Originally from Newcastle, Alan Curry bears a resemblance to referee Pier Luigi Collina (“oh God, everybody tells me that!” he groans in his Geordie accent, covering his face with his hands) but as we start chatting I also see a likeness to actor Woody Harrelson (“well at least he’s a bit better looking”).
From the outset, Alan makes it clear he does not really feel comfortable with publicity. Why then, you may ask, was this tall, lanky man sitting here to be interviewed? Well a lot of it has to do with being cajoled and persuaded to do it by those responsible for Life Cycle’s PR.
“I don’t want this to be just another rehash of what’s already appeared before about Life Cycle,” he warns me in his blunt, straight talking manner.
Oh, oh – was this going to be one of those difficult interviews? I wondered.
As we talked, however, I could see that Alan had a point – doing the rounds of the press the questions he is asked inevitably revolve around how it all started (his wife suffers from kidney disease) and he believes it is time to focus on the bigger picture.
“The charity is obviously very important, and people are benefiting from it, but it’s not just about that. I want to give an outlet to people like students to look at this as an adventure. At first I was very guilty about saying that, because it sounded like we were going on some kind of holiday – it’s not. However, we shouldn’t be embarrassed about saying that we enjoy the experience. I never wanted to play it safe, to do something that was going to be comfortable. For example, cycling around Malta is not even an option. You’ve got to do something that will make people sit up and take notice.”
As the organiser, he has already travelled over the planned route which will take the cyclists through terrain which is very different to our island.
With part of this year’s Life Cycle taking them through Serbia, Alan thought it would be appropriate to choose this restaurant. “Everywhere we go, we try to incorporate the culture”.
Owned by Victor Miljkovic, Konak (which means “lodging”) has been open since last October. As Victor’s job is in IT, the restaurant is actually run by his quiet-spoken wife, and provides a welcome meeting place for the considerable Serb community in Malta.
“Our national cuisine is meat, either beef, pork or chicken – we have no pizza or pasta,” says Victor.
He suggests a mixed platter to give us a taste of everything and insists on presenting us with a starter: corn flour bread with cheese, mushrooms and mashed paprika used as a dip.
Alan explains that what started out as an event that simply attracted cyclists seven years ago has, over the years, become a challenge that appeals to more and more students. If you can ride a bike and have a relatively good level of fitness, you can probably go in for the Life Cycle. But don’t be fooled that it’s for the fainthearted. Once you sign up, Alan warns that you are in for four months of intense endurance training in order to achieve the level of stamina required.
“They will be cycling 185 kms daily for 10 whole days, which is extreme,” he points out. “This is the message we’re trying to get across. If you think it’s a holiday, don’t even put your name down. But if you want to experience something which gives you a feeling of incredible unity at the end of the day, then yes. There’s one boy who didn’t even used to like cycling to begin with, and now he’s scored the highest fitness test I’ve ever done in nine years. We’ve got everyone from a 17-year-old girl to Dr Raphael Fenech Adami, who’s the President’s nephew.”
For Alan, the key word is commitment, not only to the training, but to the philosophy behind Life Cycle. Each participant scores points for attending meetings, raising money and promoting the event in the media. Teamwork is vital, and involves a well-organised system of back-up support. Participants are briefed on the psychological stress and pressures of being away from home in conditions which are basic, to say the least.
“We don’t stay in hotels or even camps because they’re too expensive. We make arrangements with the countries we are going to, to sleep in football or basketball stadiums, schools or gymnasiums in just our sleeping bags. We want people to know that we are keeping the costs as low as possible. We get sponsors for insurance and food, so really the only expense we have is the hire of the vehicles. There are two advance vehicles with two drivers who load and unload. They help around the camp, washing pots and pans. We have four cooks who prepare over 200 sandwiches for during the day and the evening meal.”
He explains why he feels so uneasy about continuously talking about his wife’s condition.
“There was no doubt about it that when we first started I wanted to help the renal unit, but I’m not some sort of charity freak who is obsessed with raising money. I was just a normal Joe who gave the odd penny here and there and that was it. What got me thinking was this: it is a worthy cause but you could probably think of another 10 other worthier causes, and I knew that right from the word go. Another thing was that, in England there is this ‘charity syndrome’ – literally every time you switch on the telly someone’s asking for money! Then I remembered that as a child we used to do these charity walks, walking 26 miles. So I thought if I could walk 26 miles when I was nine, I can cycle across Europe because I’m fit. At first I was going to do it by myself, but someone said to me, listen we could really organise this into something bigger.”
After he did the Life Cycle the first year, he went back home and his mother told him he looked awful. He’d lost four kilos and looked very gaunt.
“I said: ‘Don’t worry Mum. I’m never, ever doing it again”. But the next day we already had our maps out planning the next one!”
The money which has been raised has gone towards kidney machines and other equipment to make life easier for kidney patients.
“If I’ve got one strength it’s that I’m quite persuasive; if I want something to happen it will happen. When I started talking to the people I wanted to involve, they got that enthusiasm as well. By the second year I was ready to step back and let other people do the PR, because my biggest fear is to have someone say ‘Oh no, not him again!’. I would be lying if I said there were no rewards, because it gives me huge satisfaction, especially since I had to fight off a lot of opposition to the concept at the beginning.”
Alan’s vision for Life Cycle has always been far-reaching, so it is understandable that not everyone grasped what he was on about.
“Some people wanted to go around the villages in Malta raising money and doing it with 50 people rather than five. My answer to that was: ‘In 10 years’ time we will have 50 and end up on the Great Wall of China’.”
Victor comes by with the main course: it is a large platter of chicken skewers and pork sausages. We steadfastly look away from the accompanying platter of chips and bread – there were definitely too many calories on this table.
I ask Alan whether he’s disciplined about his diet.
