HolidAid

Haiti, Chile and others launch HolidAid

Roy Ters: Friday 23 April 2010, 17:14 BST

Heartrending scenes of British tourists trapped in disaster zones such as Heathrow, Gatwick, the Bahamas and Australia’s Bondi Beach by the Icelandic Ashcloud of Doom have prompted the bighearted people of Haiti, Chile and that Chinese town flattened by an earthquake recently to set up HolidAid, an appeal to help the poor bastards return home.

Standing outside the rubble of his dwelling in Haiti’s earthquake-shattered capital, Port-au-Prince, forty-year old Jean-Baptiste Laurent, an unemployed mango hacker, told of his anguish in seeing the tragic victims of the holiday cancellation disaster on the Red Cross television he shares with five hundred fellow quake victims. “When I saw those poor people trapped in airports, unable to go home, my heart ached for them,” he said, with a dignity that only a lifetime living in squalid poverty and shit can confer. “How they cope with only temporary accommodation in mediocre hotels and three hot meals a day I cannot understand. At least my Red Cross tent is permanent and I get a free bowl of rice every other day.”

Meanwhile, in Chile, Carmen Miranda (no relation) said, “The Lord God himself, He cry when He see these poor travellers trapped in Heathrow and Gatwick. When I think of them I cry too, and if my mother, father and brothers hadn’t been killed in the earthquake, why, they would cry with me.” Fifteen-year old Carmen, currently working as a prostitute with her younger sister to make ends meet while her shattered town is rebuilt, went on to say, “Those poor people, they have nothing to do, they can only sit around all day watching the television. Luckily, I can keep myself busy giving businessmen handjobs.”

It is stoic and selfless people such as Jean-Baptiste, Carmen and some Chinese bloke we couldn’t understand in another earthquake-flattened town, who have been the galvanising force behind HolidAid, a new charity set up to help the wretched victims of the Holidaycalypse. Thanks to their efforts, and the generosity of other groups such as the New Orleans Flood and Indian Ocean Tsunami survivors, the first tragic victims of this unprecedented event have been able to return home from Heathrow and Gatwick airports by bus and even, in some cases, train.

At Gatwick, there were scenes of indescribable relief as the first HolidAid bus arrived to collect stricken victims of Holidaygeddon and return them to their far-flung homes, some as far away as Watford. Kevin Dagenham, a fifty-year old father of four, broke down and wept with relief as he described their horrific experience. “Me and the missus, right, and the kids, right, we was meant to be flying to Majorca, right, but then the Icelandic Ashcloud of Terror threw us into what I can only describe as chaos, right!?”

For over one night he and his family were forced to sleep in the main Gatwick terminal before being transferred to a Horrible Inn hotel for another six nights. He shuddered as he relived the scenes of chaos and horror that descended as some trapped would-be holidaymakers cracked under a strain never before seen in human history and almost turned to cannibalism when the airport's restaurant concessions ran out of pizza, fried chicken, and lightly-toasted ham-n-cheese panini by lunchtime on the first day. Fortunately, I didn't have to put up with any more of his intolerable whining and bleating as the HolidAid bus arrived in the nick of time to pluck him and his family from Biblical scenes of hell to return them to far-flung Romford.

Meanwhile, the people of the Bahamas and Australia’s Bondi Beach, among other places, have also donated generously to HolidAid, one bighearted Australian quipping through gritted teeth, “I’d pay anything to get those whinging Pommy bastards out of here!”