AS QATAR beams its infrastructure to the world during the World Cup, a quantity surveyor who worked in the country has been blown away by the speed of its development.
Graeme Spencer, from Eccleston, lived in Qatar from 2011 to 2015 as the country prepared to bring the FIFA World Cup to the Middle East for the first time.
Taking up the opportunity of a lifetime, the St Helens quantity surveyor booked a one-way ticket with his wife and worked on the construction of a highway from the Emir's palace (Qatar's head of state) into the city of Doha.
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Working on the eight-lane, £1billion project, Graeme said it was an eye-opening experience and a way of working he was not entirely used to.
Graeme, 65, said: "It was definitely a different way of working in Qatar, and I was in charge of unbelievable amounts of money at times.
"Even if there were disagreements or I raised issues about something, people were paid, no matter what."
After working for around nine months on the Qatari road infrastructure, Graeme secured a job for a US firm on the high-rise developments in Doha.
He and his wife lived in a luxury walled compound and as long as you followed the country's customs, people were "extremely accommodating", Graeme said.
However, eventually growing tired of the demand to construct infrastructure as quickly as possible, which often meant working six days a week in intense heat, he moved back to the UK to be closer to his family in 2015.
Like the rest of us, Graeme has been following England at the World Cup for the last two weeks, and although he worked in the country for four years, the dad-of-three said he is amazed by its pace of development.
Graeme added: "When I was working in Doha, there was only one stadium there so it's amazing to see all the buildings and stadiums that have shot up over the last few years.
"It's been a very ambitious project to develop the country at such a rate and it has been in a continual state of construction to get where they are now.
"I doubted if I was making the right choice to go to Qatar at the time, but it's an experience I'll never forget and it's great to see all the fans having a good time there at the World Cup."
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