Mike's Saudi (27) Vince and Fred

Vince (the guy I was instrumental in his dismissal) is a survivor and after some adventures in Malta where he and a friend had bought a 75 foot trimaran for the holiday trade. The idea being he his friend with their girl friends as crew would hire the boat out for the summer, and then move the whole operation out to the West Indies the following year. They had their first booking, bought in all the provisions and took the boat out for trial run before starting. A squall caught them and the mast broke going straight through the hull. Afterwards Vince absolutely broke, lived in a tent in the New Forest, where he took a course on stable management and eventually got a job in Germany managing a large stable. However the job was only open to a married person so he married his girl friend before he went.

I’m not sure how he got back to Saudi but there he was when we arrived at Tabuk as you may guess he could talk his way into anything and amazingly we were still good friends. So he went off to the local military hospital and arranged for them to employ his wife while he was waiting for a villa. He left Saudi in an even stranger way, one of the trainees asked him while on leave to enquire about a gravel crusher as he wanted to start a building company. Vince took up the challenge, had his one suit cleaned and visited a suitable manufacturer. Even in those days a gravel crusher cost many thousands of pounds, not phased Vince asked for ten percent of the cost price as his commission if the deal came off. When he returned from leave, the Saudi he represented decided to buy two. It was all arranged through Vince, on completion the Saudi gave Vince ten percent of the cost price for fixing the deal, apparently a Saudi custom. Vince left BAC shortly afterwards a rich man. He was a most unusual but a fascinating guy, sadly he died of a heart attack within a year.

Expatriates are more often than not unusual people, even Karen’s friend Fred although intelligent when we asked him over to the flat in Khamis, “Get your stuff and bring it over” I said. He went back and brought his tooth brush all he needed for an overnight stay. Fred was a very keen tennis player and often represented Tabuk along with Sybil in the BAC team as it grew dark early matches were often played in flood light at night. It was usual for both teams to supply the umpire alternately. Once when Fred was in the chair he had to ask the players what the score was, he’d become too interested in the stars. I was always amazed that he and Karen got on so well there was nearly 14 years between them and he was a great character as well as an intellectual, she was a typical teenager interested in pop music and not much else at the time they met. It was at Fred’s thirtieth birthday party and when we received the invitation she expressed her feeling in “I don’t want to go to an old man’s birthday party.” It was amazing how fast she matured.