A Brief History

I joined SSL in Sept 1981 having done 2 years after university at Marconi Avionics in Rochester. My first recollection was that getting married after the interview (but before joining) had been a mistake as I found myself sent off to Libya within a month, without doing the Land Rover course. The powers that be were sure I would resign but I relished the challenge. This was the first of 4 three month tours to Libya, taking me the Christmas 1982. While I waited for my next posting I worked out of Holwood for a couple of months, doing a few jobs off-shore in Great Yarmouth, with VSP and recording truck courses in between. Then it was off to Cairo for 12 months on a married posting. For about 9 months I filled in at party chief as Abdul, the local Egyptian manager was on a detailed VSP training course. On completion I was told there would be no more married postings and resigned in June 1984. In the meantime I worked out of Holwood again, doing the odd survey in: South Downs; Poole harbour; Godstone (just off M25); Sudan; Angola; Ivory Coast.

People

I recall Joe was the base manager all the time I was at Holwood.

I remember the crew in Libya best as I spent more time with them than anybody else. George was the party chief and Tony was the mechanic. Doug and Marty quite often acted as one team. Marty was very dark as he spent a lot of time sun-bathing - I'm sure he built our swimming pool. I did one job with Doug on my third trip to Bu Atifel. I remember Geoff well as I spent more time with him in my first 6 months of marraige than I did with my wife. Everyone recalls Wally as he was a proud Scotsman and had a false leg. We had a Veggie come to us on one tour - he had problems finding enough food and was always tired. He was always looking for someone to bring a case back from Holland for him - drugs?

Abdul, the local party chief was in Holwood taking a detailed course on data processing. I'm sure he was empire building. Geoff (a different one) was my only ex-pat in Egypt. He moved in with us for a few months when his girlfriend came over. I had one Mohamed who was my 'fixer' and another who was a driver. He was so lazy I tried to get rid of him, but then the other members of the team who complained about him failed to step up. Ezat was a driver. We had two local surveyors. Mohamed was a Muslim. The other was a Christian but I don't recall his name. He drove a car older than me - not difficult at the time as I was 25. I drive a 1975 MG BGT now and that's been on the road as long as I have had a driving license.

I came across Robin Masterman in both Libya and Egpyt where he acted as country manager.

Driving

In their haste to get rid of me I was sent to Libya without doing the off-road Land Rover course. When I arrived the party chief said he would take me out but a month later I found myself in the middle of Libya (Gialo base) learning in the field. The first trip was 40 kms or so south of base on relatively flat sand which was no problem. On the second trip we were driving along an old tarmac road west of Waha when an American 4x4 came flying over the hill, Geoff went left and I went right into deep sand. I was reaching for the door when the Land Rover stalled, just before it tipped over. After I recovered (the American hadn't stopped) I backed out onto the road. Geoff was a little worse off as he had gone downhill and crossed a pipeline and couldn't extricate himself. I recall winching him back on to the road. After that desert driving wasn't so daunting.

On a trip to the Hamada, we stopped on an escarpment to take in the sights after an hour so of off-road driving where we managed c. 70kph. I found the ground seemed to be moving away from me - a bit like having sea legs when you've been on water for some time. We had obviously been focusing ahead to look for obstacles and watched as a feature passed under us.

On my third visit to to Bu Atifel we passed down the edge of the sand sea and then cut in towards the rig. We got over the first dune but found we had sunk up to the axles in thick sand as we were caught between drifts. Rather than dig and drive it out we simply raised each wheel on the jack (hydraulic), pushed sand back into the hole and simply started afresh on even ground.

During a trip to Zella we had one Land Rover playing up. On the outward journey we replaced a distributor cap and rotor arm only to find they weren't matched. We sheared off the rotor arm! After the survey we couldn't get it to start and ended up towing it all the way back to Tripoli - a journey of 780 kms. I occasionally tried to bump start it as we drove along but gave up when I broke the tow rope. When we eventually got back to base, at 22:00 Tony the mechanic had a look at it and declared we had flooded it! He must have been right as the following day we were on trip to Hamada and it was no trouble at all.

