Expat under the Jackboot

Achtung Farang! For you ze party is over. Three years ago on May 19, 2010, things went pear shaped for the 8.2 million or so residents of Bangkok. The sit-in and occupation of the city by the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), the 100,000 strong red shirted supporters of ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra (removed in a military coup of September 2006) was forcibly evicted by security forces after a two month protest. Snap shots pinged and ricocheted. Grenades banged. And plumes of smoke from arson attacks rose up from the city centre blackening the sky. Dangerous days in a country defined by a rift. You were either a Yellow or Red. But, this time 3 years ago, if you happened to be Red, you could have ended up dead, dead, dead.

The AWOL Ambo

In May 2010, nerves were frayed at the UK Mission in Bangers. Red Shirt protestors (the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship) had set up camp next to the Embassy compound, a brick's lob from the Ambassador's residence. They were a noisy bunch who played Thai country music 24/7 and liked setting off fireworks. Silly Billy UK based staffers (now living on site to cut costs for HMG) thought they were getting mortared. There was much panic below stairs. Many diplomats, worried about a Mau Mau style massacre, fled to Pattaya to play elephant polo and 18 holes of golf. Surely the upper ranks of the UK Mission would be sporting their best stiff upper lip?

Bollocks they would. 

The Secret Origin of the Male Trailing Spouse

How does a nightmare begin? For Alexander Reynolds, journalist, newly posted to Thailand, it began at a few minutes past Seven on a lost Wednesday night. It began with the arrival of a strange book from a distant bureaucracy.

“DFIDSEA Bangkok Welcome Guide: A Little advice to help you through your first days and weeks at post in Bangkok.”

In the years to come, Alexander Reynolds would go back to where it all began. Many times.

Tom Jones KO’s crowd at the British Embassy May Ball

The role of the British Embassy in Thailand, or any British Embassy in the world for that matter, is to work with the host government and the private sector to increase bilateral trade and investment. For many years some of this vital business intelligence work and lobbying was done over prawn cocktail, beef wellington and apple crumble at the British Embassy May Ball.