My Blog

So the Lockheed RX compound is no more

Sunday, 18 July 2010

Got an invite from Cathy to join a Facebook group her brother has started called 'RX Forever...Or maybe not as it's been demolished’ which he had started for former ex-pats who had had the pleasure of living there when working for Lockheed Aircraft in Saudi Arabia.

I had some of the best times of my life living at the dear old RX compound. I was lucky enough to be there along with some really fun people and I had an absolute hoot of a time. I can’t listen to Ziggy Stardust or anything by Caravan or Tangerene Dream without being instantly transported back to those times. Play ‘Golf Girl’ and I can smell the heat; play ‘Phaedra’ and I can taste the Sidiki. (For those not fortunate enough to have lived there, Sidiki is the local brew distilled from sugar, water and yeast. It is considered unfit for use as rocket fuel as it is too dangerous. Mixed with Coke it is the stuff of legend, and legendary parties. Think Polish Spirit with attitude and a total disregard for human life!)

I decided that for too long I had put off the daunting task of scanning in the several thousand slides and photo’s I own and since my old scanner was SCSI and my new MacBook Pro can’t take the old SCSI card I decided to lash out on a new scanner. I bought an Epson Perfection V300 and I have to say it fully deserves the 10/10 it was given by users. It wouldn’t pass muster as a fully Pro scanner, but for semi-pro and dedicated amateur it really is the mutt’s nuts.

So I have recommenced my scanning marathon with gusto and have done about 200 so far. The problem is that all of my slides are in a large black bin liner as the cardboard boxes they were in had started to fall apart. This means they are all jumbled up and it is totally random as to what comes out. So far the earliest is from when I was in the RAF in ’67 and the latest about 20 years ago when I lost interest in photography for a while.

As I scan them in I am putting them into plastic boxes and at some point I may catalogue them. Some of the ones I have of Saudi are probably unique as it is likely these places have been destroyed. I am thinking in particular of the pre-historic rock paintings I photographed near Khamis Mushayt. I understand that the Saudi authorities destroyed them as the Koran does not allow for people to have existed in pre-historic times so these must have been painted by djinn.