A few weeks back I related the little story of a trip I did to Tehran in 83. I’ve since found out it was September and it had been many years since a Promotor lorry had been in that ‘neck of the woods’. Although I had been heavily involved in Iraq and other destinations in the Middle East, hauling both general freight and doing exhibition work, it was my first trip to Iran. However, during the next six years it seemed like my second home but so did Baghdad as I was there so often as well. I was in Tehran as Promotor had organised a large group of British companies to exhibit at the 1983 Tehran International Trade Fair. My job was to take the first trailer down loaded with exhibits and to handle and co-ordinate all the onsite work. As we also handled the travel arrangements for the exhibitors I found myself out at Mehrabad airport late at night on more than one occasion. Dave Stagg, our ex transport manager and by then a director of the company would fly out before the show started to head up the team. When I say team, there was only Dave and myself from the UK but we had many Iranians working for us in different guises.
We had a large British group and soon filled the allocated space provided by the Iranian Fairground Authorities. Our local standfitters obtained an overflow pavilion which, not being very big, was also rapidly filled. We had three trailers shipped out from the UK and a large amount of airfreight. Our Iranian agent, Bijan Nabavi was up for the job and pulled out all the stops, not only providing customs clearance of the exhibits but providing interpreters and labour on site. When we needed forklifts and cranes he had them there immediately. Over the next few years we got to know Bijan and his family well. He had a lovely wife and three daughters all of whom came to the UK to study. At this point I must relate a little anecdote concerning Bijan’s health. It was around 1988 and he had been having chest pains for a while. He had visited a London doctor and it was found he needed open heart surgery. This was a major operation and was going to set him back many thousands of pounds. At this time Peter Calderwood, our MD had an apartment in an old house in Tunbridge Wells where I also lived during the week when I was back in the office. Bijan asked Peter if he could stay in the apartment after the operation to recover before travelling back to Tehran. It was obviously a lot cheaper to stay with us than fork out for a room in a nursing home. Peter and I were both worried as surely he should be having post-op nursing care 24/7 after the operation. We asked if his wife was flying over to look after him. He then told us he hadn’t mentioned it to her as he didn’t want her to worry. Blimey we thought she’s definitely going to worry when he jumps into bed with her on his first night back and she sees a ten inch incision in his chest. Everything went well though but she did tell me later she was very angry with him for not telling her.
The stands were built, the exhibits were on display, the exhibitors arrived and the opening ceremony took place. It was a huge success and the British Groups stands were some of the busiest of the whole Fair. When you consider that Iran’s main trading partners such as France and Germany were there it was quite some achievement. I think the Fair lasted twelve days. A bit less than the one in Baghdad. Dave and I would go out most evenings with some of our customers to various restaurants. However, if the restaurants were Indian or Japanese or some other themed food outlet you only ever saw Iranians running the establishments. When you inquired if the cook was Japanese or whatever you were always given the same answer. “They left during the Revolution and didn’t come back”. On more than one occasion Dave and I were asked if we would like to join some Iranian or other for an ‘evening in’ at their home. We had to be very careful bearing in mind we were the organisers of the show a job which normally would have been done by the British Overseas Trade Board. However, we did have a nice quiet evening with one young chap who had a highly responsible job in one of the big hotels. He provided Vodka, the home made stuff brewed by the Armenians, and caviar. All was going swimmingly when Dave and I both peered in the kitchen at the same time and saw cockroaches running over the worktops… the Caviar didn’t taste quite the same after that but we couldn’t say no so had more Vodka to try and erase the image of those horrible creatures.
Once the closing ceremony took place, for me things just got busier. I had to get the empty cases back into the two pavilions that evening before the guards locked the doors. A lot of the exhibitors were leaving the next day and they wanted to repack their exhibits that evening. I remember vividly standing in the doorway of the main pavilion bellowing at the Iranian labour Bijan had supplied to “hurry up” and get the cases in. Well those weren’t exactly the words I used, just as well none of them spoke english. The empty cases were kept in a store on the edge of the fairground and earlier we had loaded them onto a flat trailer pulled by an old bull nosed Mack. Unfortunately only a small amount of the cases and crates got in so that meant I had to pack everything away myself later aided by a few locals that I trusted not to run off with anything.
The next day Dave and most of the exhibitors said goodbye and flew home and I was left to clear up. It would be another ten days before I was ready to leave.
