1995
Flying from Bangkok to London. Hurrying to pick up the sapphires I bought from a gem store in Bangkok so I could recover some of my travel savings. Crazy.
Fuck. I was nervous. This is crazy. Gems, Bangkok, London. How did I find myself in this situation?
Too late. It was done now.
I got on the plane leaving Bangkok. We take off and are on our way. 15 or 20 minutes into the flight there’s an announcement in Thai. A Thai couple next to me look at each and are obviously worried. I look at them and wonder what the fuck’s going on. Then the announcement in English.
Ladies and gentlemen. There is an issue with one of the plane’s engines. We will return to Bangkok to inspect this. It is nothing to be concerned about, it is just a precautionary measure or words to that effect.
Fuck.
We put our seat belts back on. I look at the Thai couple nervously, they look at me nervously as the plane turns back to Bangkok. I start to meditate, if I’m going to die, I’d like to die calmly.
But we make it back safely. We land and head back to the terminal and wait maybe 3 hours or more. Then we’re ushered back onto the plane. We strap ourselves in again but I think how could they possibly fix a faulty engine in just 3 hours? It didn’t seem possible.
We take off. 15 or 20 minutes later an announcement in Thai. I look at the Thai couple again and they confirm with a nod and another worried look. They didn’t fix the engine in 3 hours. I resign myself to the fact I might die again (not that I actually died the first time, just to be clear), I was pretty calm about it to be honest. Up there in the sky, what else are you going to do, there’s no point panicking, you can’t go anywhere, if you’re going to die you’re going to die. I just started meditating again.
We head back to Bangkok for a second time, we land safely a second time. This time it’s late in the evening. We wait a few hours and it’s clear to all us weary passengers the plane’s not going to be fixed quickly. When you’re fixing engines, – and I’m not an expert aircraft engineer or anything – but when you’re fixing engines, I think, take your time! After another few hours they tell us we won’t be flying until the morning so they put us up at a hotel.
I get to the hotel, put my head down on the pillow and start sleeping. I feel like I’ve only slept for a few minutes when the phone rings again. The plane’s ready. Apparently. We’re going back out to the airport.
So we’re all put back on the plane. It’s a different one, they must have given up on the one with the broken engine which I think’s a good choice. for a third time, they send us on our way. 15-20 minutes into the flight, nothing happens. 30 minutes in nothing again. After a couple of hours I look out the window and we’re crossing the Himalayas. It’s sunrise I think, and the peaks are that early morning pinky orange. Feels like we’re not too far above the biggest peaks in the world and I can look down into the valley trying to spot some animal or something. It’s amazing that us humans can just pay for a ticket and then get into one of these things that fly over mountains. I feel like I might take it a bit too much for granted nowadays, even post COVID travel restrictions.
I think about my sapphires. I had to be able to sell them in London otherwise I’d run out of money in a day or two in London. Actually I hardly even had enough for a night in London. It wasn’t 40 baht a night there, you had to pay real prices in British Pounds!
When my friends Christoph and Tanya had flown over to London they were in a similar position, they barely had a couple of hundred pounds between them. Luckily Christophe was the chatty type and he got to talking to a British couple on the plane. When the British couple found out how little money the couple had they were like, you’re not going to last more than a week in London on that.
The British couple then offered the lucky bastards to put them up for a week at their house so they might have time to find a job. I was praying for something like that at the moment thinking my sapphire plan was rubbery at best, non-existent at worst.
I manage to get a bit of sleep and do a bit of meditating to calm my racing thoughts. We fly over Pakistan or Iran or Iraq or somewhere and then over Europe. Eventually, in the early morning – another morning, I was losing track, we had a sunset when we crossed the Himalayas, morning, night, who knows – we arrived in London.
I get out and line up for immigration. The immigration officer looks at my passport and looks at me.
“How much money do you have?” she asks. Christophe and Tanya had been asked the same question so I knew it might be on the cards. Seemed like Australians often rocked up on a wing and a prayer.
“60 pounds I think, maybe 65. I have some more money in my bank account”. I think I had about $10 or $15 Australian in my bank account.
“60?”
“Yes”.
“Is that all?”
“I have some sapphires I bought in Bangkok waiting for me at the post office.”
“Sapphires?”
“Yes”. I was starting to feel very stupid. Well stupider than I really was. “I can take them to sell them on Bond Street.” I showed her a bit of paper that the dodgy Thai guy gave me. She looks at it with the scepticism it deserves.
“And you have no work permit?”
