The Irish nurses were always in the Park Hotel bar drinking Lula or Scheherazade beer with a vigour rarely found in their English counterparts… No need to visit hospital to meet them - unless you drank too much Lula beer. Lula would come in different colours ranging from the customary yellow to a sort of “spring green” (pond water colour). Only to be drunk in extremis as it had a smilar effect to drinking pond water.
There were some good venues in Baghdad, The British Club - where kisses on their outdoor cinema screen were censored - and also the Yugo Club which did a great knuckle of pork (rarely found in Iraq for obvious reasons). Next to the British Club was the Moulin Rouge and some of the dancers used to turn up at the British Club. What fun!
Baghdad is the only place in the world where it could possibly happen, but standing in the street one day, a young woman walked over and ran her hand through my hair…
Taking a taxi with Peter Calderwood (Mr Promotor himself) the cost of the taxi journey when asked was always “What you like, mister…”. Whatever offered was always then doubled by the driver. Peter said to me when we arrive I’ll throw the driver a dinar (the going rate) and get out quickly. What happened was the Peter got out and threw the dinar to the driver and I found that there were no handles on the rear doors and I was trapped. Presumably escaping passengers was a daily hazard for Baghdadi taxi drivers. I had to cough up the second dinar…
Another memory of the Baghdad fair was the trailer lavatories. On a previous show the lavatory facilities their proved to be too great a demand - beyond capacity for people in urgent need (apparently the entire British contingent of exhibitors had caught Baghdad belly). So this trailer was imported with multiple facilities and a local gentleman employed to live in the block to keep them sparkling.