A Sar-El Experience
by Kay Bagon

By far the most daunting part of my visit to Israel was negotiating Heathrow airport! Running the gauntlet of several tanks and armed police did little to induce a calm frame of mind. Indeed it seemed that the airport staff were intent on frightening their passengers still further when the fire alarm went off in Terminal 1 and an announcement was made over the PA, “ A fire has broken out in another building, stay where you are!” Despite all the heightened security our plane took off and landed on time, faring better than those who ventured to fly from Gatwick, which, I later found out, had been peremptorily closed due to a security alert.

The Sarel volunteers, who came from London, Leeds and Manchester, met each other at Ben Gurion airport. Besides Ruth Leverson, I found that I already knew two others; one a friend from long ago and the other, David Marsh, who used to run our Cub Scout group, when my sons were small.

We were immediately taken by coach to the gas mask factory and shown how to refurbish ventilators, which had been returned after the Gulf war. We worked in teams of twelve, replacing the batteries, re-assembling the ventilators, testing them and repackaging them.

Our leader, a 19 year old, 6′ 6″ ex- American Israeli, called Shimon proved to be expert at organizing us into an efficient and co-ordinated working group. Although you could hear people yelling, “ Shimon” all day long, he remained calm and smiling. And even when we arrived one morning to find that our whole set up had been ‘hijacked’ by another group, (A French group, naturellement), and that we would consequently have to rebuild our production lines somewhere else, he didn’t get too upset.

Our group, from the UK, consisted of 22 women and 11 men. Many were teachers, (as it was half term), opticians, doctors, and accountants, (surprise, surprise.) Quite a few of the group were religious, and we all got on extremely well.

We were housed in an army base about 20 minutes away from the factory. We were four to a room, and it was fairly basic! We soon discovered that there were no pillows and that the sheets didn’t actually fit the beds. We were given 2 sets of uniform, none of which fitted and a hilarious scenario ensued involving people running from room to room swapping trousers, jackets and belts to try and find a set that was vaguely their size.

 We ate breakfast and supper on the base – though these two meals were virtually indistinguishable. The food was arranged on a round self service table and we soon realised that queuing up in a polite British manner merely served to ensure that there was very little left when we eventually got there! Lunch was in the style of aeroplane-packaged food, and was eaten at the factory.

 The first night we had a spectacular thunderstorm and the rain was torrential, (good for the Kinneret though).  The deluge persisted and the walk between the dormitories and the canteen necessitated a complete change into a dry set of clothes before we could go to work.

There were about 300 people working at the factory, including Russians, French, and groups of school children with their teachers. We started work at 8:00am and ended around 4:00pm. The ventilators that we were refurbishing were to be used as part of gas masks for babies and small children. The babies’ masks are such that the baby is completely enveloped in the plastic breathing bag. The air bags work at room pressure so that a straw can be inserted into the mask, and the child can have a drink while still being protected. During the 5 day stay our group of 33 volunteers refurbished, checked and packed about 10,000 air filters.

While we were there we were taken on a trip to Rishon le Zion, and also attended lectures on Terrorism, the Settlements and Security. We were profusely thanked by no less than the colonel of the regiment himself, and given regimental pins and certificates. We all enjoyed our stay in Israel very much, made some wonderful new friends and felt that we had been able to make a useful contribution towards protecting Israel’s citizens, although of course we all sincerely hope that those masks will never be needed.

Kay Bagon