Look back in laughter...

[dtaai-maai]

We’ve all got time on our hands, and I’m sure we all have stories to tell, whether they're amusing, sad or just interesting in some way. Buksida's road trip reminded me of my time in Pakistan and I'm going to write about that in the next day or two, in between episodes of Game of Thrones... In the meantime, let's here some of your stories if you feel like sharing them.

Forgive the thread title, but I'm a bit of a ponce and I like Osborne and alliteration.

[Dannie Boy]

We’ve all got time on our hands, and I’m sure we all have stories to tell, whether they're amusing, sad or just interesting in some way. Buksida's road trip reminded me of my time in Pakistan and I'm going to write about that in the next day or two, in between episodes of Game of Thrones... In the meantime, let's here some of your stories if you feel like sharing them.

Forgive the thread title, but I'm a bit of a ponce and I like Osborne and alliteration.

I look forward to reading that, I too spent a few years in Pakistan and have some wonderful memories (and some very close escapes) I might tell also.

[dtaai-maai]

^^Get typing man!

[Dannie Boy]

^^Get typing man!

Ok maybe tomorrow - I have one quite long but (to me anyway) a very interesting story to recap “my everybody’s famous for 10 minutes” incident!!

[pharvey]

We’ve all got time on our hands, and I’m sure we all have stories to tell, whether they're amusing, sad or just interesting in some way. Buksida's road trip reminded me of my time in Pakistan and I'm going to write about that in the next day or two, in between episodes of Game of Thrones... In the meantime, let's here some of your stories if you feel like sharing them.

Forgive the thread title, but I'm a bit of a ponce and I like Osborne and alliteration.

Christ, too many stories and too many memories. I think though you should have had to experienced the area/region to appreciate things - who can understand Pakistan or India without being there? The Congo.....

Many of my experiences may not be appreciated on the forum!! [EDIT] Meant as in not exactly a perfect home life or clean living...

[dtaai-maai]

Many of my experiences may not be appreciated on the forum!! [EDIT] Meant as in not exactly a perfect home life or clean living...

Who wants to read about a perfect home life? As for clean living...

I repeat, get typing!

[migrant]

Many of my experiences may not be appreciated on the forum!! [EDIT] Meant as in not exactly a perfect home life or clean living...

From the other thread, maybe our Fathers are related from the sound of it!!!

[lindosfan1]

Well I will start it off, I work part time for the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch railway. This railway's engines and carriage are one third normal size, so when you sit in them there is very little space. I usually work at Dungeness, what follows is a list of questions I have been asked.
A woman pointed at the nuclear power station and asked me if that was the local shopping centre.
Can we buy tickets on the train, she was looking at the train, I replied yes we crawl olong on top of the roof, she then informed me she would buy them on the train.
The gauge is 15 inches, so one father trying to impress his son asked does the gauge get bigger as it goes up the line, to which I replied yes by the time it gets to hythe is is 2 foot wider with a full size engine.
Looking at the train I was asked can we walk up and down while it is moving, I replied yes madam would you like me to help you on to the roof.
They are steam engiines I got asked how big the batteries are, I replied double AA it only needs small batteries because small engines, she went away happy
Where is the lighthouse? I replied it is the big erection behind me.
That is just a small example of how stupid some people can be, it is all true, I hope it made you smile.

[dtaai-maai]

We’ve all got time on our hands, and I’m sure we all have stories to tell. Here’s one of mine.
Buksida’s road trip photos reminded me of parts of Pakistan. I was there in 1987-88 on secondment to the FCO as a visa officer after the British government tightened immigration rules covering certain Commonwealth countries.

The England cricket team toured Pakistan during that time, captained by Mike Gatting, famous for, amongst other things, the finger-wagging incident with umpire Shakoor Rana. This is relevant, as will become clear…

With a lady friend who worked for the UNHCR I drove to a hill station in Murree district, not far from the capital, for a long weekend of, erm, R&R. The only car we could get hold of was a little Fiat 500, not ideal for driving up a mountain, but needs must… On the last morning we were woken early by the chowkidar. It had started snowing during the night and the message was that if we didn’t leave soon we would be snowed in for some time.

