Efes:
Edward Mansell-Thomas on your right Sandway. He worked for Saftcrest out of Northiam, Sussex, and they had a container parked in Baghdad that was painted in the Union Jack colours. They sold sports equipment.I delivered their container back to Northiam. He and his wife were really great company and we went all over the place together as they had a house in Baghdad. It was on their stand that I was interviewed by English language Radio Baghdad which was famous amongst the ex-pats because the fellow hosting had such bad English. They were interviewing Edward - whilst I was suppressing laughter - when he suddenly swung around and put the microphone in front of me… he said “so Mister, what you like in Iraq?”… My mind raced through all the “things” - the “nice things” about Iraq and replied, after a long silence “Errr, you have very good weather here…”. Talk about feeling dim.
I met up with Andy McLean (jazzandy) recently at MickTwemlow’s funeral.
I had a few beers with Gavin too and he told me about turning his car over whilst trying to impress an Irish Nurse from the Park Hospital. She wasn’t impressed.
Saftcrest were a great company to have at the Fair. Who wanted to look at boilers or tractors when you could play on their pool table or play table tennis or even get in the full size boxing ring. Of course we only did that during the early afternoon break when the fairground was closed. Locals weren’t allowed unless they were young and female. I was led to understand they only had one customer in Iraq and that was the top man and his family or was it the family were Saftcrests agents?
I have a number of photos taken on their stand unfortunately I am unable to access them until I return home (after Brexit and the worst of the winter weather) in the spring. Meanwhile I have attached a photo that has been seen before of Saftcrests boxing gloves.
