11. Hazardous Duty!

 

 Confessions of a Studio Rat

One mans journey through a world of recording studios and musicians in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s – without a net!

HAZARDOUS DUTY

BUDAPEST: There are times when travelling on business in a foreign country can be challenging. Coming home from Budapest, Hungary is one example. At the time, the Berlin Wall was still firmly in place, and many people were trying to defect to the West. In fact, the international airport at Budapest was regarded as one of the more popular portals to escape through, and there were military (seemingly teenagers) armed with automatic weapons everywhere.

I was travelling back to London with my friend Pete, having completed our work on the Locomotiv GT album. It had been a long, strange trip and we couldn’t wait to get home!

The passport I was using at the time had a picture of me that was taken at the one time in my life when I had permed hair; tight little curls, completely unlike the hair style I normally wore or was wearing then. I was a little concerned since it didn’t look like me at all. The Passport Control line filed slowly past the inspector in his little glass booth. The young inspector, armed with a machine gun, seemed to be having a problem reconciling my passport picture with the man standing in front of him. He called another inspector into the booth for an opinion, then another. At this point the passengers waiting to get to their flights was getting restless, however I had a plan that I (very stupidly) thought would ease the situation.

I had in my back pocket my previous passport which had expired, but contained my valid English residency visa, which I would need to show when I arrived in London. What the old passport also had was a picture of me sporting my usual non-curly haircut. Now I should point out that these law enforcement officials did not speak English. German was the second language spoken after Hungarian. I do not speak German. Despite not being able to explain what I was doing, I assumed that when the cops saw this older picture they would understand clearly it was me, and that would clear everything up.

However, from the officer’s viewpoint, what they saw was this suspicious traveller who could be a possible defector had suddenly brandished a second passport, one that was completely invalid, and seemed to be wanting to use that for passage. At this point the machine guns were raised and their entire manner towards me completely changed. The line of passengers was diverted to another inspection booth as a third inspector joined the others in their now very crowded booth.

All this time, my friend Pete was standing next to me watching the entire episode. What I did not know until that moment was that Pete spoke fluent German (thank God) and he started explaining my case to the suspicious guards. As Pete’s interjections became louder and more agitated, my blood pressure must have skyrocketed. I wondered what is was like in a Hungarian Gulag. I must have been a picture.

Well, after a few minutes of all this, the passport control officer simply looked up at me, slapped the passport closed and waved us through to airside. At this point, all I wanted was to find a bar, but there was no time, the plane was about to depart and we needed to run.


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