My first trip to London was as a document
Courier.
What do you do in London when you are propositioned by a stranger?
I was waiting nervously in reception for someone to escort me up to a conference room, although the reception area was not very busy with comings and goings I was having difficulty picking out who my escort was, then, I made eye contact with someone heading my way. He was in his mid-fifties, give or take, wearing an expensive smart dark business suit walking purposefully almost military like in my direction, I stood up to meet him as equals, like we were taught at business school.
He introduced himself as "Lieutenant Commander Craig Davidson, the customer's NATO representative at the Foreign Office, but please call me Craig as I am now retired."
I introduced myself, who I worked for and that I was to submit and get certified my company's proposal for a submarine defence project in the Philippines.
I had no business cards as I was an eleventh hour substitute, the Naval Bid Manager had handed in his notice and my friend Hamish had recommended me to our Marketing Manager to courier our bid to the client. Which I subsequently volunteered for, to hand deliver a tender to the NATO Clearance Offices run by the Foreign Office. Sweetener was I would have four days to myself in London on expenses that was the selling point.
This would be my first trip to London and I was looking forward to seeing in person if what they said about London's night life and fleshpots are correct. Basically all I had to do was hand deliver our tender and witness it being uploaded into a digitised NATO tender correspondence library and review system. Two days later it would either be accepted into their full review process or handed back to me to take back to my company; simple.
For two days I could do what I liked in London then get the return rail sleeper on Sunday night and straight back into work on Monday morning. Although I couldn't plan anything for the first day as I didn't know how long the certification processes would take, but I had planned out the next two days with the last day being a free day in case I had to pick up our rejected proposal. This was unusual for a NATO project but the Philippine Navy had insisted on this being part of the tender process.
Craig led me upstairs outlining the process, we had to individually certify two hundred and fifty two pages of documents by initialing each page then they were to be scanned into a document digitizing reader library and the legal document package sealed. The digitised working versions would then to be uploaded from a flash drive and verified.
Apart from the initialing process which was slow it all went very quickly and the scanned documents were certified against the digitised version then electronically segregated into review and assessment disciplines for specialist reviewer's to comment on. There were a number of proposals being scanned and checked for this project and we had to wait until all the proposals were in the system.
This process was not expected to be completed until about 14.00 hours then we would be allowed to leave and my expedition in London could get underway, until then we were on in-building call. Craig suggested as I had to be escorted we to go to the refractory for a late breakfast, which I needed as I only had a coffee and a pastry for breakfast five hours ago.
As we chatted over our late breakfast, at that time I didn't realise it, Craig was effectively interrogating me, all part of the review process was I who I said I was. Spooks at work.
He started off by sharing his background, private residential school in Winchester, his father and mother were Diplomats living in Thailand at the time, officer training at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, submariner in the Royal Navy, NATO Naval attachΓ© in Thailand and Philippine's transferring to the Foreign Office in London then retirement to the family pile in Devon (
I didn't know what that meant but didn't like asking
), now an ad hoc consultant to the Foreign Office Overseas Trade Delegation.
My background was more mundane, state school, college, father an electrician mother a school auxiliary, now in my second year working as a business administrator and volunteered to deliver the proposal. We then drifted off onto our private lives, I was glad Craig took the lead as I wouldn't know where to start. Not married, other than to the Navy, no current relationships, traveled all over the world many times, worked in some unusual places in some cases doing unorthodox things for and with interesting people.
By contrast I was boring, lived with my parents went to college, after qualifying moved to the big city to work for a defence contractor, lived in a house share arrangement with three other guys, Jim, Mike and Alex. Jim and Mike were a few years older than me, gay and an item and they didn't care who knew, Alex was the same age as me, a computer programmer in the same company and total geek who didn't really live on this planet. This was my first trip to London and I was going to explore London life, visit a few interesting tourist places museums and night clubs that I had been told about.
Turned out Craig and I did have two things in common we were both wargamers with a preference for Roman battle gaming. Although there was a Roman era wargaming talk on in the Imperial War Museum on Friday afternoon I couldn't get tickets at short notice. Craig said he had some family connections with the IWM and could try and get us tickets.
Entheausticly I said; "Yes that would be great."
We were also booked into the same Kensington Close Holiday Inn hotel for the weekend and when he comes up to London for one of these tender review jobs he usually stays up for the weekend, as it was on expenses. He offered to show me how to get to the hotel, although I had already worked out a route on my travel idiot cards.
I replied; "Ok that would be great."
On schedule after the tender formal opening we were told that we could go and would be contacted in 48 hours to confirm if our tender's had been accepted for full review or to be collected. You had to collect it or your company would not be prequalified for future tendering opportunities; important point.
We both left together trailing out wheelie suitcases behind us trying not to collide with anyone as we walked the length of Kensington High Street, Craig pointing out where various wealthy and Diplomats lived. You could also tell from the security screens on their apartment windows. The trek took us about forty minutes due to the crowds it was also a hot sunny day and my case was feeling heaver with each step.