Mikes Stamp Collection (Part 3)

My Stamp Collection – Part 3

As we enter our fourth week of lockdown it seems like years and I hope that you will forgive me as I continue my meander through my passports.
The visa in my passport dated 18th December 1967 records the day when the family consisting of Hilda, the two girls and myself arrived in Paris having been transferred from Lusaka in Zambia. We were put up in the Hotel Regina a famous 5 Star Hotel located just opposite the Louvre on the Rue de Rivoli. As it was close to Christmas all the Mobil employees had disappeared off home to celebrate their Christmas and we were left alone at the Hotel to amuse ourselves. The skeleton staff still on duty were generous and laid on a Christmas Lunch for us consisting of Roast Duck and Sweets for the Children. We purchased a plastic Xmas tree and some decorations spending Christmas in the Hotel and walking the empty streets of Paris. We still have some of those decorations and they go onto the Christmas tree each year.
After New Year we moved into our villa at La Celle St Cloud and daily I commuted to Paris by train for about fourteen months when not travelling around Europe and the Mediterranean on company business. I even had my French Mistress, Madame Bertin, who was contracted from the ‘Alliance Francaise’ and who came to the Office once a week teach the expatriates employees the French language.
During my time in Paris I was responsible for helping to arrange several Sales Meetings. One in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, one in Istanbul and one at Cascais in Portugal. It was a tradition at the end of each meeting for one of the delegates to be asked to get up and thank the presenters for their efforts. At the Cascais meeting a big American based in South America was delegated to give the vote of thanks after three days of presentations by various experts in their fields from New York. He got up looked around slowly, shook his head and said in his American drawl ‘Same Circus – Different Clowns!’ and then sat down! Needless to say the chap was never seen or heard of again, I must admit I have often attended meetings but have never had the guts to give such a vote of thanks.
Still, all good things come to an end and after my stay in Paris I was transferred to be the Sales Director for Mobil Oil East Africa based in Addis Ababa. My visa for Ethiopia is dated 20th November 1968 issued in Paris and I arrived in Addis Ababa on the 4th January 1969 with the family after having spent Christmas in the United Kingdom. We settled into a villa quite close to the Golf Club and spent nearly two years in a completely different type of Africa to that experienced previously. Unlike the countries in Central Africa the Ethiopians had a historical and cultural background going back centuries to the time of ancient Egypt. Their Emperor Haile Selassie claimed to be related to the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon.
My job in Ethiopia was to develop Sales and I travelled many miles through a large and scenic and wild country. On one occasion I was introduced to Emperor Haile Selassie. My territory included the country of Yemen with the port of Aden, the islands, French and British, in the Indian Ocean. It also included the ‘Territoire Francais des Afars and Issas’ for which I have a stamp dated 12th, June 1969. This French territory is a better known as TFIA and is mainly the port of Djibouti as its capital situated at the entry into the Red Sea and garrisoned with French troops.  It was important to Mobil’s business in that many of our products were imported through Djibouti on by the railway that came to Addis Ababa.
It was whilst I was in Addis that I experienced the only time I was ever deported from a country. I had travelled to Mogadishu in Somalia to visit my Agent and on arrival at the Airport I presented my passport. I was immediately refused entry into Somalia because I had a Rhodesian stamp in my passport. I pointed out that the stamp was before the Rhodesian Declaration of Independence but to no avail and I was tainted and was on the next plane back to Addis Ababa.
When we lived in Ethiopia the country consisted of two regions Ethiopia and Eritrea and there were the same problems of wanting independence between the parties with country on the edge of revolution. Somehow, I never seemed to have been caught up in these problems and travelled around the country visiting all parts. It was just before the terrible drought that hit that part of the world resulting in the overthrow of Haile Selassie and the breakup of the country.
I was transferred to Nairobi in Kenya in March 1970 and lived in Nairobi where I was again Sales Manager with responsibility for sales in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. There was little travel in my passport other than around East Africa. The only stamp of significance is when I flew to New York on a PanAm inaugural flight from Nairobi to New York travelling first class as a VIP in March 71.
Two years later I was back in Zambia as the Managing Director of Mobil Oil Zambia based on the Copperbelt of Zambia just 40 miles from where my Mobil Expatriate adventure had begun. I have many stamps in the passport travelling to and from Kenya, Ethiopia, France but none for my business trips to London. After 2 years in Zambia I was Africanised, given a golden handshake by Mobil and in 1974 returned to the United Kingdom and settled in Bridge of Allan.
Little did I know that my perambulations around the world would continue when I joined Commercial Catering, My first trip out of Glasgow was to Lerwick in the Shetland Islands and at Glasgow Airport I saw a flight to Ben-becul-a. I wondered where it was as I remembered my flights to Ndola, Lusaka, Addis Ababa and thought it might be some holiday spot in Spain or Portugal. I was most embarrassed to find it was an island off the West Coast.

Mike