In my career as a tutor, trainer and coach I all too frequently use anecdote and story telling to illustrate and illuminate and what I have learnt over the years is that I have indeed lived, thus far, a remarkable life with other's life experiences not even coming close to the kinds of experiences that I have faced. In particular, there are some occasions when I have looked death in the face and somehow walked away unscathed. By my calculation I have probably used up eight of my lives - so the word is to be careful!

So, I present to you here my nine lives.

My First Life

When I was almost 12, I was in a car that lost control and rolled over and almost threw me out of what was left of the back window of the said car. I recently blogged about it in a post entitled, An Angelic Intervention.

My Second Life

A few months later, but during the same school year, I skived off school with two of my friends and went into the city centre. At one point we decided to cross a pedestrian footbridge, which was closed off for repairs but seemed fine to us. We got on it and across it with no problems but then when we got to the other side there were several steps missing and just a gaping hole. Undeterred we decided to use the metal balustrade and my friends went first without any problem. However, when it came to me, my feet slipped and I was hanging on with my arms. Then to make matters worse a train passed underneath and only missed my feet by about 1ft / 30 cm. Somehow I managed to cling on and get my feet back onto the edge from where I had slipped.

My Third Life

When I was about 20 my friends and I were hanging out near a train line and watching for trains. It was a dark night and I found myself watching an approaching train that was defined by a single front light. With it being dark I had little or no idea of perspective and how close it was. Suddenly my friend Mark grabbed hold of me roughly and pulled me off the track while screaming my name. I am not joking when I say the train passed within a couple of seconds. This encounter - my own stupid fault - is the one where certain death awaited me had Mark not acted so decisively.

My Fourth Life

In the summer of 1994, while in Albania, I had an ugly encounter with a gunman, who pointed his pistol at me. Even to this day my reaction surprises me. I simply laughed at him and walked away. It seemed nonchalant and certainly not what I would have predicted. Shock kicked in when I was safely out of harm's way.  

My Fifth Life

Again in Albania, but a year later, I was being followed by a gang late one night and just knew I was going to end up robbed and dead in a ditch the moment I left the street-lit area. Then just as I was getting close to the last streetlight an uncharacteristic boldness came over me. I pivoted 180 degrees on my heals and went straight up to the alpha in the group. I grabbed him in a firm handshake and pulled my face to his and said to him something totally ridiculous like "I bet your grandma is a lovely woman and so proud of you!"

Don't ask me why I said that, but I do know he had no idea what I was saying to him. Being left-handed and having grabbed his right hand I had also largely disarmed him and given myself a big advantage. I then simply said to him and the whole group of five or six "Goodnight" and they turned and went back into town and I proceeded to my home.

My Sixth Life

Around the same time I had another gun pointed at me. Only this time it was at point blank range into my kidney area. I simply said "Oh that's nice" and walked off. Unlike the previous occasion I knew exactly what I was doing with a fatalistic outlook. There was no emotion, no fear, just a pragmatic, if he is going to shoot me there is nothing I can do about it attitude. And that was the end of the incident.

My Seventh Life.

One night in September 1995, not far from where the previous incident had happened and roughly where I had picked up the gang, I was on my way back home, during a storm after visiting a friend in the city centre. At a certain point I found the road was blocked by a flood. Water was at least a metre (>3ft) deep and even a big truck failed to go through. Part of the problem was there was a small bridge somewhere under the water and it could have easily been missed by anybody or a vehicle who'd fall off the edge.

At this point I was still on dry ground and only thinking how the hell do I get through that.

Then I saw Paulin, a friend of mine, who was wearing a light grey jacket. He simply told me to follow him and we walked around the flood and we headed off on a road perpendicular to where we wanted to go towards the local railway station which had probably never seen a train run through it. Consequently, there were holes and railway line laying all over the track that has long since been unused and abandoned. What made things even worse, was that there was a sudden power cut, or we were beyond where there was any lighting. I resorted to shuffling on my feet, not knowing what was in front of me. Paulin was oblivious to me dropping further behind him and all I could do every time there was a lightning strike was to run in the sudden sporadic illumination that lasted just a few seconds at a time.

Then, we had to cross a river that was churning and tumbling on a railway bridge. While the bridge itself was fine, the approach and exits weren't. The embankments had worn away to the extent that there was only about 20cm (7 inches) of space to walk on to both get on and off the bridge, which was more than precarious. Somehow we managed and then it was a simple matter of walking back home from the opposite direction, having gone round the entire flooded area. One of the ironies of the situation was that we were having our main roof fixed at the time at our HQ and the only dry place in the building was the dorm room where Paulin and I slept because only that corner had been repaired. The rest of the building was sopping wet.

My Eighth Life.

In 2000, while in Kosovo, a colleague and I went to the village Grabanice, just outside the town of Klina where we were based. We were on foot and our job was to do a visual inspection of the village in the aftermath of the war. We had done this in several other outlying villages without any problem. Only on this occasion the village headman got it into his head that we were Serbian spies coming to create some kind of harm or mischief and so he started turning aggressive when he confronted us.

We were naturally unarmed and so we started to back off and he got in his car and followed us. He was matching our walking pace and his bumper (fender in US) was almost kissing our a**es, he was that close. Not only was his car so close but it was also quite probable that he had an AK-47 somewhere in his car. The situation was very dicey.

Then, as has happened on several occasions when in an extremely oppressive situation, a boldness came over me and I told him in broken Albanian (such as I could manage in those days) to meet me at Klina Police Station. As soon as we left the village he went off ahead and 20 minutes later we went to the police station and found him waiting for us.

At that time the station was under the management of the United Nations and one of the senior policemen, Charles from Ghana, happened to be a friend of mine. I asked for him specifically and he was on duty. We then sat with a translator and I explained to this head man that he was harming the interests of his village with his hostility and he had no right to stop us from entering his village. Towards the end of the conversation I circumvented the translator and spoke to him directly. I made a circular motion around my face and said to him "Do you see this face? Remember it! Tomorrow it is coming to drink coffee with you at your home!" And that is exactly what I did and from that moment there were no more problems.

And so now here I am on my Ninth Life

And I haven't even mentioned, the car crash in which we were rescued by the mysterious Toyota Hilux (again I posted about this fairly recently), nor the time when I entered a pit to deal with a South European venomous viper (no I am not a snake handler, but it presented a real danger to the children who were attending our on site holiday clubs), nor the occasion when Paulin, another friend of ours and jumped on a bus as it was going round one of the busiest roundabouts in Tirana, nor the occasion when I got caught in the open on a railway bridge with a train bearing down on me. This last occasion was just outside the aforementioned Klina and trains were both sporadic and rare, only running a couple of times a day. While the bridge had room for two tracks I had no idea which track it was on and so my best course of action was to run and get off the bridge altogether. Fortunately either the train wasn't too fast or the track was just about short enough. While I don't think I was in any personal danger I also found myself caught up in a battle in the town of Tetovo during the short-lived Macedonian civil war and travelled on the Komani ferry at a time when it was a crime-ridden vehicle for people trafficking, drug-running and illicit weapon trading.

And finally with a tragic irony, a friend of mine, Andy and I were walking down the street - again right near where the flood had been - when we were startled by a shooting off to one side and suddenly a man brandishing a gun ran out in front of us. He was quickly pounced upon by several police officers. Andy tragically died in a bus accident back in England just a few weeks later, but his legacy was to have a children's playground in Albania built in his name and through the funding that had been set up to honour him.

And so there you go, the nine lives of Crypto-Rah and I am determined to hold on to this last one for as long as I can and especially for my boys.  

As always stay safe and well my friends.