|
My late older brother Owen was also in Iran when the revolution kicked off - he worked building oil installations (after leaving the sea and shipyard work), it didn't help his unlucky reputation, when after hastily exiting Iran in '79, fleeing the Revolution - he started working in Iraq (around Basrah), Saddam then put paid to that job in 1980 when he started the Iran-Iraq war towards the end of 1980.
What sealed his growing inauspicious reputation was when he was working at one of the refineries near Benghazi in Libya - the date being 1986, when the US bombed Libya (including some Military installations around Benghazi) - he and many of his workmates were rounded up (and beaten up), jailed in a compound before being extradited.....
His 'Jonah' reputation was sealed in the Oil and Gas industry, and he went back to much safer shipbuilding and repair work back home. He variously had the nickname 'Jonah' or 'Demolition Dick' to his mates in the industry, because of the chaos and war that always seemed to occur wherever he was in the world!
__________________
“Sailors, with their built in sense of order, service and discipline, should really be running the world.”
Nicholas Monsarrat
|