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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [28r] (55/336)
The record is made up of 1 volume (168 folios). It was created in 1982?. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
26
near which was a large and pleasant house of recent construction. I was
not surprised to learn that it belonged to Ibn Saud, but I was surprised
to see what looked like an earthen embankment or ramp against the side of
the house. The explanation was that as electric lifts were not yet pos
sible at A1 Karaj and the King's stiff knee, the result of an old wound,
made stairs a nuisance, the ramp had been constructed so that he could in
fact drive from his ground-floor reception room to his first floor bedroom.
Fine dust hung suspended in the still air as we passed a threshing machine
at work and swung left to the Minister’s house, a pleasant place of white
arches and courts. The Minister was waiting to receive me and I found it
hard to believe when first I saw this small spare man with his thin dark
complexloned face, clad from head to foot in fine white cotton, that I was
in the presence of the most powerful man in the kingdom after Ibn Saud him
self. Very quickly I was to appreciate the dynamic personality behind the
slightly prominent eyes which not only conceived and developed A1 Karaj,
but controlled the Secretariat in Taif and kept a finger on the pulse of
affairs in Jedda and Riyadh all by W/T telephone. His appetite for work
and for food was out of all proportion to his size and he was almost a
chain-smoker of cigarettes, having a preference for the "Lucky Strike"
brand of American cigarettes. A Nejdi of the merchant class he had, I
believe, been at one time in the employ of the well-known Nejdi merchant-
family, the A1 Qoseibis, in their Bombay office. Ten years in business
stood him in good stead when he came to serve his royal master and seldom
has a country in the Middle East had so able and redoubtable a Minister.
After a short conversation we drove out together to see the agricultural
scheme. We started by watching corn being winnowed by hand and then went
on to see the motor thresher and from there to the Donkeys' stables.
Large white animals from the Hasa province, almost as big as mules. One
of them had a sore back which did not escape Sheikh Abdullah's sharp eye,
nothing did, and orders were given at once for it to be dressed before he
led me off to inspect the bullocks, and listen to a discourse on how the
larger animals from the sandy Tihamah coastal plain along the Red Sea had
proved unsatisfactory owing to their feet being injured by the hard stony
surface of the A1 ;araj desert. That done we drove through the fields and
I was surprised to see zinnias and roses flowering and groves of pomegran
ates and lime trees and vines with nearby melon beds and cucumbers.
About this item
- Content
This volume is a set of typewritten memoirs by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, a retired officer of the British Indian Army and the Indian Political Service The branch of the British Government of India with responsibility for managing political relations between British-ruled India and its surrounding states, and by extension the Gulf, during the period 1937-47. . Hickinbotham held various positions in India and in the Middle East, and these memoirs recount stories from his time in Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Quetta, Persia [Iran], Aden, Audhali, Bahrain and North Waziristan.
The memoirs were most likely completed in 1982-83; they cover the period 1927-1982, although most of the chapters relate to events from the 1930s and 1940s.
Hickinbotham writes not only about his official duties but also about various trips taken during periods of leave. Below is a list of the chapters, with a short summary of each:
- 'No Medals This Time' (ff 3-6) – details of an incident in Kuwait involving a dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. that caught fire off the foreshore at Shuwaik [Ash Shuwaykh]
- 'The Silver Coin' (ff 7-10) – thoughts on the use of the Maria Theresa thaler in Arabia
- 'The Golden Dagger' (ff 11-36) – an account of Hickinbotham's unofficial visit to Riyadh to meet Ibn Saud [‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd] in May 1942
- 'The Brass Pencase' (ff 37-53) – memories of a journey undertaken from Quetta to Europe via north Persia in 1927, travelling in a Fiat Tourer with Colonel T Nisbet (also referred to as the 'purple emperor'), on what Hickinbotham claims to have been the first trip taken by car from India to the Mediterranean
- 'The Bronze Boy' (ff 54-72) – reminiscences of weekends spent in 'Little Aden' (a rocky peninsula seven miles west of Aden), in 1938, and a later visit, in December 1961
- 'The Silver Letter Case' (ff 73-118) – details of a ten-day trip on the Audhali plateau in the summer of 1938, and a return visit, in December 1960 (the chapter ends with remarks on the situation in Yemen generally from the late sixties to the time of writing, i.e. 1982)
- 'The Agate Ring' (ff 119-144) – memories of travelling in Oman during the summer of 1940 and how this compared with Hickinbotham's last visit to the country in 1980
- 'The Pearl Tie Pin' (ff 145-151) – thoughts and anecdotes on the pearl trade in Bahrain
- 'A Point of View' (ff 152-157) – a story told to Hickinbotham, possibly fictional, of a pearl trader in the Gulf who lost his fortune and livelihood, and eventually his sanity
- 'Snakes Alive!!' (ff 158-161) – an account of a near-fatal encounter with a krite [krait] in Waziristan
- 'The Queen's Visit' (ff 162-168) – memories of the Queen's visit to the Aden Protectorate in 1954, where Hickinbotham was serving as Governor.
- Extent and format
- 1 volume (168 folios)
- Arrangement
The volume contains an index of chapter headings on folio 2, which includes some handwritten corrections and annotations.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the first folio with 1, and terminates at the last folio with 168; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. An additional mixed foliation/pagination sequence is also present in parallel between ff 3-168.
Condition: The original plastic comb binding ring has been replaced with a wider one to facilitate flat opening of the volume. Polyester film covers have been added to protect the first and last folios.
- Written in
- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [28r] (55/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x000038> [accessed 26 December 2024]
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- Mss Eur F226/13
- Title
- '"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE'
- Pages
- 1r:168v
- Author
- Hickinbotham, Sir Tom
- Usage terms
- The copyright status is unknown. Please contact [email protected] with any information you have regarding this item.