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smallpox vaccine a priority. The PM summoned Rees-Mogg [30] to Downing Street, and I was told that she could be heard three rooms away berating him. I raised a glass to her when I heard that - smallpox had been clearly identified as the No 1 threat to the UK. Cancer is vile and horrible, but it would be nothing compared to if one of the epidemic nasties got loose in the UK.
     
    However, rather less reported at the time was the small epidemic of crime that occurred as illegal drugs ran out. Obviously, some drugs remained available; barbiturates and amphetamines mainly, although the former were in short supply for a year or so - this caused quite a considerable problem amongst people who took them legally for their conditions, never mind those who abused them. The drugs that were going out of supply were cannabis, cocaine and heroin. Now, cannabis users were not really a source of trouble and cocaine use was fairly rare and in fairly rarified circles - a few media personalities had their near permanent colds clear up - but heroin had its grip on a lot of people, and a lot more than we had thought.  As supplies became shorter and shorter, prices went up - in some areas, street crime became a real problem virtually overnight. Of course, by now in some areas the police were used to having the gloves off and there were a few days of a big clamp down; in others, where there had been little problem with food disorder, their reaction was slower. Of course, there then started to be medical problems: some addicts sadly died during “cold turkey”; some ended up being committed to mental hospitals; and others put various strains on Accident and Emergency departments. I am happy to say that even to this day heroin is not even a minor problem in the UK, although the number of young people who go to İstanbul to smoke opium and hashish is on the rise.
     
    One of the most difficult things to deal with were the 400,000 or so short-term visitors to the UK at the time of the Dislocation. Some were visiting families or friends, which at least meant that their housing needs were looked after; some were visiting for work, which meant - at least, where the company wasn’t collapsing - their firms looked after them in the short term. It had already been agreed, subject to the whims of Parliament, that everyone who was here could stay, but questions of status had yet to be determined. There was a frightful interdepartmental row about this: some people tried to claim that they were the FO’s responsibility, whilst the FO said they were clearly refugees and therefore the Home Office’s problem, whilst the Home Office decided, as they had effectively been given Indefinite Leave to Remain, they were the DHSS’s problem. Essentially, no one wanted to pay for them out of their budgets - which were already being heavily reworked by Geoffrey. At the same time, they were increasingly destitute and increasingly being thrown onto the streets by hoteliers, boarding houses and the like. I’m afraid that whilst you can square the Forte’s and the Stakis', the average London small hotelier makes Mr van Hoogstraten look pleasant and kindly. Of course, many of the British people responded with great kindness - my friend Derek took in two young American college students for a few months - but there were really just too many to cope with.
     
    Luckily, it had been decided to treat them all as refugees, be they legal visitors or illegal visitors - of which there were probably a hundred thousand or so. As such, they would be eligible to find work, claim some limited benefits and be considered for housing. The problem was, the refugee scheme was really designed for about 1,000 people fleeing horrid regimes a year rather than around half a million people in one go. So eventually, we ended up doing some deals to house them; there was a consideration of using holiday camps, but we were rebuffed - bookings had gone through the roof as the smarter members of the