 In December of 1985, I met my first winter vacation in Bath. Since almost all of local and continental students went home, only some overseas students from Asia, Africa or Latin America had left. For management convenience, the university authority integrated all students scarcely located around whole campus in one dormitory, Wessex House, where Mr. Fang currently lived in. He got a thrifty idea and asked me to hand back my room in Eastwood and move to Wessex to share his room. It was a real economical way, because the accommodation expense was so expensive and almost cost half of our scholarship. As decent visiting scholars, we didn’t want to damage our dignity by illegal laboring, such as served as restaurant waiters, station porters etc. Therefore, to cut down our daily expenditure as much as possible was our only mean to save money.
Thank to his help, I completed all necessary procedures and moved to his room successfully. In this way, we not only had saved a considerable amount of money, but also had pulled out the loneliness and homesick crisis during the Chinese New Year period.
It was the late morning of Christmas Eve in 1985. Mr. Fang and I went down the campus hill for Christmas shopping. After about one and half hours’ selecting to meats and vegetables, we dropped in a famous electronic shop, Gatewick to see my favorable camera. For unknown reasons, the shop assistor did not allow us to bring our shopping bag in. We had to leave it beside the display windows. To our surprise, when we returned back, the bag having already disappeared! “Oh, dear!” we shouted with intensive dismay. “I never imagined the thief would be interested in vegetables even in England!” Mr. Fang kept complaining. It was true; no any theft case had ever been reported by local media since we settled down in Bath.
In that evening, a horrible TV broadcast spoiled the joyful fete of Christmas Eve. A live report was shown on TV screen which snatched thousands people’s hearts. There were dozen of heavily armed policemen lying on snow ground. They seemed to be besieging a strange subject beside the steel bridge nearby Bath Railway Station. Obviously, it must be a terror case occurred. From the thrilling TV scene on-site, we found an explosive expert with a strange bag running wild. This legendary hero took no care to his own safety and had a hard time on the icy field. The fete air was frozen. We could not help admiring those brave people who were going sacrifice their lives, their festival pleasure to our society. However, at the agonizing moment, the story had a dramatic turning, when the expert reached to a shelter place far away from the bridge. We found, from the focused camera lens, he was cautiously opening the parcel. “Why is the bag looked so familiar?” I asked. “Oh, my God! It is my shopping bag!” Mr. Fang cried out in start.
Then, the screen was switched to a funny scene when the reporter had deliberately shown what were on the expert’s hands. That was nothing but a bundle of discounted vegetables with yellow tags! A thundering laugh blasted out everywhere, which recovered the festival happiness to all residents in Bath, except for Mr. Fang and me, since we were so regretted to our negligence which caused so many policemen lying on snow almost whole afternoon for nothing.
After that, we’d managed to get the details. In that morning, one unemployed fellow was wandering nearby electronic shops and worrying about the Christmas gifts to his craving kids. He suddenly found a deserted bag lying under the display windows of Gatewick. He considered it was the very gift given by Santo and hastily went back to give his kids a surprise. In midway home he opened the parcel in anxiety. But the finding really disappointed him. He threw it away in despair.
It was wartime when a territory dispute between Great Britain and Argentina had been escalated to a fight, which disturbed people’s peaceful lives so much that even a minor event might trigger a huge crisis. That was why a finding report to the peculiar parcel nearby the railway bridge would have caused such panic.
Related Resources: crisis management, managed care
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