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The Evening Gazette        Thursday, February 29, 1996
My Brush with Death: by Mark Benattar
The rush of air from the bomb blasted past Jerry Gordon's face - and he realised his sixth sense and a shoe shine boy had saved his life.

   The Fylde artist had brushed off dozens of street hawkers in Istanbul, where he was painting the famous Blue Mosque, when something made him stop to have his shoes shined.
   Seconds later - and just yards down the street - a bomb planted by Kurdish terrorists exploded.

    The force of the blast blew Jerry off his feet but, had he not stopped, he would have been dead.

   The near miss was just one life-altering adventure the 40-year-old painter has faced on his 10-year mission to paint 40 of the world's best known sacred sites for the millennium:
   In the former Soviet Union, painting St Basil's in Red Square, the KGB wanted to know what he was doing travelling alone in his orange VW Beetle.
   In India, he met the Dalai Lama, revered as a spiritual leader across the globe.

    And in Kashmir, on the way to paint the Shah Handam mosque, he had to fend off an armed Mujahadeen rebel who was demanding he voiced their case personally to President Clinton and Prime Minister John Major.
   Jerry said: "I was frightened at the possibility of being kidnapped as had happened to others at the time, but the shock of the armed man running up to me was an insight into the tension that exists in areas of religious conflict."
   Incredibly, the former ICI process worker has travelled to 45 countries on his mission.

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