Me, the pandemic and the hobbies that saved me!

The pandemic and me.?

I returned to Toronto Canada from a two-year contract in hospitality consulting in Dresden Germany in September of 2020 and landed straight into a country in lock down and an enforced isolation period of fourteen days. The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on many of us an in some ways has changed the way we think and act. Yet I consider myself one of the lucky ones.?

An avid amateur photographer, I planned photo walks in and around the beautiful parks of Toronto and experienced firsthand the well-defined seasons and captured them through my lenses. These photographic adventures allowed me both a sense of purpose and the chance of fresh air and exercise.?

But if my photography pulled me out of the house, my most exciting adventures came during my hours at home.?

My career in hospitality management, stretching from England to Israel, and from South Africa to Canada via Cyprus, has afforded me both a rewarding experience and a veritable encyclopedia of personal anecdotes and insider knowledge.?

I have used these in my ‘first’ hobby, that of writing and publishing thrillers. ?

I admit that writing my first book, ‘The Taba Convention’, took around 18 years, but as a hotel general manager who has the time to write on a daily basis? ?

It was only after arriving in Toronto that I got serious about completing Taba. I was working on planning a large destination resort at Fort Erie in Ontario, and now had some time to write.?

The years that I had spent as general manager at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem had given me priceless knowledge of diplomacy and security arrangements at a luxury hotel in the?hugely important capital city of Israel. During my time there I was fortunate to host President Putin, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mayor Bloomberg of New York and countless other diplomats and heads of state.?

During this time, we also experienced the terrible suicide bombings across Israel. ?In fact, just days before I started my tenure at the Citadel, a suicide bomber blew himself up across from the hotel. My chief engineer even asked me once if I wanted to know the suite number that the terrorist’s head landed in. On the day I started there was an attack on a bus down the road not far from the hotel on King David Street.?

I had almost daily visits to the workout room by Bibi Netanyahu, and the hotel was locked down often ‘security-wise’ for visits by Shimon Peres, cabinet ministers and various conventions and high-profile meetings.?

I had a lot of interaction and coordination with foreign security agencies and the Israeli general security services to ensure smooth and event free visits. Heads of state were invariably welcomed in the underground car park well away from any potential threats and snipers. ?

The balcony of the Presidential suite was equipped with a bullet proof slab of glass during these visits, and floodlighting lit up all the surrounds to the hotel during the dark hours.?

The Americans outfitted their allocated floors with their won telephone system, and each room doubled as an office, with state-of-the-art equipment. There were ‘tents’ in the Presidential suite that afforded for no eavesdropping during important high-level calls. Putin even flew in his Presidential Mercedes, and this gave him uninterrupted communications with Moscow through his jet parked at Ben Gurion International.?

As general manager, I soaked in all these facts and my numerous personal interactions with heads of mission and security services.?

So, when I finally sat down to complete my first thriller, I had only little need for a whole lot of research. I had lived it for over two years.?

Following Condoleezza Rice’s two visits, I received a very gracious thank you letter and autographed photograph which hangs in my home study today. I posted her a copy of ‘The Taba Convention’ and received another thank you letter.?

I started out writing a trilogy of thrillers and am now halfway through my third. Many friends who have read the two books have seen that there is a good deal of ‘autobiographical’ material in the books. While I have in-depth knowledge of many security details, I also have a wealth of hospitality experience gained over the course of my almost fifty-year career.?

I have had the very real pleasure to work with colleagues from many ethnicities and walks of life and have today many friends from all those years, spread across many countries. ?

So, as we start exiting the pandemic, I invite you to download one of my books and enjoy what has given me so much pleasure to write.?

I have been told more than once that they are perfect ‘airport and flight’ novels and make the flight time fly.?

I invite you all to read more about my books, including a short bio, photographs and more at:?

www.stephenwayers.com?

Thanks, Stephen?