Shoreham man stranded alone in Turkmenistan for nine months during covid lockdown

Mike Scrivener, who was born in Shoreham but lives in Thailand, was set to leave the central Asian country where he had been working in March, three days after its borders were closed.

The 62-year-old has worked in the oil industry for decades and despite fleeing the Arab Spring in Egypt and being caught up in Mexican drug wars, he said this was his most stressful experience.

“It is stressful but as I tell my family, there’s always someone in the world worse off than you,” he said.

“Even during the Cairo uprising or the drug wars, you were never barred from leaving. Now I can’t even go to the pub or go to a restaurant.

“It’s the simple things you start to miss. Sausages and bacon, gravy granules. We’re down to our last pot of Lurpak butter. People think you’ll miss the fancy things but it’s the simple stuff.”

It gets lonely and claustrophobic, he said, with a countrywide social media ban limiting his ability to contact his wife in Thailand and the rest of his family around the world.

Strict lockdown measures introduced six weeks ago mean Mike will come home from work on a Friday and not see anyone until Monday. At one point he was forced to quarantine for two weeks in complete isolation.

As a Shoreham boy at heart, Mike said he would listen with sadness to updates from his sister, who still lives in the town, of his favourite drinking haunts like the Marlipins or the Red Lion closed by coronavirus.

“Shoreham’s one of those places that’s got a bit of everything, but if the businesses close it’s very hard to get things like that back,” he said. He praised the British embassy for keeping him informed, but even if a flight can be chartered soon it will be another two months until he can see his wife again, once he has quarantined and reapplied for a Thai visa from the UK.

Even then, closed borders mean his company cannot fly anyone in to replace him, potentially grounding him until next year. Despite being trapped in the country, Mike said Turkmenistan’s harsh lockdown made him feel safe. The country has not reported a single coronavirus case so far.