My Home In Syria

1983 – 1986

Think of Syria and I’m sure you will think of war, the refugee crisis and terrorism. There is – was – another side to this wonderful country, a country that I called home for three years, and I’d like to put the case for it here.

In 1982, I joined in the Diplomatic Service. Somehow I managed to sneak through the recruitment process without having been to any university, let alone Oxbridge. I had been working at another Government Office in Eastbourne when the opportunity came up to join the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and work overseas. I was summoned to my senior officer’s desk to discuss my interest, and he asked me what languages I had. “None,” I replied.

I can see him now, leaning back in his chair and lighting his pipe (it was a different age), and telling me to “forget it.” So I applied anyway, and to his astonishment and mine, I was successful. I went up to that London in April of that year, and on my first day the Israeli Ambassador in London was the subject of an assassination attempt.

The office was hectic from the moment I arrived. “Well,” I thought, “this is a bit of a to-do, and no mistake,” or something along those lines, in an attempt to fit in with what I thought might be FCO banter. It certainly made a change from what I’d been doing in Eastbourne, which was writing HGV licences (and I mean “writing”. I told you it was a different age).

I did my eighteen months in London before I was offered the chance to work in a British Embassy overseas. I was asked if I had any preferences as to where I might like to go, and I rather stupidly said that I’d go anywhere except maybe the Middle East. They considered my request and sent me to the Middle East anyway, and I will forever be grateful to them that they did so.

I had never flown anywhere before I got on the Air France flight in November 1983 to go and live in Damascus for a three year tour of duty. The last bit of England that I saw for a while was the pier at Eastbourne through a whole in the clouds, from 27,000 feet.

As we approached Damascus, a whole new world opened up below me. And I admit to thinking that maybe I might have made a mistake. The approach to the airport was over miles and miles of desert. No people, no trees or anything green for as far as I could see. And this was going to be home for the foreseeable.

And on the first night, I was in a hotel until my accommodation was sorted out. I didn’t sleep, as I was kept awake by the sound of gunfire in the streets. I was only slightly reassured the following morning when one of my new, more experienced colleagues told me that the president’s brother had an army of supporters and they were firing guns into the air to celebrate his return from exile. He also mentioned that the rumour was circulating that two people had been killed by stray bullets.

It took a while to settle in. There was nothing glamorous about the embassy building, despite the Daily Mail saying that diplomats all live a life of luxury. I was given a basement flat next door to the Syrian Air Force building, and informed that it was a good idea to have a basement flat as my new neighbours were top of the Israeli Air Force’s target list should war ever break out. The green and pleasant land I left behind seemed a long way from the dry and dusty streets of Damascus. I was miles from the sea, for the first time in my life, and the bath was full of cockroaches. I quickly became homesick and felt very sorry for myself.

But. But…

I had been there just over a year when I came back to England on leave. And a strange thing happened. I realised how I had started to miss Syria. I was enjoying the job, more than I had thought, and I also realised that I had made some friends there. Friends I was looking forward to seeing again. And of course it was sunnier in Syria than it ever gets in England.

When I got back to Damascus I threw myself into the experience, determined to be positive and to get everything that I could out of my remaining time there.

We weren’t encouraged to mix with the locals as it was a hostile government and we had to be careful not to get too close to people in case they were reporting back to their bosses. But what would they have said?

In my case, they would have told the powers that be that I went running every weekend with the Damascus Hash House Harriers, where expats used the excuse of exercise to go and have a beer together at one of the embassy clubs afterwards. They would have reported my trips up country to Palmyra, Latakia or the now ruined city of Aleppo, or my journeys to Jordan or Lebanon.

They would have said that I was out almost every night, at one of a number of friends’ houses, enjoying meals with Canadian, Australian, German, Irish or American expats. But never the French, strangely.

They would have said that the idiot got himself shot at by Syrian border guards while camping too close to the Jordanian border without permission. They would have said that I had Syrian friends, and been for tea with one family who actually lived on The Street Called Straight in the city centre.

And then, in 1986, they would have reported that I was devastated to have to leave too soon as a result of a diplomatic split between the UK and Syria. I had been due to come to the end of my tour in four weeks, but it had been brought forward as the Embassy was to close. We had given the Syrians fourteen days to leave London. They responded by telling us to get out of Damascus within seven days.

So instead of a grand leaving do, I spent the last week doing things that staff have to do when an office shuts down, as well as packing all my personal stuff to go back to England. I never got to say goodbye to many friends that I made there.

Since then of course, we all know the awful path that the people of Syria have had to follow. I watched the news with a heavy heart, not knowing whether many of the friends I made there lived or died.

I came back to England via Amsterdam, where all the British Embassy staff were advised to stay for 24 hours while the Ambassador himself went straight back to London to handle the press at the airport. We had a night in Amsterdam to remember. It would be the last time the embassy team saw each other, possibly forever. I certainly never saw anyone again.

So that was my experience of Syria. It was now over thirty years ago but it’s the sort of place that stays in your mind. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be allowed to go back, but it did give me some wonderful memories. I’ll treasure them for ever.

(Thanks go to Gerald Codd, a friend who managed to go to Syria on holiday in 2009, before the war, and provided the photographs)