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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [57r] (113/336)
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.
55
small stone mosques just above high water mark, very clean and tidy, and
immediately below me my cottage stood alone, separated from the village by
fifty yards of level sand. All along the water front were canoes large
and small, drawn up on the sand, and as many more lying at anchor on the
calm, sheltered water and numbers of naked brown children played in the
water and sailed their toy boats. The village and those that live in it
were guarded jointly by A1 Chadir in his shrine and the police post from
the perils of the sea and land. The Saint, a holy man of renown, was
reputed to have died at Sur in the territory of the Sultan of Muscat over
a thousand miles away and to have travelled after his death in a canoe
unaided by human hand to this bay. The then Mansab of Aden, a Saiyid of the
Aideroos family, himself inspected the body and found no trace of decompo
sition and it was laid to rest in what is now the shrine. The shrine was
tended by two brothers who were carpenters, and once a year a fair is held
in the Saint's honour and the tomb within the shrine receives a new silk
coverlet. People come from far and near on this day and give alms to the
shrine for its upkeep and for the provision of free meals for needy way
farers. After visiting the shrine, everybody joins in the dancing and all
the fun of the fair. Tomorrow would be the day of the annual fair and I
and all the villagers would take part in the celebration.
Since the arrival of A1 Ghadir the bay has been free from sharks and no-one
has been attacked by these creatures even during the monsoon which is the
most dangerous time all around the Aden coast. Whether this is due to the
power of the Saint or to the shallow white-sanded beach and the sheltered
waters is hard to say but personally, I, like the villagers, believed in
the virtue of A1 Ghadir. All around the shrine were the graves of the
fisher folk. When the hard battle against the elements and the struggle
against poverty was over, they were borne on the shoulders of their friends
and relatives to rest peacefully close to their guardian. The men who car
ried the bier changed frequently in the short journey across the hard sand
of the shore so that all could share the honour of carrying the body of
their companion while the women remained at home to weep and mourn. On
these occasions there were no black clothes or marvellous flowers, and
burial follows swiftly on death. To the fishermen, death was inevitable,
it was the final visible act of God in a person's journey through life and
as such to be accepted without protest, though to be sure these people would
have been less than human if they had not shown by their grave and sad faces
/
i
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' [57r] (113/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x000072> [accessed 31 July 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.