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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [98r] (195/336)
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.
96
It was the first house I had seen since leaving Aden with protection fror.
the elements by anything more modern than ill-fitting wooden shutters to the
windows. The floor was covered with carpets and there were satin-covered
cushions against which to lean. Tea was brought in in cups with both handles
and saucers, the height of luxury. Ahmad Hussein left us to drink the tea
while he superintended the serving of lunch.
Time passed and I noticed Ahmad Abdu Nabi glancing repeatedly at the door with
an anxious expression on his long face. This display of bad manners would
have been curious in a man of low degree, but in Ahmad who had at one time
before the death of Sultan Hussein bin Jabil, been a leading Sheikh in As
Soma, was particularly surprising. I asked him what he was so anxious about
and he said with a mischievous smile that our host had been gone so long that
he was afraid he was not coming back, lie had such an amusing way of saying
outrageous things that one could not help laughing and this made him give us
the reason for the remark. Some years previously some of the leading men in
As Soma were asked to lunch by a Somali who in some mysterious way had found
his way to that village and taken up residence. The
were warmly welcomed by their host and made comfortable with cushions in the
principal room where they were regaled with coffee. After a suitable interval
the host brought a basin and an ewer of water to each person in turn so that
they might wash their hands in preparation for the meal to which they were
looking forward as only hungry, healthy men can. The host disappeared through
the door with the washing materials and the ewer and basin. For half an hour
the guests chatted away and then they began to wonder what had happened to
their host. Good manners made them reluctant to do anything except wait with
what patience they could muster, but by the end of an hour thier patience was
exhausted and they set out to investigage. There was no one on the landing
and no one in the other rooms on the same floor and most surprising of all,
no sign whatever of lunch. The place was deserted, not even a servant to be
found, and they remembered that they had not seen any servants when they
arrived. They went in a body up the stairs to the floor above where they
found the women of th« house and were amazed to learn that no preparation for
a meal had been made and that their host had in fact gone to a village some
twenty miles away. They gave their views on the conduct of the Somali and,
leaving the women in tears, hurried downstairs intent on slipping away quickly
before anyone could discover the joke that had been played upon them. It was
not to be; the front door was locked and the key had been left in the lock o^
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' [98r] (195/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x0000c4> [accessed 18 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.