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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [52r] (103/336)
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
50
dark frock coat and a black spade beard, for all the world like one of those
illustrations in the old-fashioned French Readers which were used in schools
when I was a boy. The Consul-General, for so it proved to be, flung his
arms wide, advanced at a trot with his coat tails flapping, seized the
Colonel by the shoulders, and saluted him loudly on either cheek before even U
could take evasive action. The Colonel's already heightened colour became
even more hectic as he strove to control his tender. By an almost super
human effort he succeeded and allowed himself to be led by the hand into
the holy of holies. There, with the aid of coffee and cigarettes and a
stream of compliments in which the Colonel held his own, to our great admir
ation, our business was attended to by the great man himself, and when the
formalities had been completed, he escorted us personally past his apathetic
clients to the front door and with another burst of compliments, bade the
Colonel farewell with a final embrace. We had walked a hundred yards down
the street before the Colonel spoke and what he said was unprintable.
In 1927 the Naim brothers ran a service of Cadillac motor cars across the
desert from Baghdad via Rutbah wells to Damascus and the Colonel decided to
set out in the very early morning before the Naira car was scheduled to
start so that if we had a serious breakdown, we would know that we had some
one behind us. He had already driven across the desert in the opposite
direction from Damascus to Baghdad and knew precisely what we were in for,
but to Bill and me it was a bit of an adventure, two hundred and seventy
miles of wide open space with nothing in the nature of a made road, just on
and on, taking what looked like the best of the innumerable tracks of pre
vious travellers. In fact, it was one of the easiest drives that we had to
do and we crossed the Euphrates at Falluja by the old bridge of boats and went
straight on th Rutbah where we arrived late at night an hour or so before the
Nairn car came in. We slept in the fort and started after the Naira car had
left the next morning to complete the two hundred miles to Palmyra in time
for a late picnic lunch. We ate among the ruins of that once famous city and
I got into trouble for wasting most of the only bottle of beer that we had.
I opened it carelessly, forgetting that it had got hot in the sun. The cpn-
ft
tents shot straight out over the Colonel who explained forcibly in betweez^
wiping his face precisely what sort of half wit I was. Extraordinary how
things fix themselves in one's mind. Of the wonderful columns I can rememb&r
nothing, but the recollection of the mishap with the beer is as fresh as if i
it happened yesterday. We stayed only one night in Damascus which we reached
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' [52r] (103/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x000068> [accessed 27 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.