The snowfall was really thick and fast, and although we set off promptly there was already several inches on the ground, increasing rapidly. Unfortunately, to get back to Islamabad we had to go back up the mountain quite some distance before going down the other side. The roads were similar to those in Buksi’s Nepal photos – no barriers, with sheer drops on the near side. It was slow going in the little Fiat, slipping and sliding all over the place, and within about twenty minutes we were stuck fast, with no traction at all.

After a few minutes a big old Land Rover with a dozen blokes in the back roared past us and stopped up the road before reversing back to us. I was wearing a bright red H3 (Hash House Harriers) track suit top with the hood up. With a beard and a chunky build, I bore a superficial resemblance to the aforementioned Mike Gatting. I hadn’t given this any thought, but it soon became obvious when everyone started pointing at me and yelling “Mike Gatting! Mike Gatting!”, who had become famous after falling out with a Pakistani umpire during a test match. It was all good-humoured, and they offered to give us a tow.

There weren’t a lot of options – I couldn’t phone the AA! – so I agreed, they rigged up a tow rope, and off we went. I’d got the impression that this was a fairly regular occurrence, but I don’t think the driver had towed a Fiat 500 before, as we were swinging alarmingly from side to side behind the Land Rover. My passenger went from deadly quiet to terrified little squeals as we got perilously close to the edge going round corners. It didn’t help that the blokes in the back of the Land Rover were all grinning like Jack Nicholson, and I could see they were still amusing themselves by yelling Mike Gatting.

We were mightily relieved when we got to the top of the mountain, as I’m sure you can imagine, but not for long as the Land Rover didn’t stop! It was worse going down than it had been coming up, particularly as we were going faster and faster. When he did eventually stop, it was much too quickly, and I just managed to avoid sliding into the back of the Land Rover, which at least wiped the smiles off the passengers’ faces for a moment.

That was the end of the excitement. Halfway down the mountain, the snow turned into rain and we made our way home without further incident.

[Dannie Boy]

Well I will start it off, I work part time for the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch railway. This railway's engines and carriage are one third normal size, so when you sit in them there is very little space. I usually work at Dungeness, what follows is a list of questions I have been asked.
A woman pointed at the nuclear power station and asked me if that was the local shopping centre.
Can we buy tickets on the train, she was looking at the train, I replied yes we crawl olong on top of the roof, she then informed me she would buy them on the train.
The gauge is 15 inches, so one father trying to impress his son asked does the gauge get bigger as it goes up the line, to which I replied yes by the time it gets to hythe is is 2 foot wider with a full size engine.
Looking at the train I was asked can we walk up and down while it is moving, I replied yes madam would you like me to help you on to the roof.
They are steam engiines I got asked how big the batteries are, I replied double AA it only needs small batteries because small engines, she went away happy
Where is the lighthouse? I replied it is the big erection behind me.
That is just a small example of how stupid some people can be, it is all true, I hope it made you smile.

Yes it did and although I’ve never been on one of the RH&DR trains, I’ve seen them going along the track many of times - probably on one of my many visits to Dungeness A&B Power Stations - this was in the days when all power stations in England and Wales were operated by the CEGB, for whom I worked.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dannie Boy]

^^Get typing man!

Ok maybe tomorrow - I have one quite long but (to me anyway) a very interesting story to recap “my everybody’s famous for 10 minutes” incident!!

I m going to start this story off now, but it risks being quite long so I may submit it in stages - a bit like Buksi does with his trip reports but without the photos (although I might try and dig one or two out).

