History Repeats Itself

The scenes last week of holidaymakers being evacuated from Kenya last week, by Thomson and First Choice, brought back memories of my time spent working as an overseas rep in the Gambia for Thomson.

I spent my summers working in Greece and Egypt but all of us changed resorts for 3 months in the winter time. We did get asked where we would like to go but it was down to  the powers that be as to where we ended up. During the winter of 1994 I was earmarked for Madeira but my boss decided I would be much better off going to the Gambia! This was not a place I had even thought about but, being a worldwide destination as opposed to Europe, it was seen as a reward! My colleague Steve was also told he was going there, again not somewhere he had considered, so at least we both knew each and started to think we might actually enjoy it and it was only 3 months !

We flew off from Gatwick to Banjul and met the other reps, there were 8 of us in total – none of us had requested this as a destination – all, for some reason, had been sent, we all came from worldwide destinations and had plenty of experience in ” difficult” countries. We were soon to find out why we had been chosen!

I was given the hotel Wadner Beach to look after – it was a sprawling 3  star hotel, opposite the prison, and it was a challenge. The Gambia had undergone a military coup in July 2014 and October was the first time tourists had been able to return their.  Most of the hotels were quite run down and I remember desperately trying to find the best rooms for my first arrival day, it was hard to find ones that actually didn’t`t have orange curtains and purple bedspreads! Sunbeds were rusty and the food left a lot to be desired to say the least. The worst was the kitchen – washing up being done in a  bucket on the floor !

As reps we all got on well, even though all our hotels were spread out we managed a few nights out. Our regular taxi driver picking and dropping us off enroute. I wouldn’t`t say its one of my favourite places, too much crime and hassle for me, but its was good and the clients loved it.

The beaches are beautiful and sandy, and it was on one of these beaches, on our day off, when the drama began. Rumours had been circulating for a few days that a counter coup was to take place, fuelled by the arrival of an American warship off the coast.

On 11th November, as we sat enjoying the sunshine and swimming, our manager arrived to deliver the news that we had to evacuate all the clients and leave the country immediately. We went straight back to our hotels and began the process of locating all our clients and telling them they were confined to the hotels until the aircraft arrived to take us home in 2 days times. It was really frightening as we could all hear the sound of gunshots and helicopters throughout the night

Most people were really good, and understood the need to leave, some were not happy, some we could not locate, but finally we were on our way to the airport and safety. We arrived at Banjul to see 2 Britannia aircraft waiting for us, but were the told the third had been refusedpermission to land and had turned back to Tenerife. Would we ever get home?

Thankfully all was eventually OK, the third plane arrive and we all made our way on to it and flew home. The coup turned out to have been foiled but several young military officers were executed in cold blood after the attempt.

The site of those people at Mombasa Airport last week brought it all back, thankfully we all got home safely and so did they.