There were advantages to the half ton of equipment we carried, which included two 2000 psi air bottles which were used to fire the air guns. These were fully charged (probably couldn't do it now with all the H&S regulations). We often had to drop the tyre pressures down to 13 psi to cope with soft sand. When we were clear we simply hooked up a regulator and air line and held it against the valve. It was enough to top up the tyres.

We constantly had to nurse our tyres over hard surfaces such as the Hamada. This wasn't too difficult for experienced drivers but on one occasion we were short of engineers and recruited one of the data processing guys from the office in Tripoli. With his inexperience it wasn't surprising we got through more tyres on the outward trip, but it was frustrating when we had two punctures at once he couldn't release the wheel nuts. When we left the rig we only had one spare as they refused to repair more. It wasn't long before we were in trouble. We left one Land Rover in the desert and took all our spares in the other to get repaired. Those SSL hard hat stickers came in handy that day as we traded one to get the tyres repaired at another rig. Then we had to find the Land Rover - there are no landmarks on the Hamada. We drove back where dead reckoning deemed it should be but we couldn't find it anywhere. In the end I climbed on to the roof and saw a smudge on the horizon. Luckily it was the Land Rover.

We'd hope to avoid driving when tired, but sometimes this was impossible when the rig wanted the beds and we had to get back (off-contract). I recall we left one rig with Geoff leading and was keen to get back to the tarmac road at Zella, so he put his foot down. Unfortunately we were following a pipeline and he forgot we crossed the tarmac road between the base and town of Zella. He hit it full tilt. The compressor hit his canopy and I thought he was going to flip the Land Rover - luckily he landed on all four tyres so the only damage was to his pride.

Tony didn't fancy taking the gear box in the sandy atmosphere of the desert so drove one Land Rover all the way back in 3rd gear - about 1200 kms. He put a brick (or something) on the accelerator and put his feet up across the bucket seats for most of the journey.

I may have driven the Land Rover the other way (but I'm not sure of the timing) down to Gialo. I intended to drive most of the way with one of the seismic crews and stay overnight with them (a new experience for me) but when they hadn't arrived at 07:30 I went on without them. I refueled at Ajdabiya and intended to do so again at Gialo but all the garages were closed by the time I went through - it was dark. I pressed on regardless having switched to the reserve tank a little before, so must have been driving on fumes. The following morning I got up to park the Land Rover appropriately but it stalled having run out of fuel.

Traffic accidents are to be avoided anywhere in the Middle East where possible, as the language barrier will not help and in Muslim countries you are always deemed to be guilty - the will of Allah. But if a child is involved as happened with one of my friends from the seismic crews it is tortuous. The child ran out in front of him without warning. He never left the vehicle until the police arrived as the bystanders were baying for his blood.

The kids in Egypt are quite opportunistic. Whenever we pulled up to a hotel in Cairo they run out, found a parking space and claimed baksheesh. They weren't happy if you didn't pay them. One time I came back and the car wouldn't start. A bystander knew what the problem was and hey presto miraculously produced a starter motor for the vehicle.

I wonder what the truck drivers are thinking as they drive the desert roads at night without any lights! This happened to me once driving to the Red Sea. The truck just appeared in my headlights as I was driving along.

Navigation

You have unusual means of navigation in the desert. Old drums and tyres were used to mark tracks and act as sign posts. Oil rigs are also useful but you have to be careful as they moved around, so we had to be sure of their location. We'd often use radio masts and flares as additional aides. On one trip to Bu Atifel we followed a flare about 20 kms to the south when we should have been going east.

Past-times

As ever there was a lot of time to drink in between jobs. Brewing of beer was commonplace, but whereas we could get biomalt from baby supplements we couldn't get hop extract anywhere and it had to be brought in. There was a story going round one guy was stopped at customs and claiming it was a health drink had to gulp it down! 'Flash' was the only spirit but this could only be sourced from specialists who had the still and skill to brew it. If it was not distilled carefully enough the result was a mix of alcohol and methanol which could turn you blind. Usually it was cut 3:1 with water.

One weekend we took some of the girls (air stewardesses or nurses) to the beach west of Tripoli. After half an hour or so Wally decided to do his party trick. He removed his false leg and hopped down to the sea. To say the girls were surprised was an understatement. We never understood how he passed the medical.

