It started in reception.
I was waiting on a lift. My driver was running late.
So I took in a map that is adjacent to the door. I’d taken
cursory glances at it before but never looked at the detail. The map is of Khobar.
It is several years old and – as a result – significantly out of date. I noted
that the Corniche was still a work in progress but that all the key roads were
present. Landmarks such as key hotels and the pepsi cola factory were all
marked.
So I looked at the junction close to Silver Tower; close to
where I work. And that is when I saw it.
The map contained line graphics of some of the key sites and
– sitting at Silver Tower – was a picture of a space shuttle attached to it’s
three fuel tanks.
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| Map |
I asked my driver about it but my question was lost in
translation somewhere.
And I forgot about it.
Except that, on occasion, something would stir it back to
the front of my mind. The slow dawning that the “Space Travel Agency” – a disappointingly
normal travel agent – that is still close to the cross roads may not have just
been an obscure name choice but be based on a landmark that has now gone.
Those countless occasions where I would wake with that Sarah
Brightman/Hot Gossip song as an incurable ear worm.
I have lost track of the number of taxi drivers I have asked
about this mythical space shuttle marked on the map.
No one could answer me.
But then I stumbled on something online. A photograph taken
of Silver Tower back in the mid noughties. In front of it was a sculpture. A
sculpture of a space shuttle.
I was excited.
Before I go on, I need to provide some perspective. Some
background. I need to explain why I had this obsession with this detail on a
map.
As a kid, I loved the idea of space travel.
Didn’t we all?
I was brought up in an era of Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica,
Dr Who, Blakes 7 and Mork & Mindy. Space travel was in my blood. Popular culture
seemed to obsess with it. The moon landings and Apollo missions had created
this fervour for space. For the opportunity. It seemed that the Western World
had become utterly obsessed. Anything and everything looked for the space
angle. Even James Bond was going there.
Dr Who was a staple, but I was one of the millions that was
hooked and dragged uncomplaining into the Star Wars franchise. It was bigger.
It was bolder. The sets didn’t wobble as much. It always felt like I was like looking into the
future. A future where two powers both believing that they were right and the other wrong fought for supremacy.
Like the cold war.
In the days pre-video and before the films had had their UK
TV premier, I was lost in the books, magazines, sticker albums, merchandise and figurines that
allowed the re-enactment of the battles and key scenes. More. The lack of
exposure to the movie content, it all encouraged the use of imagination to
create new story lines, new epic battles and new chapters of my own each day.
I was a sucker for the space ships.
I “wowed” at the weaponry.
And Carrie Fisher made me feel funny inside… Even more than
Suzi Quatro or the blonde one from Abba did. Utterly smitten.
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| Suzi. The Blonde One. Carrie. |
Dressed in white with the silly hair ringlets, dressed for
the winter exploits in The Empire Strikes Back or – obviously – the bikini
scene in Return of the Jedi. I’d have done anything for her.
And then, in real world, came the Space Shuttle. The first
reusable space craft. It was new. It was sleek*. It was sexy**.
Back in 1981, my family foreshortened a holiday outing so
that we could get home in time to watch the Shuttle’s initial launch. We
gathered around a TV in the lounge of a small hotel in Uckfield in Sussex with
several other holidaying families to watch history being created. Looking back
at the footage today, it all seems a bit tame. A big lump of metal being
strapped to a load of inflammable material, pointed at the sky and someone
chucking a half smoked cigarette into the mix to create ignition.
In 1981, it was bloody magic. It tapped into all my
fantasies of travelling the universe with improbable space hardware and
weaponry saving planets and getting the girl. It felt as if all the Science
Fiction that I was buying in to really could be the future. Everything felt slightly
tangible.
Alongside my plastic Star Wars models, suddenly models of
the space shuttle were being introduced into the mix.
And, whilst my fascination with the shuttle and space travel
may have waned over the years, for a while I wanted to know everything about
the missions. Who was on them? What they were carrying? How the future was
being shaped.
But, back to Khobar. Khobar in 2015.
It got me thinking. Why would a statue/model of a space
shuttle be constructed in Khobar and – having gone to the trouble of doing so –
where is it now?
The “why?” answer is simple to find. Google and Wikipedia
quickly explain the cultural reference, so I won’t dwell on it. National pride.
In 1985, Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a Saudi
Arabian Air Force pilot and member of the Royal Family flew on STS-51-G. A real
life Saudi astronaut.
It also led me to references that show that the statue still
exists and that it has just been moved. Which led to me having an adventure to
relive part of my childhood, a few weeks ago.
It started on a Thursday evening as I wound down for the
weekend and got chatting with a friend – Marian – online. Aside general chit
chat and catch ups and Bugsy Malone, I explained that my plan for the weekend was
to go searching for the lost space shuttle. It was my mission to find it. Bless
her, Marian wouldn’t be drawn. Even when I started to explain that I was going
to dress as Han Solo to conduct my mission, she wouldn’t rise.
I guess she liked Luke Skywalker more.
On the Friday, the sun beat down and I couldn’t face the
walk the length of the Corniche from home to reach my goal. OK, the white shirt
could cope with the sun but my choice of a dark waistcoat, tight, tight black
military twill trousers with a red trim and black boots was not conducive to
the climate.
So I flagged a cab.
The cab driver was hairy. Not just the de rigour “taxi cab
beard”, but really, really hairy. Our communication was limited. The driver’s
English was not good and I found that our interactions became foreshortened,
direct and punctuated with gestures for directions. And guttural barks. Somehow
we grew to understand each other.
We reached our destination. A traffic island just behind the
main Corniche road. The space shuttle stands forlorn and slightly grubby
surrounded by Date Palms.
I instructed the cab driver to pull over and wait at the
roadside while I jumped out and snapped some photographs. Traffic was scarce.
The roads were deserted. But the cab driver was nervous. Twitchy. He feared what
would happen if the Police arrived and challenged me or him while I was
isolated in no man’s land. But I was mission bound; I oozed confidence. I
assured him that we wouldn’t hang around to be challenged. I knew that his
white Hyundi maybe old, maybe past it’s prime, may have a few scratches, dents
and war wounds but I knew that the crate could out run any other car on
Khobar’s roads that day. We were safe. Invincible.
Disappointingly plastic and weather beaten. Its logos are
faded and peeling. A plaque that presumably explained its significance has been
stolen leaving a sad looking semi-pillar of concrete as its lonely companion.
Pleased to find it, it seems a shame that the national pride that must have
influenced its commission has been allowed to fade and decay. But, still, the shuttle is there. Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud's achievements are still remembered.
Out of the way, but not out of mind.
Thankfully, my faith in the speed of the cab was never put
to the test and my taxi driver drove me back home without incident.
By chance, it was only when I returned home that I stumbled over the news
that Sarah Brightman's voyage into space to sing has been postponed… Hey. Such a shame... She deserves it...
Here is my ear worm...
Notes:
* OK. Not as sleek as the sports shoe shaped reality drive
craft described in Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but sleek none the less.
** Ditto
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