THIS LIFE: RACHAEL ENGLISH

BETAHUITSY LIBFUEZZ

THERE WERE EIGHT OR NINE OF US in the minibus, travelling across the desert to the oasis at Palmyra. My boyfriend and I were in the middle row. We spoke no Arabic, and our fellow passengers had little English. Unfamiliar music jangled from the radio. Then, midway through our journey, as the rocky landscape gave way to sand, the driver began fiddling with the dial. When he stopped, the signature tune for the BBC World Service news rang out. Briefly, he turned his head and smiled, making it clear that the change of stations was for us. In the way that small gestures of kindness tend to do, that moment lodged in my memory.

Eighteen years later, I wonder what has happened to the driver – and to the others on the bus.

Our journey had begun in a small marketplace in the city of Homs. The name might be known to you. During the early years of the Syrian war, Homs was subjected to a lengthy siege. Large parts of the city were turned to rubble. Although there’s no agreed figure for the number of casualties, it’s been estimated that 18,000 people died there.

We hadn’t planned on spending our holidays in Syria. The main purpose of the trip was to see the sights of Lebanon, then being rebuilt after its own calamitous civil war. But the more we read about Lebanon’s larger neighbour, the more we reckoned we had to visit. Although we had no intention of working, we learned that visa applications from journalists were usually denied. After a lot of form-filling and a bit of creative ambiguity about how we earned a living, we were finally given permission to enter the country.

We crossed the border outside the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, the road shimmering in the heat. Almost immediately we realised that we were a novelty. Even in those pre-war days, tourists were rare and independent travellers rarer still. Most of the foreigners we encountered were part of organised tours. Compared to boisterous, busy Lebanon, Syria felt quiet, reserved.

In the main, our unusual status was a blessing. We were able to explore the ruins of the ancient city of Palmyra – its temples, arches and colonnades – without meeting another soul. We walked around the monumental crusader castle at Krak des Chevaliers, listening to the calls of jackals from the valley below, accompanied by only a handful of others. Sometimes, we made mistakes. The port city of Tartus was – and remains – home to a large Russian naval base. It felt grey and down at heel. It was also hard to escape. The staff in our hotel, puzzled at how we’d ended up in Tartus to begin with, eventually found a taxi to bring us to our next destination.

Damascus was a joy. I remember the lively market and the enormous Umayyad Mosque. The following year it would turn up on the news when Pope John Paul paid a visit there. I remember the narrow streets of cafés and shops and the row of jewellers where the current values for precious metals were displayed on television screens with the prices adjusted accordingly. And I remember the man who said he didn’t know much about Ireland except that it was where Chris De Burgh was from and he was a big fan of Chris. He’d even travelled to Beirut to see him in concert.

At the time, Bashar al-Assad was new to the presidency. His father, Hafez, had been in power for three decades. We became fascinated by all the images of the Assad family. In the desert, just about every business displayed a large picture of the new leader in army fatigues and sunglasses. In the city, the preferred image showed him in a dark suit, staring into mid-distance. Many shops still carried a picture of Assad senior too. It was as if they were unsure about this new guy with the diffident demeanour and the British wife. Friends have asked since if we had any sense of what lay ahead. The honest answer is no. Although it was clear that this was not a place where you could break into a casual chat about politics, we had no understanding of the tensions that were building. Tensions that a decade later would tear the country apart.

Almost everywhere we went has suffered. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. Families have been fractured. Livelihoods obliterated. Krak des Chevalier, built in the 12th century, was extensively damaged by government air strikes. Islamic State seized control of Palmyra, smashing and defacing parts of the historic city.

Not that long ago, I was talking to someone who’d served with the United Nations mission in the Golan Heights. They’d spent a day in Damascus, he said, and in the city centre it was almost possible to forget about the war. The market was still busy, the cafés still full. But then you thought about what was happening just a few miles away, and reality came crashing in.

We hadn’t planned to holiday in Syria but the more we read about it, the more we reckoned we had to visit