A Brief Account of the British Columbia Contingent, Queen's Jubilee Year Commonwealth Expedition (Comex 8), by Chris Brown-Syed.

The Queen's Jubilee Year Commonwealth Expedition, Comex 8, was launched in February 1977 from the Royal Marines Depot, in the town of Deal, Kent, UK, under the leadership of Lionel Gregory OBE, and the patronage of HRH Prince Philip. Traveling in seven specially modified silver Bedford coaches, and one small command vehicle, we crossed over by ferry to Zeebruge, staying briefly at the Canadian Forces Base in Lahr.Then, we made our way through Yugoslavia and Greece, (where we stayed at a "Pionirskigrad" near Zagreb, and on the beach at Kavala). In Yugoslavia, we presented the first in a series of concerts. Distant Echoes: The Story of Comex in Song, a CD containing some of the music performed on this and similar Expeditions has just been released (2002).

We crossed the Bosporus at Istanbul (the Byzantine Empire's ancient capital - Constantinople), thence through Turkey to Syria and Iraq, and east via the southern route - in the footsteps of Alexander. In Iraq, we stopped at Baghdad. In Iran, we stayed at the Boy Scout camp just outside Teheran, and we reached Isfahan by coincidence on a day the Shah was passing through. Next major stop was Quetta, Pakistan, where I can remember waking to the sound of a bagpipe band rehearsing for the upcoming Pak Day parade.

We entered India at the border near Lahore the very day after Indira Ghandi's government went down to M. Desai's. We made our way from Delhi along the Grand Trunk Road, as far south and east as Ootacamund and Madras, and as far west as Poona, before heading north again to Simla in the Himalayas, where we presented a concert at the Gaity Theatre. Heading back through the Amritsar border to Lahore, we went up to Islamabad, then to Peshawar, and into Afghanistan by the Khyber Pass. We went through the Kabul Gorge, to camp at Kharga Dam above the city of Kabul. Then it was back the northern way through Iran and Turkey and into Europe once again. I should mention, perhaps, that on Comex, you did it all yourself - the driving, the cooking, the packing, and the singing. And mostly, you slept on the ground.

On the return journey, the British Columbia Contingent suffered a breakdown in the city of Mashed. Most of us abandoned the vehicle, leaving a skeleton crew aboard to bring it home to England. We wanted to be back at Deal in time to go to Glastonbury, to do a final concert in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, famous for its association with King Arthur. There, "Greg" had promised, "The bells of Wells Cathedral would peal out in our honour (they did), and the pale hand of the Lady of the Lake, clad in white samite, would brandish aloft the sword Excalibur". I leave it to you to decide about the Lady, but as Comex Old Hand, Martin Bennett puts it, "although we were unaware at the time, Comex changed all our lives."