Anyway, they said they wanted Twenty Million Lira or the Yacht. I said, ‘Rubbish, what you talking about? You can’t claim salvage if somebody’s aboard,’ and he said, ‘Well, they want their money.’ So, I stayed up for hours making notes, about what they’d put me through, then the two same guys came, picked me up, and took me to the Carabinieri’s office, a little concrete square, windows, door, no nobility turned out! I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is scary,’ and these guys said ‘No English!’, so they got an interpreter, and the two fishermen are giving it all that, ‘We saved the yacht, it was going down blah , blah, blah,’ and I couldn’t understand what they were saying, anyway, in the end, I said to the skipper, ‘Keep your mouth shut or they’ll arrest you, they’re not mucking about here.’ I sat there, totally quiet, then this officer got an A4 piece of paper out, explained what had happened, and topped it off saying, ‘I’m charging these fishermen with kidnapping!’ Everyone rose up, and this guy said, what the hell do you mean?!’ and we all said, ‘Ah, you do speak English!’

Mae pawb yn chwerthin // Everybody laughs,

“And that’s what happened!

Then after, we had to go and collect the dinghy. We were stood at a bus stop, and this Merc screeches to a halt, ‘Where you going?’ and we thought oh my God. Uh oh! Perfectly dressed, smart suits, ‘It’s our friends the Mafia!’ so I said, ‘oh, American base.’ He said, ‘you, in! you, front seat, next to me.’ He said ‘put your seat belt on’ and I thought, ‘oh, this is going to be a bumpy ride!”

Mae hi’n chwerthin yn uchel // She laughs raucously

“And you know, they didn’t mean me any harm, because I didn’t have anything they wanted. But it was obvious who they were. They dropped us at this tourer, next to the road, and said, ‘come on, meal, nice wine!’ They never spoke to the skipper. I said, ‘oh we have to go and get the dinghy from the American base, and he said, ‘when I see you gain, you come for meal, we take you out in the evening.’

Anyway, we went to find the base, and there’s these two huge Sicilians, armed to the teeth, with hand guns and Kalashnikovs, and I say to the skipper, ‘shhh, don’t say anything,’ and I say ‘we’ve come for property, dinghy.’ I offer them a cigarette! So, there’s three of us, these two massive guys and me, smoking, and we end up laughing, and we’re chatting away ‘oh you know the Beatles?!’ It was so funny, I mean very frightening, so they were so big, but funny.

Then we went in the camp. The grass! There wasn’t not a blade out of place. The houses were all brilliant white, there wasn’t a bit of rubbish anywhere, and it was beautiful. And they said, ‘What will you do?’ I said, ‘Well we just need to get back to the yacht with the dinghy.’ They said ‘we’ll get you a lift, we’ll get you fuel, in the meantime, go to the mess.’ They fed us, loads of fresh food, and we sat and ate and that was that!

That skipper was useless!

Well, eventually I got to this Greek island, tiny, 3 miles by 6, and I got a job, but August was bad year because of the war, and so I volunteered redundancy for a month. I said to my boss I’d be going, but he said ‘come back, come back after August,’ but it’s like the travelling, one step at a time. So, I got the ferry to Pireas, and went on to Southern Turkey, and did that horrendous bus ride, very narrow, very steep, into Marmaris. I thought, ‘Where am I going to stay?’ Well, there was this young lad trying to get people to stay at his YMCA, I said, ‘room?’ and he said ‘Dormitory’ and I thought, crikey, so I said, if you can carry that backpack, I’ll come and stay at your YMCA, and I tell you what, he struggled! I did Southern Turkey, to Denizli, where all the Calcium pools are. It’s just fascinating, the crystal water, the calcium built up into little ponds. I’d seen them years ago as part of a film, and I thought, ‘how did they do that?’

So many adventures.”

Mae hi’n ysgwyd ei phen, ac yn edrych ar ei chês, // She shakes her head, and looks at her suitcase,

“Alright, I’m wearing out, I’ve had one hip replaced, a knee replaced, and I’m waiting for the second hip to be done, but I don’t want to give in, I’ve got to have a life. The secret is, don’t ever totally grow up!”

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