When we had time on our trip back from Zella we would stop off and visit the Roman ruins at Leptis Magna. It was an opportunity to stretch the legs and breathe the sea air. There were other ruins to the west of Tripoli at Sabratha which we visited at weekends.

As well as reading and playing darts we had the opportunity to watch TV. Us h..ry a..ed oilmen would watch 'Upstairs Downstairs' every night for weeks as it was the only English show on.

Robin Masterman, the country manager while we were in Tripoli had a baby and a young Doberman, one of which was called Rory - I don't recall whether it was the dog or child. I was surprised that the baby would smack and hit the dog and it woud just take it without a blink of an eye. We were also asked to look after the Doberman during Robin's leave periods. When we had any girls round (air stewardesses or nurses etc) he would strut up and down, very proud of his h..d-on.

The Oasis geophysicists were very cany. We often did surveys at the outset and the end of drilling. They world therefore prepare our gun pit almost as soon as the rig was set-up and then use it as a swimming pool throughout drilling.

I spent many a Wednesday evening playing rugby in both Libya and Egypt. Libyan rugby nights were a casual get together for anybody who played rugby or football, playing touch rugby and there was little socialising. However, Egypt was different matter. We would play proper rugby at the Maadi sports club and then have a social at one or other member's villa. We also played matches. The Fijian peace keeping force in Sinai would come down every couple of months, thrash us at rugby - they were pretty much professionals as they had little to do in the desert, and then give a jolly good sing-song afterwards. HMS Ark Royal visited Alexandria and were due to play us one Saturday. Unfortunately, the sea was too rough for them to tender across to the mainland and it was cancelled. What would they have done the previous year in the Falklands? We also had a couple of trips abroad to Jordan and the Bahrain 15s. We would dress in white shirts, dark trousers, shoes and Fez. As with many clubs on tour we'd have a theme with penalties (fines or drink). A Fez master would be appointed and then for the weekend we'd play a version of 'Simple Simon says..' - but then there was a rule of no sleeping on tour. I nearly missed a flight home as I caught a few sneaky winks in the airport w.c.

While in Cairo I arranged a conference on VSPs (vertical seismic profiles) when a small team of experts came out to give the talk. On the first morning I had to rush around to the Sheraton Hotel to see if we could borrow an overhead projector as the one provided by the Meridian Hotel had broken. Not a very promising start. In the evening we did the obligatory trip to the pyramids. The senior manager had obviously been there before as he fended off the camel peddlars with the line 'I've got a better camel than that at home.'

Some of the staff were very in to British politics. Robin Masterman was one. He invited us over for dinner the night Maggie was up for her second term. This was quite a posh affair - he let the red wine breathe even though it was reported by The Daily Telegraph as being one of the worst wines in the world. After the Falklands it was an almost certainty Maggie would get a second term. Well the evening stretched out to an all nighter. Shortly before dawn his wife suggested she want to ride - she was into her horses. So we found ourselves riding round the pyramids at dawn - which was a new experience for me. After we took brunch at the Marriot Hotel while we waited for Maggie's results.

Parties

There was always a party or two in Tripoli at the weekend. One night we had a cocktail party at the seismic transit villa before a trip to Hamada and decided to leave early in the morning rather than night before. We duly got back to our villa and went to bed. An hour or two later I had trouble waking the seismic mechanic up but when I eventually roused him he came out punching. I caught one in left eye and went round with a bruised eye for a week. We finally left about an hour late and stopped on the roadside for another rest just outside Mizda before we hit the track.

Just before I left Libya for last time we had an aperitif at seismic villa before going on to another party. As we left it turned in to a race. I remember Wally was driving and he still had a cup of 'flash' in his hand. He undertook our colleagues on the inside lane and put the Land Rover's wheels either side of lamppost lying in the road. He also undertook another vehicle - only to find they were religious police. He passed the flash to me when they pulled us over but in attempting to throw it out the window I poured it down my back - it smelt awful. We were asked to pass over our documents - Wally didn't have his but gave the vehicle documents instead. They asked us to follow them which we did for a mile or two but then they stopped. They returned our documents and sent us off with a warning. I'm sure they couldn't read otherwise they would have realised Wally hadn't passed his documents over.

