Year 2002 – Part III of the trilogy for the BDC

It was in the St John’s Wood hospital, The Wellington, that we decided, with the helpful suggestions from Susies doctor, Greenwood, to enter Hero, our 1955 Bentley Continental on the “Trial to the Nile’ rally, starting in Mainz Germay but with special arrangements to meet the rally proper in Ankara Turkey; a route of just over 5000 miles.

Susie had taken ill in mid December 2000 with Hemiplegia. Our world of motoring had come to an end, like switching off a superb engine, but she wanted our lifestyle back and we would work at it together in the 14 months left us before the rally start in April 2002.

We had made some serious journeys in our motoring history going back to 1990: a drive incorporating the fabled Silk Road in Central Asia was from London to Peking to Hong Kong celebrating the pioneering “Rally” of the  Peking to Paris rally of 1907. Then another overland journey crossing “London to Lhasa to Saigon”, in 1992.

These 2 motoring journeys, more than any other thing had changed our lives: we loved our lifestyle: a Stroke was not going to stand in our way.

We had a 1955 Bentley Continental, of many years standing, and a 1925 Lanchester 40 Hp tourer. The tourer had been bought in 1990 as something more  suitable for those  “pioneering roads” we now sought. Nostalgia was becoming firmly rooted as we saw a rapidly changing world destroying the thing we travelled for: somewhere different, less frenetic, an Arcadia, an escape, like reading a good book but moreso.

Our way of life over the previous 10 years had therefore been one of motoring somewhere for perhaps half the year, at 3 monthly intervals.

We left England for Turkey mid March: the rally route would not start for us until Ankara and thread its way across  to Syria, Jordan and into Egypt, up the Nile to Luxor and back to Alexandria from where the cars would be shipped home and the competitors would fly: we would drive back alone as Greenwood thought flying too risky for Susies condition for a while.

Motoring across beloved rural France, interspersed with sections of Autoroute to avoid cities, was pleasant, in fact it in itself was a holiday and a tonic for us both after nearly 3 months of hospitalisation and over a year of exercises to get Susies balance and walk back to a good degree of safety: those recurrent falls were now well in the past.

Our route was designed to be relaxing, stopping at Fere en Tardenois, Bourg en Bresse and then across the Alps into Italy, a ferry to Greece and a gentle eastern journey through Turkey.

The rains and cold of France gave way to the harbingers of summer as we popped out of the Frejus tunnel into the vivid light of Italy: we would stop firstly at Parma, followed by an easy run passing Rimini and south to the port of Ancona: a trifling 190 miles on the Italian and wonderfully named Autostrada: so redolent of the Roman Legions, perhaps, striding across Italy in the pursuit of conquest somewhere, as we now were.

Ancona has prospered with its Greek owned and crewed ferries particularly since all the civil wars in the former Jugoslavia: these ferries, in fact combined cruise ships, are both comfortable and punctual. We had better not be late for the evening sailing: they never wait even 1 minute which discipline I would like extended to airlines.This crossing was as much as I would like couped up in a cabin, i used to say to Susie, ” if we ever have to go on a Cruise just ask the captain to keel-haul me until we reach port”!
Exactly 16hrs 1 minute and we were docking! That’s the timetable and so it was the actual elapsed time of voyage! Absolute precision from two countries not ordinarily  known for punctuality!

The huge motorway running across the Pindus mountains direct to Istanbul was not yet announced, though rumoured during our last visit. We had seen vast swathes of tree covered mountain being blasted and bulldozed: was a collosal motorway really needed we wondered?

Inexorably the E U would plant it there along with the ugliest of bridges across the Gulf of Corinth and not only ruin the landscape forever but saddle the Greeks with monumental debts from which they would never recover.

But innocent of these incipient corruptions we disembarked dawn at Igoumenitsa and threaded our way north along the seafront of what is essentially a fishing harbour and swung east for Istanbul on the ancient route across the Pindus mountains.

The winding mountain road was slow and difficult when snagged by antiquated heavy lorries but the scenery made up for any aggravations, and one could stop for a viciously strong Greek (Turkish) coffee in a little taverna squashed between the roadside and the rockface.

We stayed the night at the Amalia hotel Kalambaka just east of the small town Meteora in the valley below the cluster of monasterys perched on precarious mountain fastnesses: good Italian Illy coffee here and incomparable Greek bread from the bakers along from the cafe in the town square: delicious.
The Amalia, always served tasty “lamp chops” or ” leg of lamp” served with a coarse rose wine: simply delicious, oh, and that fleshy coarse bread, so wholesome just two slices toasted with tea was a satisfactory breakfast.

Our next stop for the night was Alexandroupoli where the previous year I had washed the Lanchesters bonnet sides in the bath of the Park Hotel room following an oil leak from a disintegrated cork gasket on the rockerbox cover: I could not remove the huge tide mark from the plastic bath with soap and could only imagine what reputation the “dirty English” rightfully got from the chamber maids after we left!

