Victim of the revolution
23/07/2008
Just one week after our wedding I travelled with my husband on post to the British Embassy in Tehran. It was October 1978. Some people we knew who had also got married around the same time as us had gone to St Lucia for their honeymoon, but we went to Tehran, hardly the most attractive of honeymoon destinations!
Not only was it an extremely hot, polluted, busy, city but there was also a revolution brewing. The Shah had become increasingly unpopular, the economy was going from bad to worse: sabotage was rife and massive street demonstrations were going on daily.
Just three weeks in, our Embassy was attacked by revolutionaries. I was working in my office on the first floor of the Embassy building, in the southern compound of the city. The building itself was very close to the compound wall that bordered one of Tehran’s main roads leading to the souk area downtown. The atmosphere throughout the day had been very tense, fires were raging across the city and I could see spirals of smoke from my office window.
By mid-afternoon I could hear shouting and chanting ‘death to the Shah’ in the distance, getting louder and louder. From my window I could see a huge demonstration marching up Ferdowsi, armed with bricks and stones. I watched as the demonstrators pulled the grill off the front of the bank on the opposite side of the street, smashing the windows and setting it on fire. Turning their attention to the British Embassy the mob started hurling huge bricks over the wall, smashing all the windows in a mad frenzy. They then broke down the iron gate to the compound and surrounded the building.
I can hear the shouting and the smashing of glass to this day. I was almost frozen with fear. Do I stay in my office or do I try to get out of the building?
A young Embassy Third Secretary took charge and ran around all the our offices, ordering all staff to go up to the third floor of the building, to the "safe" area, where a grill came down. Grouped together in the central corridor of the building, away from the windows, we thought we would be protected from the mob by the iron grill. But by this time the mob had broken into the foyer of the building, setting it on fire. They had also thrown a fire bomb from the street into my office which I had only recently vacated. Rubber tyres had been set alight in the emergency exit. With this area and the main entrance hall on fire we had no means of escape.
I remember thinking: "This is a good start to married life". And where was my new husband? I couldn’t see him anywhere.
My colleagues and I, filled with fear, huddled together in the corridor, now filled with smoke, listening to the angry mob shouting as they advanced up the wooden staircase. We had no idea what was going to happen to us. I thought maybe we would all burn to death in this terrible place. By some miracle, the Third Secretary who had taken charge and who spoke fluent Farsi, learned that the crowd did not in fact realise we were all working in the building at the time of the attack, that they didn’t want to hurt us.
He then negotiated with them to let us out of the burning building.
By this time the fire had spread across the entire first floor.
The staircase down to the foyer was smouldering and some of the steps were now missing but the young revolutionaries held out their hands to help us climb down. It took tremendous faith and courage to take their hands ... our enemies one minute, our saviours the next. One young Iranian looked into my eyes as he helped me down the broken stairs. Was it a look of apology or regret for what they were putting us through?
There was shattered glass everywhere, constant shouting in my ears and the acrid smell of burning. The Iranians were trying to communicate with us amidst the confusion and the chaos but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Eventually we managed to escape through what remained of the revolving entrance door and ran towards the rear of the compound, where we congregated in a colleague’s house. And then I saw my husband: he had been outside the building all along and now he was busy fighting the fire with other Embassy members. Eventually the army moved in and the crowd dispersed.
My husband and I stayed in Tehran for another 14 months after this attack. It was sometimes difficult for me as a woman living in post- revolution Iran, travel was not always easy and the Embassy was invaded again a year after the fire - when we were held hostage at gun point. But we went on to have a very enriching time in a fascinating and beautiful country. Who can forget the Mosques of Isfahan or the wonder of Persepolis? Or the long journey over the Elborz Mountains to the Caspian Sea? Not me. They, like the attack, nearly 30 years ago now, are embedded in my memory forever.
This piece came out of a writing course to "Write Your Life" tutored by Mature Times editor that Merope attended at Warner Hotels. For more information on those courses, email tony.watts@maturetimes.co.uk