Boredom

With our need to travel to rigs we occasionally got called out early or they ran into drilling problems, such as fishing for drill bits. So we could spent up to 10 days on a job. Once we'd tested our equipment there was little else to do. We'd get bored eating, playing pool, watching films and reading, including the girlie books and so we went out exploring. The most memorable was at Ora where we found a petrified forest, climbed a tor and an escarpment - photos are shown here. Similar experience is shown around Zella.

Local Staff

When I was in Libya I was talking to one of Schlumberger engineers who related an experience. If you didn't know, Schlumberger would survey anything up to 5 days at a time - when a rig isn't drilling it isn't earning. Anyway he'd finished the job and driven back to base and simply told the Syrian labourer to wash the truck out. He came back a few hours later to find the labourer literally hosing the truck out with water. That was $1m truck at the time. Luckily they dragged all the panels out and dried them in the sun without too much damage.

I came across another aircraft engineer in Egypt who ran a simulator. He and a colleague would usually share supervision duties until they were invited to an Embassy do one day. They both went for about an hour. When they got back they had found the Egyptian engineers had been tinkering and caused $500,000 recalibration work.

Our Egyptian engineers were very proud and I couldn't tell them what to do - if I did it didn't get done. So I adopted a techique where we would have a morning meeting to discuss what needed to be done that day and hopefully someone would volunteer to do each task. Now my favourite bug bear was getting them to do the base calibration tests which were due once a month. One day I had a volunteer for this which was a result. Unfortunately when I got back in the afternoon from visiting clients they proudly announced the tests were complete. When I asked how they had been conducted they told me they put the designated signal into the amplifier and adjusted the board until the 3/4 LED lit. I was astounded as they should have monitored the output on a 'scope! At a bit of a loss I said we would get the equipment and then base spares and compare the levels. Low and behold they had done them all. I simply packed it up and sent it back to Holwood so it was out of commission for 6 weeks.

Other industries had their own stories to tell. Higgs and Hill, a construction company reported they had closed the site because of a death. A delivery truck had finished unloading but the driver (union issues prevented them from helping) couldn't be found, even after someone honked the horn. When that didn't work someone got in the driving seat to move it out the way, only to run over the driver who had been sleeping under the rear wheel.

One of my first tasks to do in Egypt was to recruit a new engineer because we had two ex-pats in country. I devised a simply test to measure the candidates' skills. After three days the only person who had an acceptable score was a university post-graduate. When I asked why he wanted the job he told me he had a fight with another member of staff. Not a particularly good candidate for the stressfull work on a rig. In the end I manage to persuade the employment department we shouldn't need another engineer as the only reason I was in country was because we were training the base manager (a local) at Holwood. I'm sure this was only the base manager empire building.

When my father came to visit at Christmas he wasn't very well. But enjoyed himself on the balcony watching all the labourers scampering around the wooden scaffolding in their sandals and dishdash.

Flights

We got to know the crew on the British Air Ferries well as we travelled so often. We were talking to one of the stewards on a flight from Waha to Tripoli when our attention was drawn to the galley. One of the locals had his primus stove lit with a pot of hot water on. He was only making tea as they do by the side of the road. After he put it out we showed him the water heater.

When I flew to Cairo for the first time it was quite late but there was nobody there to meet me. I took a taxi to the seismic transit flat and woke somebody up to pay the driver - I was lucky someone was there at the time. I got a lift to the office in the morning where I was told they were expecting me a week later.

I picked my wife up at the airport a few weeks later. I couldn't believe what people took on the plane - one passenger came out with a washing machine!

Health

As I said earlier Schlumberger tend to spend up to 5 day surveying at a time. But I heard of one guy taken out on a stretcher in Saudi after 6 weeks almost continuous work. Why do they do it? Well I've heard of more than a few who are set up for life having done 4-5 years with them. Many come back and buy a house outright.

