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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [35r] (69/336)
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.
33 -
and no suggestion was made that I might accompany them. Twitchell was
far from co-operative so I did not press the subject and as soon as
lunch was over, left them to their own devices.
In the late afternoon I thanked Rushdl Mulhas for his invaluable help
and set off alon£ the A1 Malaf road to cover the eighty miles to Ram'ah.
We camped that night a mile short of Ram*ah by the side of the track and
later saw the lights of an approaching car on the horizon but it stopped
some distance from us and I assumed that it belonged to Twitchell and
his party who were, like myself, camping for the night with the inten
tion of crossing the sands at dawn. We were up before dawn and drove
into Ram*ah to find a smart looking station wa^;on waiting there for us
with letters froo. Ibn Saud for the Sheikh of Kuwait. The slight awkward
ness of my farewell audience was explained by the King's messenger who
said that the clerk had had the letters ready for signature but I had
arrived a few minutes before I was expected, Rushdi’s telepathy must
have been slightly out of tune, and Ibn Saud in the face of my repeated
requests for permission to leave decided not to detain me while he com
pleted the correspondence but to send the letters to me at the Guest
house. By the time the messenger had arrived there I had left already
so he had driven on to intercept me at Ram*ah. I was very sorry to have
unwittingly caused all this trouble and explained my own part in what
had happened to the messenger and apologised to him for the misunder
standing which had resulted in his having a tiresome night drive. |H<-
was politeness itself and assured me that it had been no trouble at all
and that it was nothing for ne to worry about.
We left Ram*ah at 5 a.m. and three hours later, to my great relief, were
on the Kuwait side of the sands at Ma'agla, at least I and the people
with me in the station wagon were, but there was no sign of the lorry.
’While I was waiting for it to turn up I bathed in a concrete cistern
near the well. An hour after our arrival the Americans appeared and
told me that they had passed the lorry which had broken down with a
damaged spring but had refused assistance and the driver had told them
he could manage quite well and would come on slowly. They then drove
off to some tents on the far side of the wells and I saw them no more.
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' [35r] (69/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x000046> [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.