Only A Brit!

A Can Do British Attitude

If Briton Nick Hayward had finished his meal at the Taj Mahal hotel 30 seconds later, he would have been caught in the gunfire. [...]

‘I was extremely lucky. I was with a very good bunch of people. Three or four of us were Brits. There were some Irish as well. Most were Indian.

'We’d never met each other but I have to say, it was a true British stiff upper-lip situation. Together, the Brits helped to keep up morale.

‘There was a can-do attitude. We thought, 'Let’s get the barricades done, let’s do the practical things rather than sit there like sheep and wait to meet our fate.' [...]

Nick added: ‘We all decided that even though we had alcohol within reach we wouldn’t touch it because it seemed like a bad idea to get drunk.

‘But come 5am, we were fairly confident the police were going to get us out, so I marched over to the bar and found a bottle of vintage Cristal champagne and opened it and began pouring it into glasses.

‘Then the head waiter came rushing across to me and said, “No, no, you can’t do that!” and I said, 'Well we’re going to' and he said, 'No sir, those are the wrong type of glasses. I shall find you champagne flutes.'

'And he did. The service was immaculate.’

A stiff upper lip and an appreciation for good manners... in the middle of a terrorist attack. God bless England and her children!