A CHARITY worker has described the terrifying moment he was held at gunpoint and robbed of his camera, mobile phone – and pyjamas.
And John Littlejohn revealed that a Capercaillie album kept him going during the 25-minute ordeal at the hands of a masked gang in Africa.
The raiders, who were also armed with machetes and clubs, targeted the 63-year-old and three fellow volunteer project workers at their lodge in Malawi.
The security guard at the property on the outskirts of the northern city of Mzuzu was beaten unconscious before the robbers launched their attack.
Mr Littlejohn, a retired Scottish Water manager, said he and his fellow project workers had been sitting around the dinner table after a day’s work when two men entered the room.
He said: “We were just having our tea and they came in. When the first couple of them charged through the door with masks on, one carrying a gun and the other carrying a machete, you very quickly realised that something was not right.”
Speaking at his home at Turriff yesterday, he added: “The rest of us were tied up. I was told later they used electricity cable.
“At first I wondered if it was all real, but the machetes and the clubs were real.
“And when somebody points a gun at you, cocks it and tells you to get down on the ground, you get down on the ground.
“They got on with it, trying to find as much money as they could.
“The whole thing lasted just over 25 minutes.
“I know that as a CD was playing – a Capercaillie CD – and I was counting the tracks as all this was going on.”
Mr Littlejohn said he had not listened to the record since he got back to Scotland. He said: “I might listen to it today, though. I actually have the same album in the car.”
Mr Littlejohn, who had his camera, mobile phone and pyjama jacket stolen in the raid, said he did not want the experience to overshadow his time in Malawi.
He said: “I can’t deny it was scary but it could have lasted an awful lot longer and they could have had more sinister motives than they had.
“Malawi is termed the warm heart of Africa and, bar that half hour, it was.”
He said he believed the experience was worse for his wife, Ada, and his daughters, Fiona and Anne, back home in the north-east.
“They don’t know what’s going on,” Mr Littlejohn said. “They are living on the scraps of what you have managed to get them on the phone and communication was tough as all our phones were stolen.”
He added he had not ruled out going back to Malawi to check on the success of the water project.
Mr Littlejohn is a church elder at St Ninian’s and Forglen Church at Turriff and a member of the local Probus Club.
He travelled to Africa on September 30 after being approached by the Raven Trust, a Christian organisation based in Argyll, to use his professional expertise of water systems on a project north of Mzuzu.
Police in Malawi believe as many as nine people may have been involved in the raid on the lodge, which happened on October 11.