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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [31r] (61/336)
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.
29
and was very glad when the time came for lunch, after which I said goodbye
to my host and we set off on the return journey to Riyadh. We drove
through a blinding dust storm with the visibility reduced to a few yards,
but the driver made no concession to the elements and maintained his normal
speed of fifty miles an hour and not for the first time in my life I came
to the conclusion that I was underpaid.
When we reached the
Wadi
A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows.
Hanifa, I found that I had an hour in which to bath
and change before going to the Marabah Palace to dine with Ibn Saud. I was
ready within the hour and found Rushdi Mulhas and Tahir Effendi waiting for
me in the sitting room. I had arrayed myself in my last set of clean white
clothes and was wearing a black cloak and felt that whatever mistakes in
etiquette I might make during the course of the evening's entertainment, at
least I was correctly dressed for my part. At Rushdi's Suggestion we set
off at once for the palace and when we got there, found the courtyard
deserted except for the Guard of Honour. We walked along empty corridors
and, as it was obvious that we were early, waited for a time in what seemed
to be a small office. When Rushdi thought that we had waited long enough
we trapsed along another passage to a narrow staircase up which a number of
gentlemen in gold agal-bound headlcoths were hurrying. We followed them
slowly and came out on to the flat roof of a building on which had been
arranged two rows of large sofas facing each other across a sea of carpets
at the far end of which there stood a large padded chair flanked by two
sofas and in front of which was that essential piece of equipment, a tele
phone on a small table. Members of the household and other officials were
seated on the sofas down the right-hand side and the Amirs Saud and Faisal
and the Amir Abdullah, Ibn Saud's brother, were grouped in the middle of
the left-hand row facing the officials across the carpets. I was intro
duced to the Amir Abdullah by the Amir Saud and directed to a seat on the
sofa to the left of the chair. The next twenty minutes were acutely embar
rassing to a poor linguist who also had the misfortune to be shy because the
Amirs would insiste on talking to me and I was forced to shout in my
execrable Arabic to carry the fifty fee which separated us. The officials
A
on their side sat like a row of mutes and numberless servants stood immov
able around us staring unseeing to their front with expresfiionless faces.
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' [31r] (61/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x00003e> [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.