Syria

I heard the Syrian town of Idlib mentioned on the news today, for the second time in a few weeks. Previously I'd not heard of the place for 50 years – but I was actually there, passing through, on my way to Jerusalem in 1961.

We were on a Lambretta 175 that had somehow got us overland from London, and went on to see us home too. We'd left the south east corner of Turkey and entered Syria and headed south and went towards Hama and Homs and on to Damascus. I was on the back with the map, my friend Colin was driving. We came to a junction and Colin asked “Which way?”. The junction was not on our map, so I decided that left headed broadly towards the desert, and the right headed broadly towards the sea, and that was the safer option.

Shortly we came to a small town and decided we needed a closer look at our map. We stopped and were, as usual, surrounded at once by a crowd of small children. After a while I looked up and said quietly to Colin “There are soldiers all round us”. And so there were, a ring of them, carrying their weapons. We folded our map and smiled as broadly as we knew how, and one of the soldiers came over and asked where we were heading. I said “Damascus”. He pointed the way we had come - “That way”. “But we've just come that way, it must be that way,” I said, pointing in the other direction. The soldier frowned. “Where is your pam?” he demanded. “What?” “Your pam! You must have pam!” He sounded belligerent. In one of those rare flashes of genius I have been known to have from time to time, I realised he was an Arab, and was mentally reading the word from right to left. He was asking for our map!

It was soon clear that we were off the map and off the road to Damascus. The guy who had first approached us then asked us to the café – we were on some kind of Army post. We were brought food and drink, and then the phone behind the counter rang. The man of the shop answered it, brought the phone over to us and said “It's for you”. “It can't be, no-one knows we're here!” But it was, it was the officer in charge who offered us accommodation for the night. All in all we were made incredibly welcome, fed, watered and accommodated at no charge, and in the morning after breakfast sent on our way with directions to Damascus.

On our way home from Jerusalem we stopped for about 3 weeks in Damascus and got to know the city quite well. Locals made friends in the café, helped us sort out our visas when we were in danger of overstaying, and were generally welcoming and hospitable. We loved the place.

And now I hear about the violence in that leafy historic City, where we walked down the Street Called Straight, which appears in the bible, among those friendly people. It is heart-breaking, utterly heart-breaking.