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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [84r] (167/336)
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.
82
times and this religious judge was just one of those people. I greeted him
as civilly as I could and he sat down amidst the bedclothes, pieces of the
camp bed, and the debris of my breakfast, with a quiet assurance that I
coulo not help but admire. He explained the earliness of his visit by say
ing that invariably he rose at 4 a.m. to say his prayers and having com
pleted his religious observances and the succeeding meditations, he had felt
it his duty to pay his respects to the "foreigner" who had come to the town
for no explained reason. Clad in a dirty white garment with a slightly
cleaner turban on his head, his thin face adorned with a straggly beard and
his mouth filled with dirty, yellow teeth several sizes too large, he was
not an agreeable sigiit. He may have been a very worthy person in spite of
his appearance, but we had no time in which to make his closer acquaintance
and continued with our packing. After a little time it dawned on him that
we were not conversationally inclined and with a scarcely civil farewell, he
disappeared through the door. From the exclamations of a far from pious
character which followed his departure, it appeared that it was as ill-timed
as his arrival, he had become involved on the stairs with two donkey-men
carrying my box and sustained some discomfiture of person.
A brief but warm word of thanks with our hostess and I hurried down the
stairs to find no sign of the luggage or the donkeys. They were, it seemed,
in a different quarter of the town and would overtake us. I hoped they
would because my luggage contained the financial resources of the expedition
in the shape of two hundred Maria Theresa dollars, silver coins of the size
of a five shilling piece, in a small suitcase. On the outskirts of the town
I found Sultan Abdullah bin Ahmad with the boy, Jabil, waiting. They insis
ted on walking part of the way with me but after half a mile I persuaded
them to return and they left me with a renewed promise to stay with them on
ray return. Ahmad's father returned with them. A most hospitable and kindly
soul to whom I was much indebted. Alone, we moved more rapidly but not as
quickly as the men with the donkeys who, to ray relief, overtook us before we
reached the next village of Bilas, a crumbling watch tower set on a small
hill around, and on, which clustered a group of stone-cum-mud houses. The
ground here had been well soaked and some of the fields were still flooded
from yesterday’s rain. After Bilas the track rose slowly but steadily as we
approached the edge of the escarpment and soon we were enveloped in misty
clouds and it was cold and clammy. At Has al Hadd, the ooint where the
track begins its precipitous descent to the plain below, I paused to
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' [84r] (167/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x0000a8> [accessed 30 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.