All Change

On the 1st of September, 1969, my work mates and I were leaving the airstrip in the middle of the desert on the Mobil DC-3. We were about 5 feet off the ground and slowly rising when a Jeep with mounted machine gun and Libyan troops came barreling down the runway towards us at speed. Fortunately we were able to climb out. When we arrived in Tripoli, we found that an unknown young Libyan army officer named Qaddafi had staged a coup against the King. Nothing was very clear. I was on my way home on field break. In the airport I quickly found how things had changed. The place was crawling with armed, scruffy teenage troops. They brusquely used their rifle butts to push you around as you visited the many checkpoints which had to be navigated in order to leave Tripoli.

There were two immediate results of the coup: the airport harassment, and essentially the complete cessation of all oilfield work. Perhaps the first 45-day rotation in-country was welcome as a relief from the preceding hectic work times, but the magic was gone. Now it was literally running the gauntlet of abusive and ill-disciplined young armed Libyan troops on the way in and out of the country. In time I grew to loathe all things Libyan. And being out in the desert, with nothing much to do became very, very boring. While Gaddafi may not have initially had a specific plan for the country, he shut down all oil-related activity effectively. There was no drilling, no repair of oil wells, no maintaining production. There were probably only 2 or 3 young engineers in the field, and we occupied ourselves by driving around, hunting for Neolithic arrowheads. Forced downtime!

It’s a little hard to remember how things were progressing on the home front, probably as a result of the deterioration of the Libyan situation. But during 1970 I believe I had acquired a relatively low-mileage silver MGB GT which was quite the contrast from my earlier wrecks. Unfortunately, about this time Liz’s father died at a young age. He was a very nice man.

Liz and I became engaged this year. This event was celebrated in the Terenure Inn and was memorable for the sight of my father and Mrs. Burke, Liz’s mother, chatting away about Dublin things like old pals. We were evidently planning on moving to Tripoli and setting up house there which, in retrospect, seems a little fantastical, not to mention mad!

It’s difficult to recall how the 18-day field breaks from Libya were spent, especially as Liz was by this stage an Aer Lingus air hostess on the Dublin to New York run. But no doubt we had lots to do.

One of my duties during 1970 was being Best Man for Kevin and Patricia Brady’s wedding in June.

I’ve known Kevin since I was 12. We’ve stayed in touch even though we’re oceans apart. But we always get together for dinner whenever I’m in Dublin. Both Kevin and Patricia are architects, and both are strongly opinionated, which makes them great company.

I don’t remember much about the wedding, and I don’t think it influenced us in any way, but we picked a day in September 1970 for our own wedding. I would have gone back to Tripoli around mid-July leaving a lot of the organizing to Liz and her mother In Libya, things were becoming even more unpredictable. For the longest time oil had been cartelized (by the international oil Majors, i.e., the biggest multi-national oil companies) so that the price producing countries got was around $3.50 a barrel.

Qaddafi led the OPEC producers to demand $12 a barrel and meanwhile all sorts of pressure was being put on the Majors by the Qadaffi regime to “encourage” them to agree, which of course they were reluctant to do. The big American airbase in Tripoli, Wheelus, was closed and the U.S. Air Force sent packing.

Also, the pressure started to be ratcheted up on the Italians, essentially forcing them to repatriate. Then, on September 1, 1970, the anniversary of the coup, Qaddafi cancelled the work permits of the expatriates that were due for renewal that month.

Unfortunately, that included me! Then the situation became Kafkaesque: I needed to leave, go home, and be married. To do so, I needed an exit permit. But they were throwing out so many Italians that there was no estimate of when I would get mine.

Also, the only place where international telephone calls could be made was from the Central Post Office, and it was full of desperate Italians whose whole life was being upended. Not that mine was very secure. To work I would need a work permit and it looked like getting one would not be possible, although to be fair, nobody really had any idea what was happening.

Eventually, I navigated the throng of Italians and managed to talk to Liz. With the chaos in Tripoli, it was evident I wasn’t going to make it home for a September wedding! The invitations had all been sent out and the other arrangements made. Things would have to be postponed. Mrs. Burke rightly said: “Never heard of such a thing. That fella never intended to get married”.

Stuck in damned Libya, the wedding postponed and job status uncertain.