We’re en route to Heathrow. Leaving for a better life, there’s a recession and the Middle East is where everyone in engineering is flocking to. A massive building program is underway. Bill is heading up the Salmaniya Hospital building services project. The idea is to stash plenty of cash away and buy a house back in UK.
We arrive 5 minutes after the plane is due to take-off. Say a hurried good-bye, explain to the Gulf Air desk, one of the staff hurriedly grabs a huge luggage trolley and tells me to put the kids, baggage etc on it and run with him. Toby and Celia whoop with excitement and ask us to do wheelies.
Gg
I ask which gate it is. 109, we are at 3. So we run the length of Heathrow terminal 3. We run up the gang-way and into a waiting poker-faced flight crew and look shame-faced at the other irritated passengers. We have delayed the flight by 30 minutes.
I am terrified of flying. As we bustle about getting seated and ready for take-off my son yells excitedly ‘Mummy, are we going to crash?’
I am the only woman with a young family on the flight. Most of the passengers are either oil-riggers or businessmen. Celia busies herself with an appreciative audience of hard-drinking, hard-living Aberdonian riggers, doing pirouettes and lots of twirling standing on the food counter, which she utilizes as a makeshift podium.
Meanwhile Toby has also found a use for the many felt pens thoughtfully provided by Gulf Air, the interior of the plane is redecorated a la Banksy style. He also manages to break part of the seat. Another little accident. Oh good, now he’s breaking the plane up. Where’s the bar.
I’m bought a lot of drinks, there is also free champagne and red wine served with an excellent three course dinner. Six hours on I’m an old hand at this flying business, if slightly wobbly and slurry. Still standing – just - being chatted up by a couple of florid-faced businessmen as the plane starts it descent to Bahrain airport. They put me right on the way of life in the Gulf. Do’s and don’ts, don’t mix with the Arabs, do join the British Club and one of them slips me his card with a bloodshot wink. All of which I intend to ignore.
We’re so excited as we leave the passport area and walk into the main hall of the airport. I look around for Bill who’s nowhere to be seen. Toby and Celia are in over-drive, too much tartrazine. They are red-faced, golden locks clamped tight to their heads with perspiration and enjoying the freedom after being cooped up in a metal tube for seven hours. We have been up since 3am. An hour later he arrives with Tony Prince, his boss in London. My smile is starting to rictus.
We are finally here, it seems so exotic and colourful after living in Pitsea, Essex. Living the life of a British ex-Pat, reliving the glory days of the Raj. With one big difference, this isn’t a British colony any more, we have no power or influence: we are the white Balushi’s.
We are put up in the Middle East Hotel in Manama, where we will stay for six long, long weeks. While we wait for our accommodation to be finished.
It’s been a tough runup before we left the UK. We were served an eviction notice, then the electricity was cut off. This happened after Bill had left for Bahrain. Celia who was a toddler and Toby who was 3 years old, were given all three jabs at once. A day later she’s in an isolation barrier unit at Basildon Hospital with a temperature of 106 and febrile convulsions. I sleep with her for two days in hospital, Toby is also ill, not as seriously but for longer.
Under normal circumstances would have taken this further with the GP who administered the vaccinations. But no time. Just so relieved they are OK. We all sleep together with coats on, in the same bed for warmth. A friend comes round, see’s how we’re living and bypasses the meter. Will take my chance. And be gone for good in a couple of weeks. Hopefully for a better life.
me and my boy on the roof of our building, next to the Gulf Air building in Salmaniya, Bahrain
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