Anything to Declare? (9 page)

At the end of the year, Christmas was always another good time for officers to let their hair down. Although the drinking culture was very strong among Customs officers – even putting the Army to shame – it wasn’t often during the year that we would have the opportunity to all have a drink together because of different shifts. But at Christmas there were numerous parties around the airport courtesy of the airlines, police, Immigration, etc. And all these parties were very heavy-drinking affairs: you were either an alcoholic, a trainee alcoholic or a teetotaller – there was no middle ground. And if there had been a middle ground it would have all been covered in empty bottles anyway . . .

This one Christmas, we had five new officers and they all believed that they were good, hard drinkers. The trouble was that we already had a lot more barrels of experience over them. At about 4 a.m., we were woken from our drunken slumber by the sound of the baggage alarm going off and the baggage carousel belt being started. Two of us donned our uniforms and wandered out to see if an unexpected, unannounced flight had arrived. The scene that awaited us was peculiar in the extreme. Three of the new officers were lying drunkenly comatose on the baggage belt and the other two were attempting to start it. Having got it running, their next idea was to open the baggage-belt security doors. I have to admit we found it quite funny to see the three sleeping officers slowly making their way around the baggage hall, then disappearing on the belt outside into the rain and reappearing some seconds later still on the carousel and soaked to the skin. It was like a little human car wash. The two joker officers then thought that it was a good idea to use the belt’s security doors like a guillotine and try to bring them down on one of the sleeping beauties. I realized that once the mechanism was started it had to carry out a full closure and so would decapitate anyone underneath it.

We were about to put a stop to it when we heard a cough behind us and there stood the duty senior officer. Now this, I knew, could put a lot of painful flames up Santa’s chimney. But he looked at the scene with a sage eye, shrugged and said, ‘Bloody idiots.’ And then he escorted myself and Pat back into his office, where we helped him demolish the best part of a litre of rum.

Outside, the carousel of comatose Customs officers kept on turning, as did the rest of the world.

Death by rabies is a nasty way to go: inflammation of the brain, hallucinations, high fever and frothing at the mouth – it’s not a good look. There’s no known cure and it has the highest death rate of any viral infection; to date, there has only ever been one reported case of someone surviving an infection. Only Ebola rivals it as a nasty way to go, and that’s only because that might lead to you exploding blood out of every orifice. Take your pick. But, either way, keep away from me and my sandwiches.

Rabies is spread mostly by dogs and vermin (and also known to be carried by bats). But the UK is one of the few safe, rabies-free European countries. We’ve been safe here for many years and we have stood as one of the only countries in Europe not to have this terrible killer. Thanks to Customs. Despite years of animal lovers having a go at us for the quarantine rules, we are Dickensian-strict about rabies law. Little frothy-mouthed, potentially rabies-infected Fluffy was not getting in on my watch or that of any other officer.

I was airport duty officer for the night and it was very quiet. You could hear a fruit fly fart on cotton. My senior officer was off sick and I was the only one left to guard the country – or at least the Stansted entry to the country. It was due to be a quiet night shift with only a couple of freight flights and no passenger jets. Time for me to put my feet up, pour a lovely cup of tea, unwrap a pasty and tackle the
Telegraph
crossword. By 1 a.m., very little was stirring. The cleaners had done their stuff and buffed the floor with those weird-looking machines, and even the airport police were grabbing forty blue winks.

I always liked it when it was quiet. But this night I conveniently forgot about exactly what the expression says the quiet is
before. . .
and I was about be reminded by an encounter with the storm. I suddenly got a call: it was one of the airport’s airline handling agents.

‘Sorry to interrupt you at this late hour but we have a private jet landing, due in at about 1.30 a.m.’

Bollocks. Tea down, pasty going cold, newspaper away. I asked the agent to come to my office with the advance paperwork. The papers showed that the jet was inbound from Milan and on its way to Aberdeen with four passengers and three crew. It was stopping here to refuel and clear Immigration and Customs. Nothing unusual in that, just a pain in the arse in the middle of the night. The agent asked me if I wanted to clear the passengers on board the plane or for them to get off and walk through the channels. The little devil in me said to get them off their fat, rich arses and make them walk, they could probably do with the exercise.

