A couple of times I’ve been held up at gunpoint on my travels. One was for the simple reason I’d taken my shirt off. Baghdad. You know, stripped off to the waist. And apparently that’s an insult to the women. This was the first time I’d been. And obviously I wasn’t aware of the situation and the rules and regulations. So I’d go marching across to see if my paperwork was done. Cos you’re parked up longside of the desert and at the other side was all the customs area. And course i’d stripped off. I thought ‘It’s warm!’ And I’m talking warm where it was 136 in the shade. Which is hot! So I never thought nowt about it. Goes across and as i approach the entrance to the compound the guard jumped out with his rifle and I thought what the hell?! Luckily there was a Dutch fellah following us and he says ‘Englishman I think you’d better go back and put your shirt on. That’s the problem.’ And he explained it was an insult to the women.

Another time was when I was held up for speeding in Bulgaria. That was a harrowing experience cos i thought ‘Oh no, what have I done?’ Never dreamt it would be something to do with speeding. That was cos I’d got no Bulgarian Lev. And I thought the only thing I can do is stop another Brit going through and see if he’ll swap, you know, German marks for Lev. Cos the Bulgarian wouldn’t accept German marks. He wanted his own currency. So this eventually happened and when i actually swapped the money and gave the guy this money he’s a big smile across his face and nodded like, as much to say, ‘I’ve got you.’ And I thought ‘Well you shouldn’t be doing the job if you can’t handle this pressure.’

And then there’s times when I’ve gone into Turkey from the top first border. The actual driving time to your first major stop was five hours. I got stopped seven times in five hours. ‘Falous. Falous.’ Which is money in any language.