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| Dahran in the 1950s |
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| Dahran to day |
My first day at
work I had been introduced to Mansour, we were to work as a team monitoring the
training on a large American contract. We had a staff of two Pakistani Air
Force NCOs; Saffi and Khan. Saffi was a very timid type of person and I often
wondered how he had achieved the rank of Sergeant but he was a really pleasant
person to work with, a great worker but always looked for a lead from other
people. Khan was also a Sergeant a small athletic sort of guy with a huge smile
and an enormous beard. He was also very astute, knowing precisely the way to
form information so as not to offend the Saudi Officers. At first Mansour left
me to find my feet in the office with my two Pakistani friends, at first they
were very wary of me but when they realized I was happy to work and respect
them we formed a good team.
Mansour had worked
in the Base Training Office for sometime before I arrived and lead quite a
social life with his Saudi colleagues but gradually we got down to work. All
official correspondence was in English and to start with this was my main work
but Khan was pretty good a creating the day to day letters which gave Mansour
and myself time to get to know each other and our American contacts. Very early
on I remember once sitting in a car with him; I had just received my permanent
base pass and he asked to look at it. “God you’re ugly” he said looking at my
photo. Now this was often their ploy to check you out. So I took my pass back
looked at it and said “You’re right so I am” He laughed and from then on we
were friends.
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