‘I’ll clear them in the channels, hand baggage only and a full crew declaration. Also,’ I said to the airline agent, ‘I think that we should watch the aircraft taxi on to the stand. I’ll pick you up from your office.’

One last bite of pasty and swig of warm tea and I set off to pick up the agent in one of our little boarding cars. I parked us up near a stand on the runway as the gleaming white Learjet taxied to a halt. As the roar of the jets began to subside, the agent told me that on board was a billionaire Italian industrialist and his family who were on their way up to Balmoral to go grouse shooting with the royal family. Nice. Very similar to the evening I was planning with some fellow officers next week to go out and get hammered blind on cider with whisky chasers and round off the night with a kebabtopped pizza, quite probably leading to some synchronized projectile vomiting behind a wheelie bin. So you see, they’re no different from us, the other half . . .

The passengers disembarked and were led to the terminal. Next came the pilot, the co-pilot and the stewardess with . . . what the hell is that? The handling agent had seen it, too, and his head was already in his hands as he knew this quiet night was about to get an awful lot less quiet.

Ah, it looks like a dog, sir,’ he said, reaching for the boarding-car door handle. It was, in fact, a bloody great golden retriever, tripping merrily down the steps with the stewardess who then stopped and paused while the animal cocked its leg and took a slash against the plane’s landing gear. I decided to make my feelings broadly known.

‘GET! THAT! BLOODY! DOG! OFF MY BLOODY RUNWAY!’

The stewardess jumped and the dog looked up from its activity against the wheel. Still carried on pissing, though (like they do). Cheeky swine.

My shout must have wakened most of the night staff. I turned to the handling agent. ‘Not happy!’

He ran off and quickly ushered the stewardess and the animal back on board the plane. I spun the boarding car around and headed back to the terminal. Not happy, indeed. Tea, pasty and crossword interrupted and now a non-quarantined animal. These breaches were actually regarded as extremely serious situations and have, on occasion, been career-ending ones for officers involved. I wasn’t about to let that happen to me. Italy’s border controls have never been as strict as ours – and the borders of a connected country as opposed to an island one are always going to be more porous (even as recently as 2010 there was a rabies outbreak in northern Italy).

Within the next hour, the billionaire, his wife, their two best friends and the three aircraft crew members were also not happy. They all sat in the green channel, unable to go anywhere, as I had detained them. The head of the family, in particular, was not best pleased. He was clearly used to being obeyed and getting his own way. Did I not realize, he said at the top of his voice, that they were attending a grouse shoot with the royal family? And that the golden retriever had been a gift from the Queen? And that the dog, as such, was
British
? We must call the Foreign Office! And the Italian Embassy!

The guy was frothing at the mouth and he hadn’t even
got
rabies yet. Well, as far as I could tell. I told him that the answer to all his questions was ‘Yes’ and that it didn’t make a blind bit of difference. This didn’t go down well at all. Italy is a country where, how shall we say it . . . power and wealth more readily influences and smoothes over certain situations. I’m not saying that doesn’t sometimes happen in Britain, but it doesn’t happen as often, it doesn’t happen with Customs and, I thought, it certainly ain’t happening tonight, sunshine.

I wandered over to the captain and asked him what the hell he thought he was doing landing an unchecked dog in a quarantined country. He looked so sheepish that I almost quarantined him as well for that (no unchecked farm stock!), but he just said he didn’t speak much English. Which was crap.

‘OK, you’re under arrest.’

The airline agent overheard this and rushed over in a panic. I explained that the captain of an aircraft is responsible for the plane and crew, and also for landing the dog in the UK, and that all international pilots had to speak good English to get their licence. At this point, the captain suddenly rediscovered his ability to understand English.

So I’ve got one shouting and wildly gesticulating Italian billionaire, one sobbing wife, two pissed-off friends, three crew members playing dumb, one grounded jet and a dog pissing on the runway. Within an hour, the night has gone from being
All Quiet on the Stansted Front
to
Carry On Airport.

