By OISE Oxford Tutor Kit Villiers
You may recall my recent account of falling foul of the Royal Hong Kong Police regarding a 'stolen' car.
I once had a potentially far more serious incident. It was when I was working in Oman, in Salalah to be precise. Salalah was in the process of rapid modernisation, and as part of this the old sand tracks were being paved and converted into a modern highway network. One of the major players in this process was Taylor-Woodrow, who had a large expatriate workforce in this ancient Arab town. As there was little to do of an evening, films were shown in their clubhouse to which anybody could go for the price of a ticket.
One night, after seeing 'Lawrence of Arabia', I think it was, I drove off down towards the main road on my way home. This road had recently been paved, although it had no street or traffic lights. As usual I paused on reaching this new road. A couple of cars went by, and, although I could see the lights of a third car in the distance, it seemed to me perfectly safe to proceed. I edged out on to the tarmac, turned right (i.e. I didn't need to cross the road) and was just accelerating when the the car in front stopped and a soldier got out and ran towards me."That's the Sultan's car behind you, didn't you realise?" "Er- sorry - no," I stammered. "You are to report to the Chief of Police in the morning," he ordered, stalking off.
As you can imagine, I didn't sleep well that night, wondering what dire punishment lay in store. As I wasn't that enamoured with the job, the ideal punishment would have been banishment - i.e. a flight back to England remaining on full pay, but I realised this solution was a little optimistic.
Somewhat full of trepidation, I showed up at the police station at 8am the next day. To make matters worse, I thought a spot of flu was coming on. I was shown into the Salalah police chief's office. By then I was sniffing away, and I think the constable must have thought I was about to have a breakdown and grovel for mercy on the floor. It seemed a long wait for the boss...
Finally the chief strode in. To this day I'm not really sure how well briefed he was about the previous evening's incident, but very fortunately he said that as the cells were a little full I could just sit in his office. I was also able to ring my office and explain my predicament, and get someone to bring an aspirin too.
After a bit, boredom gradually replaced apprehension, and I was beginning to look around for something to read when the chief re-appeared. "You're lucky, the Sultan's just flown back to Muscat. So off you go!"
Phew! another lucky escape!
You may recall my recent account of falling foul of the Royal Hong Kong Police regarding a 'stolen' car.
I once had a potentially far more serious incident. It was when I was working in Oman, in Salalah to be precise. Salalah was in the process of rapid modernisation, and as part of this the old sand tracks were being paved and converted into a modern highway network. One of the major players in this process was Taylor-Woodrow, who had a large expatriate workforce in this ancient Arab town. As there was little to do of an evening, films were shown in their clubhouse to which anybody could go for the price of a ticket.
One night, after seeing 'Lawrence of Arabia', I think it was, I drove off down towards the main road on my way home. This road had recently been paved, although it had no street or traffic lights. As usual I paused on reaching this new road. A couple of cars went by, and, although I could see the lights of a third car in the distance, it seemed to me perfectly safe to proceed. I edged out on to the tarmac, turned right (i.e. I didn't need to cross the road) and was just accelerating when the the car in front stopped and a soldier got out and ran towards me."That's the Sultan's car behind you, didn't you realise?" "Er- sorry - no," I stammered. "You are to report to the Chief of Police in the morning," he ordered, stalking off.
As you can imagine, I didn't sleep well that night, wondering what dire punishment lay in store. As I wasn't that enamoured with the job, the ideal punishment would have been banishment - i.e. a flight back to England remaining on full pay, but I realised this solution was a little optimistic.
Somewhat full of trepidation, I showed up at the police station at 8am the next day. To make matters worse, I thought a spot of flu was coming on. I was shown into the Salalah police chief's office. By then I was sniffing away, and I think the constable must have thought I was about to have a breakdown and grovel for mercy on the floor. It seemed a long wait for the boss...
Finally the chief strode in. To this day I'm not really sure how well briefed he was about the previous evening's incident, but very fortunately he said that as the cells were a little full I could just sit in his office. I was also able to ring my office and explain my predicament, and get someone to bring an aspirin too.
After a bit, boredom gradually replaced apprehension, and I was beginning to look around for something to read when the chief re-appeared. "You're lucky, the Sultan's just flown back to Muscat. So off you go!"
Phew! another lucky escape!
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