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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [94r] (187/336)
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.
V
- 92 -
courtyard and up a short flight of stone steps. Here I took up ray quarters
and passed the rest of the day receiving callers and talking about all sorts
of subjects, including, stragely enou$i, the Crusades about which I found
Ahmad Hussein, the W/T operator, very well informed as he had read several
Arabic works on the subject.
The next morning I walked over to the neighbouring village of A1 Hagar to
see how the sick lad we had seen the day before at the top of the pass was
eilng. With some difficulty I found the hovel which was his home. I had
never in my life seen such a disgusting place. It consisted of one miserable
room with a low roof blackened by wood smoke. In one comer was an open
fire-place in front of which squatted two filthy old women and in another was
a bundle of smelly, ill-cured goat skins. The lad was lyin? lr on the ground
covered imperfectly with a strip of greasy cloth and I wondered how he could
bear to have the smelly rag over his face until I realised that the walls and
floor of the room and the exposed parts of the boy himself Were crawling with
flies. Never before had I seen so many flies in so small a space. I uncov
ered the lad's face and asked him whether I could examine his wounds and he
ed. lie was very bra\ r him to
move, he made no sound as I moved him gently on to his right side, the better
to examine the nature of his hurt. I undid the strip of dirty cotton cloth
around his loins, the only garment he had, and felt sick
been treated. There were three broad, deep wounds across his buttock and the
back of his left thigh about six inches in length and parallel to each other.
They were caked with dirt and oil and had dried. On the inside of his right
thigh there was a similar wound which was suppurating, and on the inside of
his left knee, a deep wound which I gathered had been caused by a pointed
stock when he had fallen off the camel on which he had travelled from. Aden to
the foot of the escarpment.
He had been brought over to Aden by
dhow
A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean.
from. Assab after his accident, and
in the village of Ma'alla in Aden Colony had been treated by a quack from the
Yemen. The treatment had consisted of burning with a red hot iron, hence the
wounds. He had then been tied on the litter on which I had seen him. Why he
had not been taken to the Aden hospital I don't know and how the wretched boy
had survived the journey will always remain a mystery. Curiously enough the
pain in his back seemed to worry him more than his dreadful wounds from the
cauterization. I asked for hot water and was given a bowl half full of a
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' [94r] (187/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/mirador/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x0000bc> [accessed 14 March 2025]
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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
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