In the office I called the London Airports Customs Control duty senior officer and explained the case. He didn’t know what to do either but said he’d get back to me. Outside the racket was getting louder, the Italians getting even more shouty and . . . well, Italian. I love Italy but, boy, they sure know how to create a fuss. From outside I could again hear the words ‘Embassy’, ‘Foreign Office’ and ‘diplomatic incident’ being bandied about. I thought, ho hum.

Ten minutes later I received the first of many calls. I answered my phone to find I was speaking to Buckingham Palace’s private office and a very stern-sounding lady. (
Not
the Queen, I hasten to add.) I explained the case for the umpteenth time and she took great care to make me aware that the royal family was in no way involved in this; she said they had issued the Italian party an invitation but it certainly did not include a PS saying ‘Please bring own gundog’. I said that I had at no time imagined Her Majesty was in any way remotely complicit. At this, the lady from Buckingham Palace grew a little less stern. But not much. I was told to hold fast.

The cavalry arrived in the shape of a very tall, very distinguished-looking older gentleman in a tweed sports jacket. He offered his official ID but I’d already recognized him from his appearances on the news. He was a knight of the realm and the head of the Civil Service. He smiled. We shook hands. He had the bearing of someone who had been through an extremely expensive education and a very successful career, probably had a father who had almost ousted Churchill and – not always also present, this one – was very charming. Which was nice, and frighteningly disarming.

‘Officer Frost, I believe we have a little problem. I’m sure we can come to an accommodation. Got any decent tea?’ And with that he breezed into my office and made himself at home. We chatted and I explained the laws regarding the importation of dogs, quarantine and aircraft pilot responsibility. The latter was of some relief to Sir because, as he said, ‘We can’t have the Queen’s guest to blame.’

Sir sat back and arched his fingers. ‘What would happen, for instance, if we just let them merrily go on their way to Balmoral?’ He looked at me expectantly and smiled.

‘I’m afraid that’s just not going to happen,’ I said.

‘No. But let’s just say it
did.
Hypothetically, what would happen?’

I could now see that our charming Sir Tweed was looking for a face-saving way out of this problem that kept everyone happy. I thought for a few seconds.

‘Well, if they should continue to the shoot, with the dog, and the dog comes into contact with the royal family’s animals there, then they’ll all have to be put in quarantine for six months or, if infected, something much worse; and I would hazard a guess, sir, that you don’t really want to be the one who starts shooting the Queen’s corgis . . .’

He started laughing, slapped his thigh and got up. ‘That’s it, my lad, that’s what I wanted to know.’ And with that he strode out of the office and went off to tackle the Italians, armoured with his reason for refusing them entry.

It was sorted in minutes. I agreed to release the pilot and they were all soon on their way back to Italy. And in the near future Buckingham Palace would receive a letter of apology from Milan stating that the industrialist had come down with a cold and was very sorry that he could not attend the shoot.

So, the billionaires plus the dog are sent home. The Queen is informed. I make a cup of tea.

Job done. Now where was that bloody crossword . . .

This story reveals a little-known truth behind the myth of the Customs officer only picking on the little guy. We don’t. We pick on the
right
guy. Whoever that is. Customs officers are sometimes disliked by a public who are used to coming back from holiday and running the old blue/red/green channel gauntlet, and that’s kind of understandable. But we actually distrust everyone equally, both high society and so-called low, and treat everyone the same. We are equal opportunity
suspectors.
In fact, we’d much rather land a big fish than a small one. We’d sooner nab some knob on a private plane who thinks it allows him to sneak in a suitcase of cocaine than some kid back from the Netherlands with a spliff in his sock.

Now the boys in blue may not like this, but it is true that it’s far easier to find a bent copper to bribe than a Customs officer. In fact, in Customs it is very rare. Which is something to be proud of.

So I like to think the British public would be cheered up considerably to know that, when it comes to stopping people trying to bring things into the UK that shouldn’t be here, it all rests on the shoulders of the officers in black and gold braid that line our borders, and those officers (to put it impolitely) don’t give a badger’s arse who you are.