“I am but I like to think that I can get away with a little bit more because of my training. How-ever, as you get older you don’t get away with everything. You have to cut down on your carbs if you want to lose weight but if you train hard you can still eat some. The problem is that people don’t do exercise so they take the easy option of dieting, which is actually harder. I don’t make a big issue about food – I eat and I like my food but I’d rather have plain pasta than something at a fancy restaurant. I’m very boring and working class,” he adds with a smile.
Alan readily admits that he feels ill at ease when he is stuck with people who are pretentious, “ so I become sarcastic and make it well known that I’m bored out of my mind. But I don’t make apologies any more like when I was younger. If I don’t feel like going somewhere or want to leave, I just say so. If people ask me ‘why didn’t you come to my wedding’, I say: ‘I hate weddings’.”
Alan arrived in Malta 11 years ago with his Maltese wife. When he speaks of his decision to relocate here, it is with bittersweet feelings.
“I still miss home, there’s not a day I don’t get homesick. When I say I miss England, I mean I miss Newcastle – which is totally different. I never tell people I’m English; I’m a Geordie. Funny, I was never patriotic before I left home.”
What do you miss the most?
“My club, which is an integral part of the city. If you know anything about football, it’s a bit like Napoli and Naples, it dominates the whole city. Your whole focus of life is around the football club. My social life was football – on Saturday my wife and I would go shopping in the morning, then she’d meet a friend and I’d go to the game. You’d swap your shifts at work and everything, just for the game.”
He himself was shocked at the depth of his homesickness and a letter from his parents would trigger off an overwhelming longing for home. He’d have to put down the letter and read it later.
Alan is the first to admit that as a race the English are not a very emotional type of people – especially the men. The most his Dad used to do was give him an affectionate slap on the back, but when it was time to say their goodbyes at the airport, Alan’s Dad grabbed him in a great bear hug.
“That killed me! And he does it all the time now, although when I pointed it out to him, he didn’t want to admit it. The thing is, I used to be away from home all the time when I was in the military, but it was a whole different concept because you knew you’d be going back. To be honest, for the first year-and-a-half, I wasn’t totally happy here, because things didn’t go as planned. I had to prove myself since I was a foreigner. If someone asked me whether I would go through those first six months again, even knowing that in the end things would work out, I’d still say no.”
He stuck it out because, after committing himself to the major move, it wasn’t that easy to go back.
“You keep hoping things will get better. I remember the second night we were here, I was at my wife’s family’s house. I’d been there a hundred times because we used to come on holiday all the time and I’d always wanted to come and live here. I really felt I knew the island well, had lots of friends and Sliema was my place. But I was sitting there, they were all speaking Maltese and I was thinking: ‘What have I done? I’m a complete outsider here.’ Don’t get me wrong, everyone made me feel very welcome, but it wasn’t enough. I missed my Mum and Dad so much it was ridiculous, I was 35 years old! I was even sad that I had to leave my dog behind, which I’d had for 12 years – my best mate!”
Things were made worse because his wife was already ill when they came to Malta. She was diagnosed with Lupus and later developed kidney disease, so they were dealing with hospital all the time.
Apart from the worries about her ill health, getting a job was not as easy as he had expected. He thought he would just show people his qualifications and that would be it.
Things started taking a turn for the better when, together with another cycling enthusiast, he set up a business taking tourists on bike rides all over Malta. They devised interesting routes over various sites for which they coined new names – Fawwara, for example, became Inspiration Point.
Eventually, he joined St Aloysius as a physical fitness teacher and things began falling into place.
It is Life Cycle, however, more than anything else, which has given him his greatest satisfaction, but again, he speaks cautiously about it.
“I never wanted to end up like a media circus, with local singers as entertainment turning it into a sideshow. Frankly that is how some of the other charities have ended up, but that’s not for me. Cycling has to be the main event. I’d rather earn Lm40,000 to really raise awareness than sell my soul and raise another Lm10,000. I’m fully aware that we’re competing against other charities.”
The organisation behind it is daunting, especially since the cyclists have to pedal in all sorts of weather conditions, travelling over unfamiliar territory.
“I like to have a theme – this year we chose Acropolis, the hard way. It is really hard work. Each cyclist pays around Lm600 to take part. We have to cover ourselves regarding insurance as well as to monitor all the cyclists. I can’t say “No offence Mrs …, but your 18-year-old daughter took a wrong turning in Serbia, we don’t know where she is!” We need to give them exact instructions, there has to be very good back up and security. We are taking an Albanian to travel with us, plus we have other contacts. This year we’ve had to hire vehicles in four different countries and you can’t imagine the problems we’ve had to insure them.”
Alan may have felt like an outsider when he first arrived in Malta, but now there is no doubt that he has integrated into our culture. He does a fair impersonation of some Maltese characters, complete with gestures, colourful language and facial expressions.
He tells me about an incident at the Pieta’ bocci club where ghana singers congregate and which the cyclists have unofficially made their “base”. One day Alan asked the owner whether they could ask the patrons for some donations. The owner explained the request to his customers in Maltese and then called out “hey Newcastle, come here”. They passed the hat around and received a good sum of money.
“I took my Dad there the last time he was over – he was fascinated.”
Even though this year’s challenge isn’t over yet, Alan’s mind is already whirring about the future.
“I’m thinking of covering the Baltic states and Scandinavia. Maybe in five years we can aim further afield out of Europe, doing extreme stuff, more daring, as logistics get better.”
He can’t resist telling me one more anecdote with his cheeky northern humour. When a priest remarked to him that he must have faith to get through the Life Cycle challenge, Alan replied, “well, faith’s all right Father, but Jesus never rode a bike. It’s important to have strong legs and a strong heart. But at least he laughed.”