We were nearing Istanbul and passed Siliviri, overnight home to the rally in 1990, our first motoring journey to Peking: made memorable by the handsome cad with 2 pretty women and a new black Lamborghini Cheetah: this magnificence of the road could cruise at 135mph and, better, romp deserts at 60mph! At Siliviri, it was abandoned as its V12 DOHC engine had prematurely sheered a camshaft wrecking the entire motor!

The Hilton hotel was our choice being just under the huge bridge over the Bospherous and on the Western side.

It was raining very heavily and after dinner I peered out onto a black filthy night with rain sheeting down, lit like a fireworks display by the sodium street lamps: I closed the curtains and set the alarm for 05:30.

My preoccupation was to be across that toll bridge before the heavy traffic started at 07:00 as Istanbul has the worst city traffic in Europe, exacerbated by seemingly all the inhabitants of the eastern side working in the western side and ,of course, vice-a-versa.

If only we had overslept that morning or that the alarm clock had failed!

It was still raining and being far too early for breakfast we packed the car in the comfortable underground garage and having paid our bill the night before were soon out and in the rain.

Following the road directions for Ankara we were quickly across the bridge and on the highway.

The rain was easing and I switched the wipers off when suddenly the back of the car was illuminated by headlights on full beam: a typical style of driving when one leaves Europe proper.

At a goodly speed that car was soon upon us: we were travelling in the middle lane of the superb new Otoyal (6 lane motorway), at 40mph.

There was a distinct but weak beep from the cars horn: I looked across and saw them all leering, if not jeering, at us: but suddenly the driver lost control and swerved across the front of the Bentley overcorrecting and swerving back he hit the Armco on the central reservation. Here the car turned over in the bounceback and slithered on its roof to come to a stop crashing against a rockface abutting the hard-shoulder! There was a brief diffused strawberry coloured flash from the engine area.

The Renault was now 100ft ahead upside down and stationary. I stopped and grasping my fire extinguisher from the boot ran down to the accident. Steam was slowly escaping from the upturned car.

The fire had extinguished itself, the battery was in the road and not a car was passing either direction.

Coming to the wrecked car I saw that all windows were smashed and people were inside and moving.
The doors were jammed so I pulled a woman from the front passenger seat through the smashed open window: she soaked me in blood as I wrestled to pull her free. After this I laid her on the hard shoulder and returned to the car: she was unconcious. Two young men were inside and moving about: l pulled them out in the same manner whereupon, once standing, they started to attack me verbally in Turkish. I gathered that they were blaming me for their accident! Strangely they were seemingly unconcerned about that woman unconscious now on the hard shoulder. Nobody else seemed to be in the car though I distinctly remember having seen a man driving!

An army lorry stopped on the other side of the motorway and an officer jumped over the barrier: he was soon on the handy(mobile) and police arrived very quickly.

Traffic was beginning to appear and dawn was up with the clouds clearing.  With the help of the army officer I told the story to the police of the events but the 2 boys were remonstrating and interrupting: the police asked the same questions and I repeated it three times: then I was free to go!

Phew, what a nightmare, I was shaking, cold and thirsty and with my blood stained clothing we pulled into the first service station to wash and change: binning my soiled clothes.

We both had water and a coffee and I was still shaking as I drove onwards to Ankara.

Some 20 miles along a police car was waiting with blue lights flashing and on seeing our Bentley jumped out signaling us to stop with a torch.
My heart was now pounding: he gestured for us to follow and presently we ducked under the motorway to return past the scene of the accident which had now been cleared up though a police marker had been left presumably to warn about oil on the road.

Shortly after we took another underpass and were off the motorway heading to Iznik.

This ancient town, replete with Ottoman Empire style architecture, stands on an idyllic lake surrounded by hills and is principally known for its fired glazed tile work and also for its woven silk carpets.

It was in the town square that the police car stopped in front of a carpet shop and getting out he went into it returning with a tall lean young man smoking a long cigarette. ” Oh, you HAVE been involved in a nasty accident”, he said pulling on the cigarette theatrically!

Just as I was about to ask how it concerned him and ask just how we were “involved” he introduced himself as interpreter for the police!
He hopped into the police car and we followed to their Station down by the lake.

We were shown into a small cramped office with piles of documents stacked on every level surface: here our statement must be prepared in Turkish and this is where our carpet salesman would assist.
I gave the story to the interpreter and a young policeman clattered away on an old typewriter with pre printed triple carbon copy whilst another stood in the open doorway a submachine gun across his chest!

When this lengthy repeating and cross referencing was completed the carpet man began, ” I love jour Benkley sportz” , ” I love car”, ” I had Bey-eM-Vay, very fassed, my father rich-mans,” I love Bey-eM-Vay, she not love me” and with this he pulled up his sleeve to reveal blanket stitching all the way up his arm, up his leg and then pulling his hair back revealed heavy stitching scars across his forehead and down his neck!