So first a bit of background information. The scene was set in 1994 when I was working for a British company called National Power who were one of 3 companies formed out of the privatisation of the CEGB by Margaret Thatchers Government. The UK market was pretty stagnant so to try to grow the Company, the Directors decided to expand overseas and the first major new build project was in Pakistan - the project was known as the Hub power project, being based the hub River in Southern Baluchistan but close to the Sind border and the metropolis of Karachi (about 50-60 Km’s away). The project was separated into two very distinctive elements - the owning Company Hubco and the Operating Company Hub O&M - I was working for the latter. At the time, this project was the largest privately funded equity project in SE Asia, something like US $1.6 Billion, so big by most standards and huge for Pakistan. This would be the largest Power Station in Pakistan when completed so vital to their economy.

Good progress was made and the plant was fully commissioned and entered full commercial operation by the end of 1996 or early 97 and things were going well, but as time progressed the relationship between the Government (via WAPDA the state electricity company) started to sour, not helped by the economic plight that the country found itself in - it was basically bankrupt. Things came to a head when WAPDA started to default on paying the agreed tariff for the electricity being generated. Although this was primarily an issue between WAPDA and Hubco, we (Hub O&M) continued to try to remain outside of the debacle and not get involved in the politics, but eventually in early May 1998, we got a visit from who I believe was called the Assistant District Commissioner of the area and he told us that he had been given instructions to stop certain supplies coming to the power plant. He was a nice man and very apologetic saying he was simply following orders. From memory this was a Tuesday and as one of the 3 senior members of staff at the plant (I was the Administration Manager), the matter was discussed with the Plant Manager and the Operations Manager to decide our reaction. It just so happened that the Plant Manager had pre-booked a couple of weeks of R&R leave back to the UK and although he offered to cancel it, we knew that deep down this was more of a token gesture so we made him feel better and insisted that all would be ok and he should go on his leave as planned - so Thursday came and off he went to Karachi to fly back to his family in the UK.

Well we didn’t have much time to think about what might happen when on Friday morning, we go another visit from the Assistant District Commissioner who informed us that his orders had been changed and he had now been instructed to place everybody under house arrest - what this meant was that on the Power Plant site, we were fine, but anybody trying to leave would be arrested. This had come as a complete surprise, we hadn’t expected things to escalate so quickly, so we hastily held a full site meeting to inform all the staff. Out of a total workforce of about 300, we had over 30 expats, all but one British together with about 10 wives. At this stage we had no idea how long the “siege” would last, but tried to calm the situation as best we could, after all, we had been told that staying on site we were safe, we had plenty of food and water, so it was a case of sitting it out and hopefully sense would prevail.

The vast majority of staff were relaxed about the situation- we encouraged everybody to contact their families back home and tell them what had happened but not to be (unnecessarily) alarmed. The only krblem that I can recall came from one of what we called a Shift Charge Engineer - I won’t mention his name but he was literally built like a brick outhouse about 6’ 5” tall and almost as wide, but he was as close to tears as anybody and took a considerable amount of consoling that all would be ok (at least we hoped so).

Now, there were just the two of us in senior positions to try to decided what best to do, so we decided that the Operations Manager would handle all things technical, and I would deal with everything else. We had a local Pakistani PR guy who suggested we should contact the British High Commission in Karachi, so that’s what I did - the woman in charge was called May Gibson. I explained to her what had happened, I don’t know her background but she sounded very calm and almost immediately had a plan Of what to do. I can’t remember exactly who she said she would contact -I think it was her equivalent based in Islamabad, but what she warned me was that they were almost certainly going to make sure the information got “leaked” to put pressure on the Government to pull there forces away from outside the plant and she warned me that I might get contacted by the press.

