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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [92r] (183/336)
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.
90
wrapped In sacking was unloaded. The elderly gentlemen staggered with their
burden to my chair and dropped it with a thud on the ground. Undoing the
sacking they displayed to my astonished gaze, an unexploded bomb. Presum
ably it had been dropped by the Royal Air Force during a punitive raid fur
ther down the plain where a neighbouring tribe had been giving trouble and
some stone towers had been destroyed from the air. These thoughts passed
through my mind later. At the sight of the bomb my immediate inclination
was to run as far and as fast as I could but I overcame, not without an
inward struggle, this primitive instinct of self-preservation and asked, a
trifle sharply I fear, what the devil they wanted to bring the thing to me
for. They explained that they were blacksmiths and proposed to male use of
the material of which the bomb was made in their work, but before this could
be done it would be necessary to heat it red hot and they had doubts about
eat. They had in effect brought the bomb and th
problem to me. I told them that I shared their doubts and advised them most
strongly not to carry out their intention. My apparent ignorance of their
trade disappointed the* and they explained carefully the need for heat,
pointing out that to use their sledge hammers on the bomb in its present
state would be a waste of time. I said that if they did so it would be the
last opportunity they would over have of wasting time and besought them to
do nothing of the sort. I suggested that if they rust heat it, they should
carry out their intention as far away from their village as sible. They
agreed that this would be desirable and said that they would heat it over a
wood fire and see v/hat happened. I advised them, as they lifted the bomb a
few inches off the ground to carry it back to the camel, to keep as far awav
as possible while the heating process was being carried out. They dropped
their burden on the ground with another thud to explain that though they
were only poor people, they valued their lives as much as I did my own.
With this manifest untruth on their lips, they reloaded the camel and went
away. As no account of any ghastly accident reached me, I can presume only
that either they abandoned their scheme or the bomb submitted pacifically
to the treatment.
By 7.30 a.m. the next morning we were on our way up the valley to the foot of
the escarpment and within an hour had reached the point where the mountain
path commenced its steep ascent. Here I said goodbye to Naser who was to
stay a few more days in the village and then return to Aden by camel as far
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' [92r] (183/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x0000b8> [accessed 25 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.