“My Papps very richmans” I want buy Benkley pleese” I parried these requests as all I wanted was to get going, get out of there. I had shown the police that my car was unscathed, I had stopped as a Samaritan etc.,but now I was worrying for Susie, who had wanted a quiet relaxing return to our normal life of motoring through pastoral landscapes. Now this! I must keep kool.

“Have you seen film, Midnight Express?” our carpet-man translator said. I said I’d never even heard of it to which he smiled, sucked on his cigarette and said, “just as well”; “I like jour Benkley”. “2 carburettor?”

I politely asked, as we had made a Statement, whether we could now go but that was not to be as the injured had been taken by ambulance to an hospital and they didn’t know to which one of the 27 in Istanbul! We had been pulled-in because we had not given a written Statement but this must now be filed alongside theirs!
So we would have to wait while they were located.

And as there was no waiting room and as these police did not know the seriousness of the accident we would be put into a cell! Our world became very, very dark indeed.

Susie, needing the toilet was assisted to it but it had no door, though the young armed police officer was gallant enough to put his back to her while waiting, precautions presumably in case she ran off!!

The police were benign but resolute, the interpreter was crazily civilised but obsessed by Benkley and unknown to me Susie was worrying for me whilst I was concerned for her as she was still receiving hospital treatment: tensions were high as we were shown to the cells.

A narrow corridor lined with about 4 steel doors painted battleship grey was just around the corner of the office we had left. The first door was unlocked and we stepped in followed by the door silently closing and the discreet sound of keys turning in a lock!

The cells were on the ground floor and light entered from a tiny window some 9ft above giving evidence to the thickness of the walls as one couldn’t see the pane. A peep-hole in the steel door was exercised from time to time: very disconcerting!

We looked at each other and both avoided any discussion about our immediate fate, about the accident or the interpreter, presumably to avoid accepting the unreal situation we were now in: the bed was a concrete block devoid of mattress or pillow, thankfully, but caked with dry vomit in parts: we stood in the middle of the floor and faced the door.

Time passes so quickly nowadays but 3 hours was an eternity and just when I was about to hammer on the door for a chair for Susie we heard voices and bustling: noisily the keys were thrust to the lock and the door opened. In stepped the policeman, the interpreter and a small bespectacled man in a brown 3 piece suit, a further policeman with his sub-machine-gun stood in the doorway, the same escort Susie had earlier.

The little man in the brown striped suit said, “Sir, I am a doctor and i have to measure your blood for alcohol”. We had discussed this likelihood earlier during the lulls whilst preparing the statement when Susie had reminded me that our first-aid kit contained both needles and a catheter: AIDS was a fashionable anxiety.

The Dr. asked whether I had been drinking to which I said that I had had 2 Efes beers with my dinner the previous night at the Hilton and I had my hotel bill in my pocket should he need evidence.
He looked into my eyes and said,”Sir, you are free to go”: ELATION, but subdued.

We walked out to a sunlit lake view and Hero, our magic carpet, waiting to whisk us away from this nightmare place.

Climbing into the car and closing the door I was aware that the interpreter was standing by my door: I wound the window down and said thank you and goodbye. He wouldn’t let us go that easily and forced us to follow him back to his carpet shop for a tea!

After 30 mins of drinking tea and eating glazed pink biscuits all the while parrying offers for Benkley and showing disdain for miniature silk carpets: despite their being woven by girls under 10 years of age and it taking them 2 full years! We were finally off and cruising to Ankara: FREEDOM!

A few police cars passed in either direction and caused an involuntary inversion of my long suffering heart!

Peter Noble

I couldn’t get into a red-tape mess at another police station: I mean they may have found the injured of the accident in one of those 27 Istanbuli hospitals and though I was absolutely innocent of any involvement my heart couldn’t take the anxiety of proving my innocence: never mind about Susie who was stoically enduring all this police activity.

Rummaging in my wallet for my license I extracted a US $50 note and poked this inside the folded speeding ticket I had just been given!
The officer standing in pouring rain took back the ticket I offered and opened it. He looked straight at me, I looked straight back at him. He saluted, grinning, and putting the $50 into his tunic pocket letting the speeding ticket flutter away on the wind. I want that, I gestured, for souvenir, which I didn’t but couldn’t leave it floating. He barked at the cadet who chased it on the wind in the filthiest bog and scrambling back up a slope presented it to me with two outstretched arms, his trousers covered in mud!

2 months later safely home having driven and almost retraced our outward journey, though we avoided that Iznik carpet shop, I began wondering about the film, “Midnight Express”!  That comment by the carpet-seller-translator, “just as well we hadn’t seen it”, now engendered curiosity!
We ordered it and after dinner we sat down to watch a true story involving the Turkish police and Turkish prisons.

I could not sleep for 2 nights!

I resolved again not to depart the safe, the civilised, the law abiding, the friendly and comfortable shores of England ever, ever again!

Making this resolution was obviously  easy as I’ve remade it many times since!