The Adventure's of Bazil Green.

We had a good set-up with our villa in Saigon in 1965, thanks to The Rajahs. It had everything we needed. Several bedrooms, a dinning room, bathroom and a small kitchen out the back that the maids worked in day and night preparing all our food. We had the added attraction of an electronic burglar system to stop any bad guys getting in at night. Lord only knows if it worked or not but the maids turned it on each night before they went to bed and no Bad Guys ever got in. Although the local Mayor wanted to know if it was an Australian custom to have a party every night after twelve o'clock.

Bazil came home one afternoon in pretty much of a hurry and started to pack his bags. When we asked what was going on he related the tale of going into town to change some money on the black market. We all did this on a regular basis and it was a part of life as we had American greenbacks, Military Payment Certificates and Vietnamese Piasters, all used for different forms of payment. If you played your cards right, you could turn a tidy profit and pay the bills at the same time.

He had gone to an illegal money changer that we all used at times and asked to change $300. The bloke took him into a back room of the shop and proceeded to fill a brief case with cash, counting as he went. Bazil looked on in amazement and when he got to about $30,000 Bazil told him that that was enough and took the bag and left. According to Bazil, he did not know what the bloke was doing and only that he had put a huge amount of money in the bag. Bazil quickly packed his bags and left the villa saying that he would see us at the gig that night.

Within a half an hour, the Vietnamese bloke that Bazil had changed the money with appeared at the front gates of the villa asking for Bazil. Of course we said that we didn’t know where he was or where he lived now as he had moved out of the villa the week previous. He asked if we saw Bazil, to tell him that he wanted to see him urgently. Then he left.

Bazil continued to work with us and we picked him up on the way to the gigs in our rented station wagon. The bloke called around to the villa every day asking for Bazil and we had to keep palming him off. He even turned up with his 4 yo daughter all dressed up in a pretty dress and pig tails. I suppose looking for some sympathy.

On the way to the gig we had picked Bazil up one afternoon in our Thunderbird station wagon and were stuck in traffic. The car was loaded up with our gear, the five of us and the driver. We were at a standstill, waiting for the white mice to get things moving again.

Someone announced, “Hey Bazil. There’s that bloke that’s been looking for you about the money!” Sure enough, there he was walking along the footpath and he sees Bazil who, as luck had it, was sitting next to the window.

Bazil had nowhere to go and the bloke ran to him and was saying, “Bazil, Bazil. I need to see you!”

Bazil blurted out, "Yeah Man, I'll come and see you tomorrow." 

The bloke said, “Are you sure? Are you sure?”

Bazil said  "Yeah, sure Man."And the traffic cleared and our car pulled away.

We were all dumfounded! What had just transpired before our eyes was unbelievable, to say the least.

Bazil left Saigon the next day for Hong Kong.

It has never ceased to amaze me how Bazil managed to get himself into these type of situations and whats more, escape unharmed.

He did it time and time again,

May he rest in peace!