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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [41r] (81/336)
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.
i
39
at five o'clock the following evening and unloaded the cars without mis
hap. Duzdap was one of the roost miserable looking places that I have
ever had the misfortune to visit. Everything about it was depressing with
the exception of the Vice Consulate where we were made very welcome by the
Vice-Consul, Captain McAnn. There was quite a party that first evening
with the Consul in Seistan and his wife, Mr & Mrs Skrine, and the Persian
Government Customs’ Officer and his wife, both of whom were Belgians. We
spent the following morning busy with the final preparations for the
journey, having our passports endorsed and providing ourselves with
Persian currency. I changed eighty
rupees
Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf.
into silver krans at a rate of
exchange of about forty krans to the rupee. Curiously enough the
Imperial Bank of Persia acted as the ticket office for the railway because
rupees
Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf.
were not legal tender in Persia and the North Western Railway
would not accept krans in payment for tickets, so passengers bought their
tickets in krans and the bank paid the railway in
rupees
Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf.
in Quetta. In
the afternoon I explored the small shopping centre and was enchanted by
the carpets in the shops, but I could only look and admire as I had
neither the money to purchase nor the smallest hope of getting the Colonel
to agree to my taking even a small carpet in the car.
On the 14th we left Duzdap in the late afternoon and drove along the
stony bed of a dry water course by the roughest track I had ever experi
enced and averaged no more than ten miles an hour for the very short dis
tance of thirty-five miles to the deserted village of Hurroulk where we
stayed the night at the telegraph office. Mrs Nisbet did the cooking and
I made myself useful getting our kit out of the car and laying the table
while the Colonel and Bill were busy filling the car up with petrol.
This had to be done by syphoning the petrol out of the spare tanks which
had been fitted to the running boards and filling a spare can which in
turn was emptied into the main petrol tank. Syphoning petrol was a job I
disliked intensely. I always sucked too hard on the rubber tube and got
a mouthful of petrol. After supper I did the washing up and was glad
when the time came to get into my sleeping-bag and get what sleep I could
on the hard floor.
The next morning we set out shortly after dawn down what remained of the
old military road, a relic of the 1914-1918 War. It had been washed away
in places and we were forced from time to time to abandon it altogether
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' [41r] (81/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x000052> [accessed 28 June 2026]
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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.