“No”, although Christophe and Tanya had very little money they did, at least, have work permits, so they were reluctantly let in despite their small amount of cash. I suppose they also, by luck, had a place to stay. I had no work permit. Mainly because I was an Irish citizen so I didn’t need one, so I didn’t bother with it. But I didn’t have my Irish passport, or any proof of Irish citizenship apart from my red hair. And, since I was travelling on my Australian passport I was being treated as a broke Aussie instead of a broke Irishman.
“I think you’ve been duped on the sapphires”, she says.
My heart sinks, I know she’s likely to be right. “But I am Irish.” I say.
She goes and chats to her colleagues. She tells her colleague something like, ‘he says he’s Irish’, and they mumble and the like.The rest of the plane have now mostly made it through immigration.
“You say you’re Irish. Have you got proof of that?”
“Well, no, not on me. I was waiting for my Irish passport in Australia but they didn’t have it ready so I had to leave without it. I had to send them my foreign births registry papers as well, so I don’t have anything at the moment.”
“Well, I’m afraid without a valid work permit we are going to have to refuse you entry into the UK”.
My heart sinks, after this long journey I was just going to be sent straight back. The immigration officers chat. All the other passengers have gone, I’m the last one standing there. The airport seems almost deserted. I’m alone, I’m tired, but I’m kind of calm. After a while the officers get back to me.
“Apparently Thai airways don’t have another seat until tomorrow afternoon. We are going to issue you a 24 hour permit so you can leave the airport but you need to return for the flight tomorrow afternoon. Had they had a seat on the next plane you’d be going straight back. But they’ve cancelled that flight.”
“What if I can prove I’m Irish in that time?”
“If you can provide proof of your Irish citizenship in that time we can give you an entry visa.”
They hand me back my passport with the 24 hour visa. They tell me I have to be back at the airport by 2 PM or something the next day in order to be deported.
I walk out and try and find my backpack. Everyone else has long gone so they think it’s abandoned and I have to go to a special spot to get it. At least I’d gotten this far, I’m kind of free and I am in the UK, for now. And I can at least get out of the airport. Thankfully Thai airways only had that one plane operating between Bangkok and London due to the other one having a bung engine, which allowed for this little reprieve. I can do it! I can make it into the UK! I just had to prove I was Irish and use my Irish luck! Don’t know how I’m going to work out the rest, but something will work out, just got to stay positive.
I feel like I’m in a Hollywood film, 24 hours, and maybe 60 British pounds, plus whatever I could withdraw from my Australian bank account, to sort out the gems and my Irish citizenship. The clock starts its countdown.
It’s 3 or 4 am, the tube trains don’t start until 5.30 or 6.00 am or something. I’m dead tired so I find a bunch of passengers who are sleeping by the departure gates. I crawl under some chairs, desperate to get an hour or so sleep. Not having had a decent sleep for about two days now.
5.50 am, I’m at the tube gate buying a ticket and waiting for the train into London. I get on a train and head into London. The city is just waking up once we’re out in the open I can see over the houses, with their chimneys wafting steam and smoke. The sun is just coming up and there’s a similar hue to that which I saw over the Himalayas the previous night or morning, it was all a bit disorientating now.
7.15 am. I get into London. I have the Irish embassy’s address, but they don’t open until 9.30 am. So once I’ve identified where it is I just loiter in the general vicinity.
I’m hungry but super short on cash so I decide to get a piece of fruit.
“Excuse me, do you know where I can buy some fruit?” I ask a gentleman in a light trench coat.
He laughs his jolly English laugh, I think it’s like a nervous tick English have when they are uncomfortable talking to hippy backpackers on their way to work (obviously he was on his way to work – the hippy, being a hippy, can just roam around freerange during office hours). An Australian talking must sound quite quaint. He points me in the direction of a fruit stall without pausing much. I find the place and I think I decide on an apple, or perhaps some stone fruit were in season which sounds more like my cup of tea as I’m not that fond of apples. I’m happy I’m getting to see a little bit of London now, if they kick me out of the country, which I’m still hopeful they won’t, at least I’ve got to look around a little bit.
I take a stroll and find a place on some roundabout and watch the traffic go by. Eating my piece of fruit. I think I may have taken some bread rolls, and a little plastic packet of butter and jam from the plane so I munched on that as well. Or maybe I bought a bread roll. I must have had some water or fluids as well. Though unlikely very much as I was still thirsty.
9.30am comes around and I head straight into the embassy. I explain my situation. I got to London, no money and the stupid English want to kick me out if I can’t prove I’m Irish and they have my passport ready at the Irish embassy in Canberra and my proof of citizenship papers and all that, I’m seriously legit Irish.
