SAUDI ARABIA 1982 TO 1985
This was my second tour and once again my office was in Jeddah. It had very little to offer and nothing of real interest compared to my previous postings and without my wife was very boring. You still had the climate especially the summer which was very hot.
This was by far my biggest Contract. I was responsible for setting up computer, radio communications, radar and instrument workshops in Jeddah, Riyadh, Tabuk, Damman,Hail Jizan and Abha. All these out stations had IAL engineers. In Jeddah I had a team of 6 engineers, Indian office staff, some Pakistani technicians and Philippine mechanics repairing all the vehicles used at the airport. At Taif IAL were responsible for all the airport power and runway lighting. As on my previous contract I spent a lot of my time sitting in an aircraft seat flying between the towns mentioned monitoring the progress and dealing with any technical problems plus with the wife’s not being able to drive the husband having to take the children to school and the doctors. This contract was a lot more difficult because being big they had to employ extra staff who had not worked overseas and it came as a big shock to them and they found it hard going especially the younger ones. Some couldn’t hack it and resigned. I must admit I got very little satisfaction with this dull posting and was pleased when I had a specialist engineer reaching his retirement age. He was a bit of a loner and very anti IAL management. We got on well together. I remember he was very proud of his son who had gained a place at University. He had a most difficult job being responsible for the radio beacons (these were a guidance system for aircraft) in the Empty Quarter which is mainly desert. He would service his own Land Rover and make sure that nobody touched it, pack it all up and go out every 4 months for maintenance. In our workshop we could monitor these beacons which would automatically relay a short serviceability status at night. We arranged a system whereby he would enter a code starting from the first to the last beacon in order and I could then see where he was and when he had finished. Years later in Cyprus I met a 0friend Neville who worked in Saudi and he told me this chap after a long search had been found dead in the desert. I told him of the routine I had with him and this should not have happened. Apparently one of the managers had a bust up with him and knowing his temperament he would have told him where to go and just carried on by himself. Its so sad because if I had been around he still might have died but we would have known exactly where to find him.
As said before I found it very boring second time around. I still had my Ham radio equipment with me and just for fun put an aerial in the loft and sent out my usual call Mike Delta. I immediately got a reply from Israel. All my gear was immediately stowed away and I have not used it since. I still played squash for IAL in the league which made life more bearable getting to meet new people. I would have good game with the one of the head office Directors son who came out from time to time. His father was very interested in Classic cars. I had at that time an immaculate 1960s MG Magnette Mk2 and he drove his father to my house to see it. I moved house3 times and eventually ended up in a very noisy main road house. The main topic then was the Falklands war which passed the time away and was very interesting.
I cant think of any more interesting things to say ,I certainly would not go back there for a holiday.