In 1970, with the Nigerian civil war coming to an end, the partners in the Nigeria Petroleum Refining Company (NPRC) — a joint venture between the Nigerian government, Shell and BP — began working on plans to reopen the company’s Port Harcourt Refinery, which was shut for the two-year duration of the war. As part of its recommissioning, BP was responsible for seconding appropriate expertise to what was still a potentially dangerous place to be.
Ray King and Keith Balaam were young graduates in 1970 when they first met through their work for the refinery. Ray had spent 14 months in Aden Refinery before his secondment to Port Harcourt as a Process Operator and Keith had joined Refineries Staff Administration in Britannic House in London after 6 months’ computer programming in the personnel data centre.
They lost contact after the posting, but met by chance 20 years’ later and have been in touch ever since. Now, over 50 years after their first meeting, Keith has recorded his, Ray’s and Ray’s wife Julie’s reminiscences of the difficulties — and oddities — of life in what was one of the most challenging of BP’s assignments.
“Aden wasn’t exactly an easy assignment”, Ray recollects, “but Port Harcourt was altogether a more challenging and dangerous experience. Initially, we lived in the Presidential Hotel in Port Harcourt and were not allowed outside other than when transported to and from the refinery. Water from the hotel swimming pool was often taken in buckets to flush toilets. Obviously, it was a bachelor posting initially, as neither partners nor families were allowed.”
At the same time, notes Keith “there I was sitting in my comfortable office in London and trying to use whatever persuasive powers I possessed to encourage staff to accept a secondment there. The operational resourcing was largely from the UK’s four refineries: Belfast, Grangemouth, Kent and Llandarcy, as it was many years before BP had developed an international resourcing model. It is quite likely that the £6 per day danger money (a lot of money back then) and relatively generous leave arrangements were the incentive rather than anything to do with my influencing skills!”
Ray: “There were some fantastic characters there, although the circumstances didn’t suit everyone. The mix of people, though, made what could have been a potentially unsafe and difficult situation almost enjoyable. We had an improvised bar, which offered a natural meeting place after work. Our food was scarce, basic and occasionally quite ropey. Haute cuisine it certainly wasn’t! The part of the job I really enjoyed was my involvement in training and mentoring the local Nigerian staff who were so enthusiastic and keen to learn.”
Meeting up
Keith: “David Howard, my manager in London had briefed me about each of the small number of secondees out there, which included four young graduates, one of whom was Ray. He had alerted me to the fact that Ray was a young man with attitude, which had prompted my interest.”
Ray: “I held a very low opinion of people back in London and particularly anyone in Staff Administration.”
Keith: “In those early years the BP culture was probably more like the Civil Service, given that until 1979 the Government held a majority shareholding in the Company. The terminology ‘Staff Administration’ also conveyed quite a formal military bearing to proceedings, so it was a breath of fresh air when the word ‘Personnel’ entered the vocabulary. It seemed so modern!”
Ray: “I called in to see Keith on my first leave back in the UK. To my surprise we hit it off. We both shared a passion for sport, particularly football and cricket as well as a love of music. On a couple of subsequent visits, he enlisted me to play for one of the BP football teams at Sydenham. He turned out to be an important and supportive contact for all of us in Nigeria.”
Keith: “It is easy to forget how primitive communications were at that time. Memos, letters and telexes were the only way to keep in touch.”
Ray: “There was one telephone and that was at the refinery, but only for emergencies. Most of the time it didn’t work.”
Keith: “On occasions it was necessary to send totally confidential telexes, which meant using BP’s answer to the Enigma code — but possibly not so difficult to crack! It involved two concentric circles of random letters around each perimeter, so that by aligning one letter on the outer ring with another on the inner ring you could essentially set the code.”
Moving in
In October 1970, Ray married Julie, who was later to join him in Port Harcourt when it became an accompanied posting.
“The civil war had been dreadful”, recollects Julie. “Those seconded to NPRC were very hungry — even starving — living on dried eggs in the Presidential Hotel, without running water, whilst trying to help mothers with starving babies. Ray had been sent home to recover from many skin abscesses and was so thin I didn’t recognise him at the airport.
