Mark Abell - a true Brit

British businessman Mark Abell demonstrated some of the most stoically stiff upper lipped behaviour I’ve ever heard when he was caught in the terrorist attack on Mumbai’s Oberoi hotel last week.

Having had to barricade himself in his room, with gunmen roaming the corridors looking for Westerners to kill and with hardly any food and water he spoke to BBC radio’s Today programme.

As he talked he displayed incredible calm under fire. It was as if he had come out of a different epoch - the Indian Mutiny, for example. He must have been terrified, but sounded less nervous than a Labour minister discussing the economy.

‘We were too close for comfort’ and ‘it was very grim’ were two classics of understatement. It was an exceptional display of sang froid and great news that he got out of the Oberoi in one piece.