Life in the Sandpit
A young man educated at Murton Boys Modern was now to embark on a life-changing adventure in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and experience Life in the Sandpit.
Life’s Journey
Born in 1946, in Murton, a mining village in County Durham, in the aftermath of WWII, Thomas was to find himself growing up in interesting times. Coming from a working-class family where his parents had struggled to make a good home in which to raise their children, he was to follow the same pattern in trying to make life a little easier for his own children. He experienced the educational system of the 1950s and ’60s with all the failings encompassed within it and suffered failure at the eleven, plus an examination that would determine his future education. A taste of what school life was during this era is expressed with concern and humor both with equal quantities, including the teaching styles and some of the characters he was to spend his school days with, which are told with affection.
As a child, life was good in his eyes, and he appreciated the efforts made by his parents to improve his childhood experience. In his early youth, he found himself having to constantly change course to achieve the goals he had set himself, and this continued throughout his adult life.
His desire to achieve good academic qualifications never faltered, despite some of the obstacles that seemed to be in the way of his progress. Married at an early age and while studying for his higher national diploma, he became a father to a beautiful baby girl, which now added to this cocktail of life.
Although at times life seemed a constant struggle, it was no different to many other young couples of that era, but there was always time for laughter and fun. Many of these times are reflected in the book and still bring a smile to both Thomas and his family and friends.
Life’s Journey: Love, Live and Learn is a story many young couples can relate to as they may have experienced the same types of issues in their own life’s journey.
LIFE AS A NORTH SEA TIGER AND BEYOND
Terry returned from Saudi Arabia in the May of 1978 after a year in the Kingdom, with a spring in his step and over flowing with enthusiasm, feeling that he could secure a job using the experience he had gained during his time in operations engineering in the Eastern Province of Saudi. Having cut his teeth in a demanding environment and coming out the other end full of ambition to move on in the Petroleum industry and how soon he was to discover it was not to be as easy as he first thought.
Experiencing an educational system of the 50’s and the inadequacies of that system made Terry realise at an early age that things don’t come simple and if you really want something then you had better be prepared to work hard to get it. Coming back from Saudi Arabia after soaking up so much experience in the petroleum industry he expected to walk into employment without any problems. When that was not the case, it was like another wakeup call and reasserted what Terry had previously experienced, that nothing comes without an inner drive from yourself to make it happen.
Originally his wife and himself had agreed that he would work in Saudi Arabia for two years but at the end of the first year and in the fifth week of his six weeks leave period after which Terry was supposed to return, they realised that neither relished the idea of being apart from each other and Terry being away from his family for another year. He was only too willing to agree that he needed to seek work nearer home and so the search began in July 1978.
After many interviews and rejected contracts he finally found his dream job in the North Sea Petroleum industry and his career takes off with an engineering construction company he remained with for over thirty years. The book tells of the projects and people he was engaged with including many adventures and events that transpired over the span of his career.
Reviews
Life in the Sandpit
US Review of Books
Life in the Sandpit
by Terry Thomas
Xlibris
book review by Donna Ford
“It was inevitable that . . . the Arab way of life and people have an impact on those of us living there . . .”
The author’s memoir is the often hilarious remembrance of a single year spent in Saudi Arabia working as an engineer on the oil pipelines. The year was May 1977 to May 1978―a significant point in construction for their oil industry. Due to stringent rules for taking a spouse into that country, the British author spent much of his out-of-country time in the company of two zany male engineer friends surrounded by swarms of not always proper Muslim shopkeepers, religious police, and gatekeepers. The friends quickly learned the customs that govern life in a foreign country, including getting a driver’s license, buying food from open markets, and living in an alcohol-prohibited country. Their youthful shenanigans, including liquor making, resemble the TV series MASH, except that they were operating on damaged pipelines rather than the wounded.
When required to learn where to find technical resources, this field engineer remained calm until logical answers presented themselves. His natural skills for good communication earned him both praise by the oil company supervisors and acceptance by the local schoolboys he taught to shoot marbles. They also serve him well in this book. His explanation of technical material is a far cry from the typically dry manual. In addition, these talents opened the door in 1978 for Thomas to begin the next twenty years of his career in the lucrative offshore oil delivery industry for Britain and other countries.
The author was unaware of the entertainment factor of his year-long adventure until encouraged by a friend. He wrote this memoir twenty years later, preserving the humor and the novelty of all that he experienced. This book should inspire young readers and will prove an excellent graduation idea for anyone off to start their way independently in this potentially dangerous world.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review
Pacific Book Review
Title: Life in the Sand Pit
Author: Terry Thomas
Publisher: XlibrisUK
ISBN: 978-1-54349177-7
Pages: 302
Genre: Non-fiction
Reviewed By: Susan Brown
Pacific Book Review Star Awarded to Books of Excellent Merit
Pacific Book Review
One pivotal decision changed the course of author Terry Thomas’ life, a decision he details in this memoir. The choice he made, to leave his homeland and his family and job in England for an opportunity to improve his family’s lifestyle, sent him to the oil fields of Saudi Arabia in 1977. With little knowledge or understanding of the Middle Eastern culture, he catapulted himself into a sink-or-swim experience in this foreign environment.
Fortunately, he didn’t sink. In fact, he found a professional place for himself on a global scale. With a background in engineering and a lot of gumption, Thomas applied and got a job with an oil company in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Even though it was a job he didn’t feel completely qualified for, he was hired. The 29 chapters of this memoir detail his assimilation into his new profession in an extraordinarily unfamiliar land. Once there, however, Thomas is not indifferent to his home-away-from-home. He writes about Al Khobar, the first place he lived, “There was something magical about walking the streets and the souks in the evening; the smell of spices and incense seemed to be more noticeable somehow.”
This memoir is full of engaging anecdotes of Thomas’ exploits, interspersed with a history lesson on the development of the region’s oil industry and his role in it. He notes his first introduction to his job was reviewing company information, “There was a drawing of the Damman Oil Field and the Dammam Dome. The field was founded by a British engineer but was not developed until the Americans came to Saudi.” Additionally he notes, “The Dammam Oil Field was where the first oil was discovered on 4 March 1938, through the successful drilling of No. 7 Well to a depth of approximately 3,300 feet. There I was in 1977, with the responsibility of operations engineering support for that very same dome.”
It is factual details such as these, along with amusing tales of trying to get through the gears of a beat up school bus for a driving test, golfing in one of the largest sand traps in the world, teaching young local boys how to shoot marbles, playing football while being attacked by a swarm of beetles and his excitement of taking a ride in his first helicopter which make this memoir fun to read. Although he notes that Saudi Arabia was not “a country I warmed to” he does acknowledge that the people were generous and warmhearted. He says, “It seemed to be the pattern in my time in Saudi. Someone did an act of kindness, and then our paths never crossed again. There was only the imprint the person had left in your life.” At the end of the book, Thomas adds his curriculum vitae, a statement on his enormous professional impact on and work in the oil industry.
I love memoirs. They’re an inviting open door to be a part of someone’s life that we might never get the chance to interact with otherwise. Terry Thomas led a fascinating life full of all the things that make up a good story – struggle, sacrifice, joy and sorrow. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him through this recap, as will other readers who are entertained by real-life drama.