Although we had some good times in Tripoli there were downsides. Often food was scarce and our only protein came from eggs. If a ship had berthed the shops would be full of goods one day, but a couple of days later the cupboard was bare again. I struggled to spend our living allowance - and it was only 2 dinars a day.

On my last trip to Gialo we were again short of staff and I went to do one job on my own - which wasn't too onerous as it was only about 30 kms SE of base. The inexperienced Schlumberger guy ran into problems and had to remake his loom a few times. As a result we over-ran and another job came up. The Oasis geologists were desperate to get it done and so helped me transfer our gear to the second rig. We ended up doing both jobs back-to-back with me doing a 40 hour stint.

One of the crews in Egypt were a shallow marine crew, who used hovercraft and dynamite in their surveys, until one day the engineer got his sequence out of step and blew up the hovercraft.

I recall that the guys at Holwood were advised not to go to the accounts office with tattered jeans. The women objected to their bits hanging out the holes created by battery acid.

Contracts

At the time the standard contract in the oil industry was four weeks on and four weeks off. I recall the seismic crews in Libya were on 10 weeks on and 4 weeks off. We in the Well Survey division were on 3 months on and one month off.

I came across one rig, in Libya were working two weeks on and two weeks off. This showed in efficiency as two rigs in different concessions started drilling a couple of weeks apart and drilling to roughly the same depth. The one working two weekly patterns took a couple of months longer to drill to base rock!

Authorities

On my first tour I decided to grow a beard for the first time. Not having had one before I didn't know what to do with it and so just let it grow. By the time I completed my first tour it was bushy and unmanicured - I looked like a terrorist, especially after I had an accident during an apres ski binge and got a black eye. The Italian border guard didn't think I looked much like my passport, but I just smiled and he passed me through. I'm not sure that would work now.

On another tour (to Libya) I smuggled in a dirty mag and bottle of whisky by putting them in the bottom of a deep hold-all under a copy of The Sun turned to page 3 placed on top. The guy at security was happy to confiscate the paper and routed down until he came across a squash ball I was bringing in for a friend. He didn't know what it was. (I was lucky I wasn't bringing in hop extract for the beer - the guy who did that was asked to drink it when he claimed it was a health drink)! I also made the mistake of coming back on Revolution Day when security was particularly tight.

I survived 4 tours of Libya without getting in any trouble with the authorities but others weren't so lucky. Shortly after I left our villa was raided by the religious police. Obviously, they found our beer in the shower and duly arrested the whole team. I heard they were imprisoned, had their heads shaved and subsequently deported.

In Egypt I did an off-shore survey going out of the free port, Port Said. I didn't think this was anything unusual and simply went about my business as usual. Unfortuntely, after a weekend trip abroad I was told I should have re-registered with the police when I came back as effectively Port Said was like leaving the country. I left to Mohamed, our fixer to sort it all out.

Elsewhere

As I said I worked out of the Holwood between assignments. I generally took a packed bag and passport in to work as we could be called out at short notice.

On a 5 day trip to Sudan we had to carry a fully loaded 2000 psi cylinder with us. Going through Frankfurt was easy - the Germans seemed to cope well if the paperwork was in order. But it was a bit more problematic in Khartoum when we were transferred to rig on a small charter aircraft. In the end the only way the pilot would carry the gas cylinder was to have it pointing backwards in case the nozzle broke off.

Our trip to Angola was a bit more adventurous. Firstly we had a medical before we went offshore in case of measels. The population had no resistance to it and it was still a killer. Then it was the only rig we came across that had alcohol. Once a week they would have a BBQ and bring out the wine. But one guy had a bottle of pernod which we managed to knock back in his room. The following day I found myself hanging from the rigging trying to fix an aerial for our offset survey as the boat pulled away from the barge. I had to lie down in the canteen for a couple of hours after that. Then when we'd finished the survey we found ourselves back in Luanda for 10 days waiting for a flight. The staff were French and most flights were booked during there summer holiday.

My initial trips off-shore Great Yarmouth were by supply boat. We found ourselves hanging from a cradle dangling over the sea as we transferred from boat to rig and vice versa. By the time I left SSL this had been banned on health and safety grounds and we were transferred by helicopter. Funnily enough I never went on the mandatory survival course.