“Later, when the Biafran war seemed to be coming to an end, Ray booked a telephone call… and said: ‘Why don’t we get married on my next long leave and you can come and share this hell with me.’ He had chosen Nigeria rather than Poland or Northern Ireland because he hoped the danger money would provide enough savings for a deposit on a house.”
Ray: “After several months we moved out of the Presidential Hotel into a compound, and, for my last year, families were allowed, so my new wife Julie joined me. By this time things had improved sufficiently that we even had thriving cricket and football teams. There must have been nearly 40 secondees when I left after my 3 years.”
Julie: “I joined Ray in February 1971 having put a new Ford Escort (such a luxury) onto a ship at Northfleet. The flight from Lagos to Port Harcourt offered great views of the jungle from the wide gaps in the tiny aircraft’s metal plates beneath our feet.
“I had to learn to live with 2 men! Ray (on shift) and our cook/steward Solomon, who had been a captain in the Biafran army during the civil war and was a super cook. He had served Queen Elizabeth at a garden party in Lagos and thought we were very lucky to have him, which we were, as he had few ingredients at his disposal.
“Shopping was a frustrating adventure, particularly for those with young children, as it involved foraging the most unlikely war-damaged buildings for anything. There was a commissary within Umukoroshe [site of the staff quarters] with bread, sometimes milk, condiments and very little else. Anyone spotting a case of pickled onions or Heinz salad cream, no matter the cost, would buy the lot and bring it back to share. [And] NPRC allowed wives to use a minibus once a week to search for food.
“There were no books, clothing, shoes, telephone, TV, post, newspaper — only the BBC World Service. Listening to Stan Smith winning Wimbledon was enthralling.
“Umukoroshe was also the home to Shell and NPRC staff with a large sports and social club, swimming pool, golf course, food! And — most popular — a bar.”
Beyond foraging, life could be interesting, too. Julie remembers “one memorable time was when Nigeria changed to driving on the other side of the road, beginning 1 April. There were practice days — left side on main roads and right side on dirt roads. I once came bonnet-to-bonnet with an irate Dutchman driving around a large roundabout when leaving Umokoroshe (he had been out on the one tarmac road when it was a practice day) and he was waving both fists at me!
“One night we were burgled. Ray’s tape recorder was taken, including his favourite Hank Williams tape. The only evidence was some distinctive patterned boot prints in a patch of dust. A cheerful, tubby policeman came with a notebook and pencil and stood by the door with the broken glass and asked a lot of questions. The policeman left identical footprints in the dust and the crime remained unsolved…
“NPRC took its football team to the villages where the Nigerian teams played barefoot on sun-baked earth. Sometimes by helicopter, when there were no roads, and sometimes by minibus, when families went too. We were made very welcome, given benches to sit on and sometimes palm wine (not recommended). The village children were fascinated by our pale skin, blonde and long hair, stroking us like pets throughout.”
Moving on
Keith: “I lost touch with Ray as we both went our separate ways in BP. His career continued with lots of international assignments. During my secondment to ADMA-Opco in Abu Dhabi with my family, I met up again with Ron Wiseman, NPRC Refinery Manager who was GM of ADGAS, along with a few of the process operators from NPRC, who were on Das Island.”
Ray: “I had left BP and was providing consultancy services to BP’s office in Muscat in about 1992 when I spotted Keith in the manager’s office. He was on a visit to the UAE and Oman.”
Keith: “It was quite a surprise to see him again and great to re-establish contact. [And] for over 25 years we have coincidentally lived near each other in Sevenoaks, so occasionally have met at local pubs. He seems to have enthusiastically come with me to watch the Hammers whilst I have endured watching his beloved Gills!”
Sadly, since helping to write this article, Ray’s health has deteriorated and he is now in a nursing home near Maidstone.
(For those who are interested in finding out more about this period in Nigeria’s history, Chimanda Ngozi Adichie’s book Half of a Yellow Sun captures the tragedy of the Biafran war.)
If anyone else has any memories of Port Harcourt (and photos) we would love to hear from you. Please get in contact via Elaine Bush (details on page 2).