In the late 70’s and early 80’s at the Baghdad Fair we had a succession of agents. Omran Al-Omar was one but he didn’t last long. He got involved in something dodgy which took money out of Saddams pocket so he had his neck stretched.
Schenkers was another we used for a couple of years. They had an office in Baghdad and handled a lot of work for eastern european companies at the fair. They, as you would expect, did an excellent job but were just a bit to honest and above board for our liking. However, they had a good gang on site led by Wolfgang Taubart, a German who had a villa on the south side of the city. Wolfgang loved darts and he had a dartboard set up at exactly the correct height and a rubber mat so we stood the correct distance from the board. Well, you know these Germans. Everything had to be just right. I notice from the scoreboard Team GB are just in front, not sure what the outcome was though. We had some good evenings at Wolgangs villa together with his dart playing friends. Unfortunately I only have the one photo taken at the villa but in it is shown Alan from Davies Turner’s Southampton branch. He had been flown in to assist at the fair as DT had a number of their clients exhibiting that year.
I have attached a photo of the on-site Schenker crew. The lady in the front was from their Beirut office whilst Wolfgang is at the back. It shows how desperate Saddam became during the Iraq/Iran war that one of the local guys was drafted into the army and later killed. Don’t think any of them would know a rifle from a toothpick.
Please click on photo to enlarge.
