Cold, wet, dirty, and bedraggled, my grandmother and I were sitting in a taxi with a girl from the airline. She assured us that we would spend the night in the best hotel Glasgow had to offer and that a doctor would visit us this same evening to make sure we had sustained no injuries after the crash.

After checking in at the hotel, which to my eyes was as enormous as a palace with liveried men hurrying about, my grandmother took me up to our room ‘to make ourselves as presentable as circumstances allowed’, considering we didn’t have any luggage with us; in fact, we only had the clothes we wore. She brushed our shoes and got some of the mud off our clothes and then decided that this would have to be enough for us to go downstairs and get some tea.

Tea was served in the hall of the hotel, and the waiter brought not only the ordered tea, but cucumber sandwiches (without crust) for my grandmother and a large piece of chocolate cake for me. My grandmother said nicely thank you and then ignored the sandwiches as she hated bread without crust. And I dug into my cake and looked around, or rather gaped at all the splendour surrounding me.

As my grandmother settled down for the doctor’s arrival, I was allowed to go explore the hotel hall as long as I stayed where my grandmother could see me. To a final ‘just look, don’t touch’ I scampered off to take in all the things that were virtually hiding walls and alcoves. True to my grandmother’s dictum, I firmly kept my hands behind my back while I walked quietly through the hall. I had a feeling that if I made the slightest sound, I would be told off by one of the men in their glamorous uniforms.

While I was looking at a picture with a gruesome battle scene, the entrance doors of the hotel were opened and I turned around curiously. I had never seen the like. In strode a black bearded man in flowing white robes followed by two similar men dressed in black. Again behind them followed what I guessed to be women, all dressed in black and completely veiled. I stood rooted to my spot while the party descended upon me. The white clad man stopped in front of me, said something guttural to the other men, and swept past me.