Graham Reid: No stranger to a good story

Michael was Welsh, a retired fire chief and he had a great job. He headed his own consultancy and, on behalf of insurance companies, travelled the world checking out safety in fancy hotels and luxury lodges which hosted British tourist groups.

As far as I could tell that meant he would make sure the sprinklers and alarms were working, and that the appropriate warning signs were placed prominently around the pool.

He'd stay in these expensive hotels as a guest, chat with the manager and inevitably end up in the restaurant or bar.

It seemed like a good job, and the only downside was that in most places he couldn't indulge in talking about his first love: rugby.

Which is why, when we should have been admiring the view outside the window as we sat in a bar in Thailand's Golden Triangle, we ended up speculating on the All Blacks' World Cup prospects and reminisced about the godlike genius of Barry John.

Our conversation baffled the few Thai and Scandinavians in our company, but we were lost in a world of our own and Michael had a fund of fascinating rugby anecdotes.

I think he had been a well-rated referee at some stage, but now in his 50s he was very much the spectator.

Michael was a wonderfully melodic storyteller and recounted a darkly humorous story about an incident when he had been a fireman: an old woman who had died was laid out in the upper floor of a terraced house, a fire broke out in the kitchen below, the brigade arrived and in carrying the coffin downstairs he slipped, the coffin and its contents bounced all the way to the bottom ...

The way he told it, full of pauses for effect and wry turns of phrase, had me doubled up with laughter. And then he told another story, and another.

We joked about how lucky we were to be in such mutually fine company, and we wondered openly what we had done to deserve such a fortunate life; me writing travel stories, and him traipsing around the world after a lifetime of working for the fire department.

Then as the night went on Michael told other stories: of the apartment fire where he couldn't get through the smoke and heat to rescue the baby; of the young fireman who dived through a window into the unknown on the other side in order to find a trapped woman; of blackened bodies and crying families ...

As I went to my room with its petal-filled bath, turn-down service and view across a humid Asian jungle, I knew what Michael had done to deserve the life he was now enjoying.