It’s decided by the powers that be at ABC that the best way for us to get to Egypt is to drive. So Swee takes us through the West Bank to the border and hands us over to his Egyptian opposite number.
Just walking through the customs office, from Israel to Egypt gives you a good indication of the immense difference between the two nations. The Israeli side is all neat and efficient, while the Egyptian custom hall is very run down and filthy.
The drive from the Egyptian border to Cairo is extraordinary. The journey which takes in the Suez Canal is mostly through uninhabited desert. Occasionally you see figures just sitting gazing out into the desert; this is real poverty, these people have nothing, and seem to live in shelters made of rushes and palm leaves. If this sounds very Old Testament that’s exactly what it looks like. We pass through a town so badly flooded that the main roads are unpassable, our driver has to wind through the back streets to get through.
One strange element of the journey is that at regular intervals an army escort attaches itself to us, only to hand us on to another at one of the interminable check points. I put the soundtrack to Cry Baby (John Waters’ movie) on the cassette player, all Doo-wop and Rock ‘N’ Roll, it provides a ludicrous musical backdrop.
On the journey we stop to film a wonderful sunset going down over the rolling sand dunes. This tends to over-excite our army escort. Nonetheless, they permit it, but get even more excited as we wander out into the desert as Doug gets the perfect angle. I’m wondering if it’s possible certain areas of the desert could be mined. There are signs everywhere in many languages telling you not to venture into the desert.
The Suez Canal is strange, at first sight it looks like ships are gliding through the desert. Where we cross there is no bridge (are there any?) just an old barge that trundles to and fro.
Finally, after about 12 hours we reach Cairo which was quite as I imagined it. Full of traffic, people, crumbling buildings and let’s not forget the dead cats.
We stay at the Ramses Hilton a huge monolithic building in the city centre. Once again this provides a schizophrenic view of the world, with one minute the Preen/Vogt camera team at work in the depths of poverty only to return in a matter of minutes to the strangely clinical luxury of a five-star hotel.
That evening we meet David Doss another of our long line of fearless producers. A good bloke, totally driven and manic but funny with it. Seems keen to take the piss out of Preen at any given moment. My God a septic with a sense of humour or should I say humor.
A story occurs to me that illustrates very well the enormous difference between Americans and everyone else, or maybe I should say New Yorkers and the rest of the world. We are in a cab, and we need to get somewhere fast, so David asks the driver how long it will take. The driver says it will take half an hour, it actually takes forty minutes, at which the driver is not unpleased. But as David points out, in New York half an hour means twenty minutes, tops.
The following day we meet our director Jack Gallivan and our glamorous correspondent Diane Sawyer; $1.7 million a year and married to Mike Nichols, as David said: “High profile, or what?” I love American jargon……if you are leaving you are no longer outa here you are Vapour. If someone erupts in anger, they go Ballistic, and if the situation gets out of control you reach Meltdown.
We now climb into the sausage factory that is news, a round of interviews, stand-ups, vox pops and the like. The centre of this story is an interview with the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak. This takes place in his sumptuous palace, he obviously fancies the glamorous Diane, but the result is quite a dull interview. One interesting fact is that he predicts the war will be over in under a month. This is on 29th Jan and so quite a while before the ground war started, and while most of us thought this ridiculously optimistic, he was just about right.
One advantage of being here in war time is there are no tourists, so when we do a stand up at the Pyramids there’s no one else there. Although there are many things about Cairo I disliked, the filth and the grinding poverty, it was marvellous to see the Sphinx and the Pyramids. On a clear they were visible from our hotel.
We filmed in the Souks and the Cafés, which reminds me of Jack our director. He was great, always in a good mood, joking and appalled by the sight of the ever-present dead cats, which became something of a standing joke. At one point we’re filming in a Café, when a particularly vile feline darts between Doug’s legs, this cat obviously doesn’t have long for this world, and I just happen to catch Jack’s eye, we both dissolve into fits of laughter.
The following day we interview the late President Sadat’s wife. She is very much the first lady, positively regal. The interview takes place in her house on the banks of the Nile. It’s a beautiful old town house, full of antiques and artefacts from around the world. My only problem, where to pin the microphone on her ample bosom.