So the first job I gave myself was to start to write a briefing because the better I was prepared, the less risk there was that I would say something I might later regret, so I went down to the office to begin my script (this was a Saturday and technically an off day). I was about three quarters through writing my brief when the phone rang, I picked it up and was met with a “I’m (can’t remember his name) the BBC corresponded in Islamabad and told me he had heard that the staff at the Hub Power Plant had been put under house arrest”. Anyway we went through what I had written including having to ad-lib the final quarter, but don’t think I made any gaffs. He was actually a descent guy and seemed to be generally interested in our welfare and ended up saying something like “I or one of my colleagues will probably contact you again later today”

Anyway I put the phone down, finished my script and felt fairly content that all was in hand and waited for the next move. Well one of the next moves was a procession of phone calls from journalists of a number of the UK newspapers (they say good news travels fast -bad news even faster). This was my first ever experience of dealing with the press and it wasn’t very pleasant - again I can’t remember his name but certain he was from the Guardian and all he wanted to do was to get me to say something that he could then report in the paper e.g. “but you must be worried and your families too - and many similar statements” to which I was able to say, that we had everything under control, all staff had spoken to their families, we had sufficient food and water and we were confident that the situation would be resolved soon.

Ok that’s enough for now, the next instalment to follow a bit later - I hope it’s not too boring!!

[dtaai-maai]

Ok that’s enough for now, the next instalment to follow a bit later - I hope it’s not too boring!!

Fascinating stuff, I'm looking forward to the next episode!

[Dannie Boy]

And here is the next episode!!

So this was all happening at fairly breakneck speed and we didn’t have much time to do any tactical planning, it was mainly “off the cuff” stuff. I’m fairly certain that I had returned to my apartment which was on the power plant complex, just a km or so away. I had managed to grab a bite to eat when the phone rang again and this time it was somebody from the BBC in London, who had obviously been informed of what had happened and asked me if I would be prepared to do an interview over the phone. This would have been about the 5th telephone interview I had done and I was beginning to get used to it, so thought why not and said yes. So the lady on the phone said she would get somebody to call me back in about an hours time - I think it was at this stage that she told me the phone call would be relayed live on air as part of the 6 o’clock news in the UK - I was now beginning to think that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all, but a bit too late to pull out.

So I went back to my office where I knew I would be on my own with no interruptions. Eventually the phone rings and the woman on the phone introduces herself and tells me we’ll soon be going live to the BBC new desk and to sit and wait. It was probably less than 5 minutes but it seemed an eternity, not helped by the fact that every minute she would come on the phone to say “sorry to keep you waiting, we’ll be with you soon”. At the same time in the background, I could hear an interview going on with the very distinctive voice of Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland and somebody you saw on the TV on a regular basis - to say I was getting more and more nervous was an understatement, but eventually they came back on the phone and told me they were now ready and started the countdown 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,“and we’re now going live to Dan Xxxxxx in Karachi for the latest on the siege at the Hub Power plant in Pakistan”. So here I was talking to the BBC newscaster in London and recalling the well rehearsed script I had practiced and hope and believe I didn’t say anything detrimental. Later that evening, I received a call from May Gibson from the British High Commission, who reassured me that she was confident that everything would soon be back to normal. Clearly she knew what she was talking about and the next morning not only did we get a message that the security forces had been withdrawn, we received a visit form May Gibson in her White Land Rover Defender complete with Union Jack Flag flying from the roof.

On the Monday morning I received a call from the CEO of National Power Keith Henry and he spoke to me like we were best of friends (we’d never previously met or spoken to each other) offering to jump on the next plane to help matters, but I was able to convince him that all was now calm.

It had been an amazing 48 hour experience, One that I hoped I would never have to repeat, but before we knew it, life was back to normal and as far as I was concerned, this was the end of the episode .......or was it? to be continued.....

[dtaai-maai]

On the Monday morning I received a call from the CEO of National Power Keith Henry and he spoke to me like we were best of friends (we’d never previously met or spoken to each other) offering to jump on the next plane to help matters, but I was able to convince him that all was now calm.

Classic senior exec approach. I note he waited a few days before getting in touch!

this was the end of the episode .......or was it? to be continued.....

You've clearly been studying Eastenders script writing 101 - leave 'em hanging!

[Big Boy]