June 1977

In 1977 holidays to the luxury Seychelles in the Indian Ocean were affordable at £999.00 fully inclusive per person. To celebrate my 40th birthday I wanted to do it in style I had just been promoted and the lure of snorkeling in their beautiful seas with the most amazing coral and a huge variety of spectacular salt water fish with all the colours of the world on display was enough to tempt me to book a holiday at the Coral Strand Hotel. I was far from happy on arrival refusing to stay in a room which was scruffy and certainly did not match the brochure advert or the pictures so I asked for an upgrade ‘no chance’ they said they have no other accommodation available. I asked them to try to make a booking and a refund cheque to the hotel next door. We walked along the beach in the blazing heat sweating buckets complete with heavy suitcases to the fabulous 5 Star Fisherman’s Cove all paid for by courtesy of their neighbour The Coral Strand Hotel. Good PR! It pays to complain sometimes.

A few days after we had arrived in The Seychelles there was a real live shoot-out at the Airport. Supporters and bandits were attempting a coup d’état as they wanted a change of government for the Seychelles. Colonel Mad Mike Hoare led the attempted coup where 3 people were killed around the Airport. The bandits took to the mountains to await the outcome of the attempted coup. The first we knew about the incident was someone had said they had heard distant shooting. The police and army arrived at all of the beaches with armed gun-boats shouting through their loud halo speakers to all people to ‘get off the beaches’ for their own safety. The police and army also arrived at the hotel guns at the ready as they were apparently under the impression that one of the leading bandits a man called Wilson was staying at the hotel.

The police asked at Reception for the register of people staying and the only person with a name similar to Wilson was of course me Wiles! I got escorted to the room by three of these armed soldiers and questioned at length with the first question “Why have you come to the Seychelles” what a stupid question, for a holiday FFS! Whilst this is going on the room and suitcases are being searched nothing was found (apart from a selection of coloured vibrators) (liar-they weren’t invented in 1977) whatever they were looking for I do not know? The police and army over dramatized the situation by putting the fear of Christ into the staff by telling them that ‘Our country is at war’ so the entire staff including the Manager a Geordie bloke just buggered off and fled the hotel to go home to their families and loved ones leaving the residents to fend for themselves.
We were told under no circumstances could we to leave the hotel grounds nor to swim in the sea nor to go onto the beaches! The residents all held a meeting to decide ‘what to do?’ With mu hotel background I had great fun taking over the shared management of the hotel with a couple of other guests. We had to plan menus and organize the feeding of about 120 guests from the massive hotel reserve stocks of food. The fellow residents were really enjoying themselves seeming to gloat at being in the middle of a real life drama (just imagine if mobile phones had been invented) Being ex-Butlins I got the crowd going and organized audience participation fun and vulgarity game which went down particularly well with some of the VIP German guests of the Directors who were staying at the hotel. Four days later the country was reopened and the staff happily returned to their jobs with the holiday makers left to enjoy what was left of their holidays. On the return flight we were able to see the gun shots on the walls and ceilings (lousy shots) at the Seychelles Airport from the gunfight. A tremendous cheer went up in the plane as it lifted out of the Seychelles skies to be repeated at Heathrow with the worlds press waiting and poking their noses into what was really a non-event. But it was all good fun the most wonderful part of the whole holiday was the absolute breath-taking beautifully clean beaches. The snorkeling was amazing with the beautiful blue seas and blue matching cloudless skies made it an irresistible place to return.
Several weeks after returning home I was stunned when the management group who owned several hotels in the Seychelles contacted me to say they had heard about my efforts running their hotel ‘during their war’ whilst all the staff had buggered off, anyways they contacted to say ‘thank you’ also to say how impressed they were with the way the hotel operated during their so-called war crisis and then a stunning offer! I was asked if I would like to like to become General Manager of one of their hotels in the Seychelles! Wow, what an unbelievable offer but I already had a very good job the real drawback was that the job in the Seychelles was a single status position. I was also nursing a pretty precarious ‘marriage situation’ which was falling completely off the Rictar scale I decided not to take the coward’s way out and take a job a million miles away in this land of bliss, alas with regrets I reluctantly refused their wonderful offer deciding to ‘face the music’ instead. The 13 year marriage collapsed and I became a single parent to a real nice kid who for the first 10 years of his life was my greatest friend!

I did have a brilliant job but there are times in your life when you make an important and vital decision and once you have made that decision you immediately know you have made the wrong decision FFS and you will learn to regret it for ever and flecking ever and that was certainly one of my most major regrets FFS-FFS; Exit left wife number 3!! Read on!