Two more stand ups with Diane, one with crowds of on-looking locals in a Souk, and the other at the march-past stand where Sadat was assassinated. The team then flew back to the States to edit the piece. When I finally got to see it, it was excellent, very stylish.
When you set up an interview someone (quite often me) has to ‘sit in’ to see if the lighting and shot are good. On this trip I sat in for King Hussein, Anwar Sadat and latterly Mubarak. I tell you I’ve sat in for the best of ‘em.
Who’s next up I hear you cry, if you’re still with me. It’s the ‘I’ Team, the Investigative Team. The story was to do with them is Saddam allegedly hiding planes in The Sudan, and we interviewed some Sudanese generals to this effect. The ‘I’ Team’s major contribution to all this was to leave their tapes in Cairo, having left for London.
There’s no doubt that this job has its moments, and I’m certainly now addicted to news, but one of the downsides is not knowing from one day to the next what you’re doing. Having finished with the ‘I’ Team, in the space of two days, four airline tickets are bought for us, and we learn it’s time for us to go home. The date is 3.2.91. I have mixed feelings about this as I’m loath to give up the story, but I’m also exhausted. Perhaps one element of these few weeks that I haven’t conveyed is the extraordinary hours involved, but as someone telling you how hard they work is about the most tedious thing on earth, you’ll be spared that.
So, it’s home to a snowbound London, two days off and then back to bureau duty at ABC. Four days of this and it’s Sunday night, 10th February. I’m just about to leave work when it is suggested I might like to go to Jordan again. Well, you gotta go right? Next day I’m off with a new cameraman, Ron Dean, to the place where all this started.
It certainly wasn’t as intimidating this time. I felt much more confident about the work I had to do, and I knew the location, but the ground war was days away. Ron turned out to be another great partner, my immaculate cameraman, never a hair out of place!
We are back with David, Jack and Diane of Prime Time and our first day sees us in a Palestinian refugee camp. They don’t like us much. We get spat on at regular intervals and get potatoes and rocks lobbed at us. Diane, being blonde and blue eyed, gets lashings of gob, but she’s a game girl and takes it on the chin. (literally) It all reminds me of them punx in 1976.
At one point on old lady rushes up to Diane and tries to strangle her, Ron gets the shot and of course it makes air. We’ve outstayed our welcome and it’s time to go. Back in the car we’re blocked in by the crowds when this extraordinary character looking like an Old Testament Prophet starts beating on our car with his shepherd’s crook. We’re vapour.
The next day starts early with an army escort to Mount Nebo. This overlooks the Jordan valley, the Dead Sea and The West Bank. It’s impossibly beautiful and impossibly windy; we just about manage a stand up with Diane.
Then it’s on to meet the Queen! The core of this story is once again an interview with my old mate the King of Jordan. On this occasion the Queen is involved who happens to be a rather glam six foot American. We need a picture of the King and Queen together but this is tricky as she towers over him which will never do. So we have a shot of them on the stairs with him placed strategically behind her so they look the same height.
Like all Queens she does charitable work, and we go and visit a farm that she takes an interest in. The next part of the plot is for me and Ron to travel in the back of her Jeep with herself driving and Diane interviewing in the passenger seat. I am meant to wire them both up, but there’s no time so I bundle in with my boom mike and do the best I can, which produces some fairly hilarious results that are captured for ever on video.
At one point my mike can be seen snaking towards the Queen only to retreat then nip back and whack her on the head. I’ve never whacked a Queen before; well, I would say that wouldn’t I?
The King mumbles through his interview and we do a stand up at the Roman steps. The next night Prime Time is live Live LIVE out of Jordan and unknown to him, Jim’s war is about to wind down.
We spend another six days in Jordan, but the story has moved, and we are back to London, though not before we’re told we might go to Damascus just as we are leaving for the airport.
Once again, it’s a funny time to leave, just as the ground war is happening, but it is all out of my control, just like everything else in the last month. Well, that’s it, my adventures in the war trade. In a short space of time, I’ve learned to love this news game, but no more wars please. I wonder.
*The author clearly had no idea what was brewing in Bosnia, but that’s for another time.
A Little London Life 