When I persuaded my new wife (1984) Julie, to come out to Saudi, I mentioned that the stores were open until 10 in the evening. She liked this. In England at the time, everything closed by about 5.00pm, but her Uncle had moved to America after the war and family holidays were spent in New York.
Her vision of ‘Mall shopping’ was shattered in Dammam and Al Khobar by trying to avoid puddles of foul smelling liquid in the gutters as we traversed the pavements, looking for suitable pictures to adorn our flat. Suddenly there was a cry from the mosque of ‘Allah u aqbar’ and prayer time descended. Shutters down…
eventually we found what we were looking for, and loved our Oasis in Al Khobar for three years, until Julie became pregnant with our ‘little girl’ who is now 31 and a mother herself with a 1 year old.
I was general manager of ‘Al Quafilah’, we offered air freight, ocean freight and ran about 15 trucks - including Scanias and ERFs. We had lots of friends there, including Pat Conway, Martin Mears and even ‘Ron Hawk’. I met Ken B once in Jeddah, although I’m sure he won’t remember.
I had a wonderful 11 years in Saudi.
John.