They are rather friendly. Of course, they’re Irish. But they don’t think they can do anything for me at the moment as it’s night time in Australia. They’d have to fax through some request and have the Australian embassy fax something back, and I’d probably have to come back the next morning to see if they were able to do something. But I could try in the afternoon just to see if they’d heard anything.
I thank them and head back out into London.
I have all my luggage with me. Thankfully that was just the backpack which wasn’t super heavy. So I decide I might as well explore a bit and maybe go and check if my sapphires had arrived. If they were going to kick me out of the country I at least wanted to pick up my sapphires first.
So I walk down to the GPO. Probably more of a hike than a walk, Google maps tells me it’s an hour’s walk from the embassy which I could do relatively easily in those days, even though my back was feeling it along the way.
I’m able to go through Hyde park, and I sit for a bit and watch the swans and then check out Buckingham palace, and then onto the GPO. Without Google maps I’m not sure how I managed it. I must have had an analogue Google map.
Having acquired the sapphires in such a dodgy manner, I’m half, or even 4/5ths expecting they wouldn’t have even sent me anything.
But, somehow they are there waiting for me!
Because it still seems very shady – still I say now, back then I was hoping through my idiocy I may have just got lucky and I could actually sell those stones. After I collect the package I take it to an inconspicuous corner of the place and pour out its contents. Yes indeed, the gems are there. Well, maybe I can sell them? I think.
I make my way to Bond Street – perhaps using my great knowledge of the Monopoly board, as I had no GPS, figuring it must be around Regent Street and the other green one. The address the Thai gives me is of course not able to be found (although Bond Street itself exists, why else would they put it on the Monopoly board!). I wander around a bit more and I find a Christie’s auction house. At least they might be able to tell me if the sapphires are worth anything.
I walk in and ask if a valuer can take a look at my sapphires. They have me wait, there with my backpack in their fancy shiny wood lined corridors. Soon a polite English gentleman comes out and greets me. We go into a room and he has a look at the sapphires.
“What did you pay for them?’ He asks. I tell him the amount and he grimaces. “They are not worth that. But, at least they’re real, I’ve seen plenty bought for similar amounts which turned out to be pastes” – I later found out pastes are just a fancy term for fake gems, or more precisely where you have a slither of real gem pasted onto some glass or something like that.
“So I can’t sell them here?”
“Well no-one will want to buy them, they are very dark, and not the type anyone here in England wants. We prefer the lighter colour ones.”
My heart sinks to a further level. The titanic level. Where only James Cameron would be able to find it.
I head back to the embassy, just in case they’d heard anything. The embassy hasn’t heard back from Australia. I’d have to try again the next day.
I go to Hyde Park and sit under a tree. I’m more depressed and despondent than I have ever been in my life. I assess the situation, little money, enough to last a day or two max, but not even that if I have to pay for accommodation. I have no Irish passport, so I’ll have to come back to the embassy tomorrow. After internally crying and despairing and swearing, I think. Think John, think. I was going to have to find a place to stay the night at least and get some cash.
Firstly I get onto. the cash situation. I needed cash if I was to stay in the UK, otherwise I might as well just go back home. So I find a public phone. Luckily my dad had bought me a phone card so I could call home. I rang my mum. It was sometime in the middle of the night over there (In Australia), but I couldn’t work out exactly what time it was exactly. It didn’t seem to matter really, she was just kind of just glad I wasn’t killed or had my kidneys taken out yet.
I explained the whole situation as best I could. Somehow bought sapphires off a dodgy bloke in Bangkok, they were real but not worth much, so can’t get money back. So could I borrow some money in case the Irish organise proof of me being Irish in time for them to stop the deportation process. Kind of sounds funny now, but believe me at the time it wasn’t!
Luckily my dad had also told me that I could withdraw money using my Australian bank card in England as I had no idea you could do such modern things and had mostly planned to rely on travellers cheques and just leave my useless bank card in Australia. My mum says she’ll work something out but she’ll have to wait another nine hours or something before the bank opened. I thanked her and got off the phone, relieved to have crossed one worry off of my list. Well it was at least in progress.
It was already around midday in London, even if they could get the money straight into the bank when it opened I still wouldn’t see any more money until the early hours of the morning. So the few pounds I had left would have to last the night at least. And I didn’t really even have enough to stay at the worst hostel for a night. Or not enough to do that and eat as well.
Next thing then was to try and find a place to stay, for free. Ah, ha! I had the address and phone number of Newcastle Chick and British Guy (see previous blog posts if you don’t know who they are). I’d written to them before I’d left and said I was coming over to Europe, so they would not be too surprised if I rocked up. I think they’d even written back and said they looked forward to catching up or something like that.
