8 Sqn Venom at Saiq, Oman
I visited Saiq last month as part of a wider tour of Oman and the UAE. I was last there in November 1970 (together with Teeters) flying the venerable Wessex with 78 Sqn from Sharjah.
To say the place has changed in 45 years is more than an understatement! For a start, I stayed in a very comfortable 3* hotel above Al Ain village and could just see the red lights around Saiq airstrip only a km or so away. A few hundred metres away is the vast building site of what is to be a 5* resort hotel.
When I visited Owen Watkinson’s grave and the wreck of his Venom in 1970, I walked there from Saiq with some chaps from Hereford. As Laurence Garey commented in an earlier post, “it was a very beautiful place”. Then, there were pieces of rusty shrapnel and other detritus of war lying around the whole area. And there was silence.
Last month I spent an afternoon walking through those wonderful terraced villages Al Agar, Al Ain and Al Sharaijah just below Saiq that I photographed from a Wessex 45 years ago. No enormous changes there other than the fact that many of the lower terraces are no longer irrigated or worked. But, the falaj are still running and there were a fair number of village people cultivating and tidying up among the roses in the terraces closest to the villages.
Now there is a superb 3-lane road up to the plateau. There are numerous buildings in various stages of construction around the area and the grave now sits within a few metres of a road with street lights. The engine and the wing wreckage have been moved next to the grave and the whole lot is now securely fenced. I was unable to find out who holds the key to the enclosure or who is responsible for the safekeeping of the grave or the wreckage. However, despite Laurence’s concern that it would be degraded, looking at my photos from 1970, the engine and wing do not appear to have been badly damaged or vandalised. It was interesting that my guide, and a number of others who visit the area regularly, had no idea of the history and thought it was the wreck of a helicopter. Now that more people have easy access to the Saiq area, it would be nice if the plaque in Muscat could be replicated at Saiq with a very short history.
Some photos to follow when I have mastered how!