Fear and Loathing in the English Midlands

I have only feared for my life once in my travels. It was late on a Saturday night in Birmingham, England.

I was waiting in a shattered bus shelter covered in graffiti for the last bus to Stratford-Upon-Avon. In the space of half an hour every druggie, hoodlum and gangsta in the Midlands wandered past to check me out. I felt vulnerable and exposed. I was certain that it was only a matter of minutes before one of them wandered over to avail themselves of my backpack and the moneybelt around my waist.

I hadn’t felt that way bouncing around the scrubby desert of southern Somalia in a ute driven by the local war lord. We were pointing refugees towards the Kenyan border and I felt remarkably at ease with the world. Nor was I alarmed when I shared a cup of tea with a muhajjeddin leader in Afghanistan. Having my photo taken with him with a coil of amour piercing bullets on my lap was a bit weird, but again I felt extremely safe. The only other time I felt a flickering moment of concern was when I bunked down in a bombed-out apartment block in Mostar during a ceasefire in the war in Bosnia. But then the three young guys who had shown me the flat assured me that the hot water heater was working and all was well with the world again.

The difference was that in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Somalia I felt as though someone was looking after me. I had a metaphorical arm around my shoulders, guiding my naïve Aussie self through the metaphorical minefields of visiting a country I really shouldn’t be visiting. In Birmingham, behind the Bullring, on streets awash with cheap grog and vomit and girls in short skirts cat-fighting, I was alone.

Well, until Tom staggered up. Tom, shall we say, liked a tipple. He asked me where I was from and when I told him immediately declared me his best friend. He invited me to share a beer with him although he smelt like he had spent most of the previous fortnight drinking. It would still be another hour until the bus left so was a case of either put up with his BO or get mugged.

Tom took me to a pub around the corner. It looked down-at-heel and dingy, like Tom himself, I guess, but inside it was warm and bright and the ales affordable. Every thug that had sized me up was leaning against the bar and greeted Tom like a long lost friend. They all wanted to know whether he had tracked down his television. Someone had broken into his flat and stolen it. It was the third TV he’d lost in the past year.

Because I was with Tom I wasn’t a target anymore. Two guys wearing hoodies who I had identified as the most likely to beat me up less than an hour before bought me a beer and told me when my bus was about to leave. It helps to have someone with local knowledge on your side.

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