[00:06.50]1.Listen to John talking about and experience he had

[00:12.43]and answer the following questions.

[00:15.67]Er, let me think,

[00:19.51]it was about midday--er I'd left work early in the morning 'cos I wanted to cash a cheque.

[00:25.76]Walked along to the bank,

[00:28.58]er found that there weren't too many people in there,

[00:32.42]which was pretty unusual for those, for those central city banks --

[00:36.65]about ten or eleven customers.

[00:39.29]Went in, waited until it was my turn

[00:43.81]and just went up to the desk and started to talk to the bank clerk in there

[00:47.86]and he had this really strange expression on his face--

[00:51.59]he just sort of looked at me blankly--

[00:54.94]at least I thought he was looking at me and then I realised that he was staring over my shoulder

[01:00.37]and so I began to mm round,

[01:03.29]to see'what he was looking at.

[01:06.22]At the same moment the guard, I mean the bank guard who,

[01:10.95]that chap outside who has a machine gun,

[01:14.58]came flying through the door and lay face down on the floor

[01:18.21]and following him through the door were three masked men,

[01:21.76]which was absolutely terrifying.

[01:24.30]I mean they had stocking,

[01:27.12]stocking masks on er which make people look really unpleasant.

[01:32.66]They were carrying guns, at least I think they all,

[01:37.18]certainly the one in front was carrying a gun, a pistol.

[01:41.30]Whether or not they said anything at that point I can't remember to this day,

[01:46.16]I've just no idea or whether people just automatically put their hands up.

[01:51.91]Certainly I put my hands up er then I just didn't know what to do.

[01:58.05]For a few moments there was just total silence,

[02:01.78]suddenly broken by the telephone ringing

[02:04.84]and I remember thinking and wondering who was on the other end of the telephone.

[02:08.78]Nobody went to answer the telephone,

[02:12.34] so this thing just kept on ringing and ringing,

[02:16.07]and apart from that this,this deathly hush.

[02:19.70]Then two of the er, the masked men went to the counter in fact jumped over the counter

[02:26.63]and they had sacks with them

[02:29.26]and got the cashiers and the bank clerks to start filling the bags with cash.

[02:34.41]Anyway while the two were getting the money,

[02:37.86]the one at the door who was covering us with the gun obviously getting a bit panicky--

[02:43.11]he started swearing at them,

[02:45.83]telling them to hurry up, to get move on.

[02:48.99]They jumped back over the counter,

[02:52.54]one of them slipped as he landed on the floor and fell over and the other two swore at him again,

[02:58.08]so it was all pretty dramatic really and then they left, they left through the door.

[03:03.61]They said to us, "Don't move, stay like that with your hands up for ten minutes".

[03:09.94]And then they just disappeared.

[03:13.18]Again back to total silence.

[03:16.62]People put their hands down, I put my hands down but I just stayed exacfiy where I was.

[03:22.95]Then one of the people who worked in the bank

[03:27.18]pressed a button behind the counter and lowered the porteuRis thing

[03:31.12]that you have at the front of the bank,

[03:33.76]I don't know exactly what you call it so that we were locked in

[03:38.38]and then we just stayed like that and the police arrived,

[03:42.33]I suppose after about three or four minutes, picked up the bank guard who,

[03:47.29]poor chap he was stir lying there prostrate on the floor

[03:51.03]and then there was a good deal of confusion

[03:54.48]and as though in a dream I just wandered out of the bank.

[03:58.32]Nobody tried to stop me.

[04:00.85]The police didn't seem interested in me, they didn't want to question me.

[04:05.81]I wasn't asked to be a witness or anything so I just wandered out of the bank.

[04:10.33]Life was going on outside as normal in the busy street and I wandered back to the school.

[04:16.08]On the way back I bumped into the accountant--the school's accountant --

[04:21.22]and just sort of casually mentioned to him that I'd just been in a bank robbery;

[04:25.67]of course he was absolutely flabbergasted and said you know "Do you want to come for a drink?"

[04:32.82]and I said OK and in fact it was only at that point

[04:37.45]that I really began to feel nervous and almost sort of I felt myself trembling a little bit.

[04:42.98]I was a bit -- I was all right later on after I'd had a couple of brandies enn,

[04:48.63]but it only really came home to me what had happened at that point.

[04:52.86]What still amazes me is that the robbers went out onto the street--

[04:58.11]which is one of the busiest streets in Naples-

[05:01.56]remember it was midday and they just disappeared into thin air.

[05:06.00]I stir find that absolutely extraordinary.