HMS Albion to the rescue

Stanley Johnson was a volcano victim — stranded in Spain with thousands of other British holidaymakers. Fortunately, the Royal Navy was on hand to bring him home in style

Last week was quite extraordinary. My wife Jenny and I landed at Madrid airport on Monday afternoon, having flown overnight from Ecuador. We should have had an onward connection to London that afternoon, but because of the spreading cloud of volcanic ash, there were no flights. Next morning I was scheduled to take an early flight from Gatwick to the far north of Scotland to speak on behalf of my good friend, Alastair Graham, who is seeking to win the Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross constituency for the Conservatives.

Well, talking of Scotland, it was the great Robert Burns who said, ‘The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.’ Our luggage was summarily offloaded in Madrid. There were no flights to the UK or other northern European destinations. Jenny and I were invited to join a queue of several hundred people all trying to get home. I had to send a grovelling text message of apology to Alastair.

I have done a good deal of travelling in my life. I don’t say that I subscribe wholeheartedly to the principle that ‘it is the journey not the arrival that matters’. But I do believe that it pays to keep moving.

‘Let’s head north to the coast,’ I said to Jenny, looking at the queue. ‘Heaven knows how long we will be here. Vamonos!’ Luckily, there were two seats left on the 4.30 p.m. bus from Madrid to Santander.

That instantaneous decision to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and Madrid airport paid off. Several days after the restrictions on aircraft movement were lifted, there were still hundreds, even thousands, of stranded passengers in Spain. I sympathise with their plight. I am sure they have done and are doing everything they possibly can to get home. I simply record that Jenny and I arrived in Madrid around 2 p.m. on Monday and that by Wednesday — miraculously — we were back in England.

HMS Albion, one of the largest ships in the Royal Navy, steamed into Portsmouth Harbour after the 30-hour crossing from Santander. Jenny and I joined the crowd in the bow of the vessel. I had my mobile telephone to my ear, since I was being interviewed live by BBC News. A BBC helicopter loomed overhead. ‘We think we have you in shot now,’ the interviewer informed me. ‘Look up and wave!’

It was a strange, almost surreal moment. As the huge ship slid sideways towards the dock, people were waving and cheering on the quayside and on the roofs of the houses. We waved and cheered back. The navy’s gun-crews had to push their way through the scrum when the command was given to unload the general purpose machine-guns (GPMGs) mounted on the deck-rails. GPMGs firing at God knows how many rounds a second are no doubt extremely useful when it comes to repelling Somali pirates, but if you’re an ordinary Pompey supporter strolling down to the Spice Islands pub next to HMS Victory, you don’t want to intercept a stray bullet.

The BBC interviewer was still talking to me. ‘Has this been a successful operation?’ ‘Totally,’ I replied. ‘The Albion has brought back 489 service personnel from Afghanistan who otherwise might not have been able to return home. And the ship has also brought back to the UK 280 stranded Brits, some 220 of whom were brought up to Santander in buses from Madrid thanks to the good offices of the British embassy. Then there are at least 60 people, including families with young children, who made it to Santander on their own initiative and were taken on board.’

It’s funny the way reporters sometimes seem to search out the negative. The interviewer seemed determined to believe that some Brits in Santander had been turned away.

During the course of the voyage I had a long conversation with the Albion’s executive officer in charge, Commander John Gardner. ‘I was not prepared to leave any Brits on the jetty if I could possibly help it,’ he said. I am sure he succeeded in his objective. When the ‘Santander refugees’ boarded HMS Albion, I am positive there was no one left standing on the quayside.

I made this point firmly to my interlocutor. ‘But was this a good use of public funds, of taxpayers’ money?’ he asked.

To be fair, it was a good question. But I think I had a good answer. ‘The Albion,’ I replied, ‘had been diverted to Santander on MoD orders to pick up British troops. There was space available for civilians. It made sense to offer that space to stranded Brits. We were only “piggy-backing” on something that was happening anyway.’

In truth, there has been a cost to the public purse. My wife and I, with some 20 other people, including families with children, slept in bunk beds in a dormitory with clean sheets and duvets. Other civilian ‘evacuees’ received similar privileges. We ate superb food, sitting down together in the canteen with the returning soldiers. Of course, we all gave generously when the kids came round with their ‘Help for Heroes’ collecting buckets, but the truth is we all of us enjoyed a free ride at public expense.

But if there is a public cost, there was, I believe, also a public benefit. Just before the BBC phoned, Jenny and I had been standing on the upper deck talking to the young mother of one of the families who had been sharing our dormitory. What really struck her, Mrs Julie Pugh said, was the courtesy, the kindness, the consideration the service personnel had shown their ‘guests’ during the voyage. Leaning over the rail and pointing down at the soldiers as, still in their camouflage kits, they humped their bags down the ramp and into the waiting buses, she said: ‘This has been a truly amazing experience for my kids. Up till now their role models have been people like Victoria Beckham; today they are looking at these soldiers with worship in their eyes. These guys are just amazing.’

Of course, it’s not just the guys; it’s the dolls as well. I didn’t make a precise tally, but I would have guessed that there were between 70 and 80 women soldiers on board, not to mention the substantial female contingent among HMS Albion’s own complement of 375 navy personnel.

Wordsworth, as I recall, spoke of ‘recollecting powerful emotions in tranquillity’. Some little time has now elapsed since HMS Albion eased last Wednesday evening into Portsmouth Harbour. I have begun to put my thoughts in order.

Yes, as a feat of travel, I think our escape from Spain was brilliant. Not in the Dunkirk class, of course, but totally memorable for all that. Plaudits all round — to the soldiers, sailors, diplomats, and even the politicians who thought this one up and carried it through. But my gratitude goes far beyond that. Some 280 civilians, including Jenny and me, had a chance to observe at first hand the sterling quality of our serving men and women — and what an extraordinary job they do for us.

This may sound like an overtly political point. If it does, I make no excuses. There’s an election on, isn’t there?