Surely they’d let me stay with them. British guy had stayed with me a few nights in Melbourne the year before after all (again, see previous blogs if you’re lost). He’d be right to return the favour, it was just what people did. Anyway, I didn’t have much fucking choice (pardon my French, but I was tired and upset at the time).
So I get out British Guy’s and Newcastle Chick’s number and I ring and ring, and ring, no answer. I think, fuck it, I’ll just make my way out to their flat. I had their address. But first I walk around a bit more, catching a few sites like Nelson’s Column, Trafalgar Square (maybe that’s in the same place, who knows) and other third reich empire style stuff that showed how great the British empire was compared to say, the third reich, as they treated all their natives in India, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and other places nice, unlike the Nazis who were plain nasty. No, no the British were a benevolent lot and only interested in making sure everyone could enjoy a nice cup of tea picked by their subjugated subjects sweetened with tea grown by slaves in the West Indies, on doilies made from wool grown on stolen Aboriginal land down in Australia. I also get a slice of vegetarian pizza for £1.50, and some sort of drink. Then I head out on the tube.
Newcastle Chick and British Guy lived on the outskirts of London. I can’t remember exactly where, but there was a museum which had a Picasso exhibition on, and it took a fair while to get there. It cost another few pounds to get on the train. I was watching every precious pound trying to make sure I could get through the night at least.
By the time I got out to the place it was getting dark, around 6 or 7 pm, the banks in Australia would still not be open for a while. I checked my account anyway. There was enough in there to get £5 out. That was still a precious amount when I was so close to completely running out of money so far from Australia. Probably still didn’t have enough overall to get a place to stay though.
I tried ringing Newcastle chick and British guy’s flat again, again no answer. It was starting to get very late now so I just made my way to their house and rang their doorbell several times. Again, no answer. I found a pay phone and tried ringing again a few times. Desperate, I decided to try a different tact.
For some reason I had Newcastle Chick’s mother’s phone number with me in my little address and phone book. Possibly because in those days nobody had emails or social media, or mobile phones, so one of the only ways to keep in touch with people when you travelled about was to hand out your parents’ address and phone number.
I still didn’t know what time it was in Australia but I called Newcastle Chick’s mum anyway. Unlike her daughter and British Guy she actually answered! I explained my situation and that I really wanted to get in touch with her daughter and partner, I read out their phone number, and yes, it was correct. I read out the address and yes it was correct. Supposedly as well they were meant to be home as far as she knew. I thanked her and went back to their flat and tried ringing the doorbell a few more times. I assumed they were out and would be back at some stage, so I just waited by the front fence, a low brick wall, for what seemed like hours and hours.
At some point it became obvious that this just wasn’t going to work out. But it was too late to even try to get back into London centre and it was now almost 3 days that I’d been without proper sleep. I could barely keep my eyes open.
It was cold, but I had a few decent clothes, and importantly a green woollen Melbourne tram conductors coat that Evan, who’d done my first vipassana course with me in Victoria, and who used to be a Melbourne tram conductor had given me. So I found a spot in the front yard outside the flats where Newcastle Chick and British Guy lived, a place behind some bushes, and I just crashed.IT was a big city, people probably just assumed I was homeless and ignored me. I woke around dawn and headed back to the train station again. I didn’t bother to try the buzzer for the guy’s flat again. What was the point? I found a bank and checked my money situation. Still nothing, so I ring my mum and dad again, my dad is awake and super stressed but he’s been up to the bank and my mum tells me that my dad said the bank said that it could take few hours for the money to show up but in my account but that they’d put $250 in my account. It wouldn’t have possibly been easier if my dad had told me directly, but he never talked to me directly much. $250, It wasn’t much, but I thanked them as it was a life saver. They said my sister Christine said she could lend me a further $500 but she hadn’t been to the bank yet.
I still had a bit of cash so I made my way back to the Irish Embassy to check on the passport situation. When I walked in they immediately recognised me and gave me the good news that the Irish embassy in Canberra had faxed a copy of my passport to the office and that they had put a notary stamp on it to verify it so this would probably be enough to show the immigration officers at Heathrow Airport. They were also sending the passport to the London embassy, so it should be there in a few days’ time. I thanked them profusely.
I checked my bank again, and this time, yes, money was there, things were starting to look up! I went back out to the airport, walking past a bunch of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians waiting to be deported. I went into an office, showed my papers, and they had no choice but to let me stay in the country, giving me a brand new stamp. I felt bad for all the other guys as I walked out a free man. They didn’t have the same Irish luck as me.
I was now officially allowed to stay in the UK. How I could do so for more than a few days, I didn’t quite know, but one step at a time.
1995, March