!['"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [‎50r] (99/336)](https://iiif.qdl.qa/iiif/images/81055/vdc_100000000880.0x0002de/Mss Eur F226_13_0099.jp2/full/!1200,1200/0/default.jpg "'\"NO MEDALS THIS TIME\" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [‎50r] (99/336)")
'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [50r] (99/336)
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.
48 -
the modern part of Teheran was for the most part atrocious and most of the
magnificent covered markets to which I have referred had been pulled down.
Such is progress.
We left for Ramadan on the 29th April, two hundred and fifty miles along by
far the best road we had so far met with. In fact it was a made road and not
just a track across country, following generally the telegraph line which is
really all that we had travelled over since leaving India. The lonely motor
ist or lorry driver was very loath when crossing these ling distances to be
far from the telegraph line, the one hope of assistance in the event of a
major breakdown. Every driver carried a pair of insulated pliers, we did
ourselves, and when in desperate need, cut the line and sat down to wait for
the telegraph people to send out a party to repair the fault. From Teheran
Fa°: the first time we had no need to worry about getting too
far from the telegraph line.
Ramadan reminded me very much of a pleasant Welsh mountain village in much
the same setting and we had a refreshing change from the Teheran "Grand
Hotel" in the "Hotel de France" which was clean by Persian standards and com
fortable by any standards. Kermanshah was reached the following day and only
two things come to my mind about this place, and they are that the quarter of
the town in which we stayed at the "Bristol Hotel" was built out of petrol
cases and the town was full of Kurds, fine, handsome, upstanding men who would,
I am sure, have made very good soldiers. From Kermanshah we descended a steep
and long pass down to the Iraq plain and after watching a violent thunderstorm
moving up the river in the distance, entered Baghdad on 1st May with only about
seven hundred miles between us and the Mediterranean. I
I had always wanted to see Baghdad, the fabulous city of Haroun al Rashid and
the "Thousand and One Nights", and all the way across Persia I had been con
juring up in my mind's eye a vision of the slender minarets and the golden
domes which I imagined I should see when we arrived. Never have I been so
disappointed in any place in my life. It was a squalid, unromantic town of
mud brick with nothing at all outstanding in the way of domes or minarets.
The main street, Rashid Street, was certainly the meanest street of any capital
city that I had been in and compared most unfavourably with the main street in
any of the provincial cities in India. The street itself was ill-paved and
lined with small mean shops with but one or two decent buildings. The covered
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
Use and share this item
- Share this item
'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [50r] (99/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x000064> [accessed 1 April 2025]
https://www.qdl.qa/en/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x000064
Copy and paste the code below into your web page where you would like to embed the image.
<meta charset="utf-8"><a href="https://www.qdl.qa/en/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x000064">'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [‎50r] (99/336)</a> <a href="https://www.qdl.qa/en/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x000064"> <img src="https://iiif.qdl.qa/iiif/images/81055/vdc_100000000880.0x0002de/Mss Eur F226_13_0099.jp2/full/!280,240/0/default.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
This record has a IIIF manifest available as follows. If you have a compatible viewer you can drag the icon to load it.https://www.qdl.qa/en/iiif/81055/vdc_100000000880.0x0002de/manifestOpen in Universal viewerOpen in Mirador viewerMore options for embedding images
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 copyright@bl.uk with any information you have regarding this item.