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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [119r] (237/336)
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.
117 -
THE AGATE RING
(Muscat 1940)
On the third finger of my right hand I wore invariably a plain gold ring in
which was mounted an oval-shaped red agate on which was beautifully engraved
some lines in Arabic from the Holy Koran. One warm afternoon in Muscat in
1940 I was probing into an old tin box of odds and ends in the shop of Ali,
the silversmith, a gnome-like old man with steel-rimmed spectacles and a neat
white beard, and there I found this lovely agate and bought it for less than
a shilling. At the same time I bought from him a Russian gold piece and there
and then I asked him to make me a ring from the red gold of the coin and to
mount in it the agate. A week later my ring was ready and I have worn it from
that day to this except for a brief period when the War was over and I had the
ring refashioned in London and the stone more securely mounted. Once when I
was sitting on the terrace of a hotel on the shore of the Dead Sea, a dealer
in antiques admired the ring and jokingly I asked him what he would give me
for it. "I would much like to have it, but such things should never be sold
and you should never part with it,” was the man’s answer. I didn’t intend to
do so but often when I looked at it my thoughts went back to Muscat and I was
reminded, among other things, of the following short journey. Years later the
ring slipped from my finger one cold winter day in England and fell in the
undergrowth of a wood while I was shooting pheasants. I searched and searched
but in vain.
oOo
Most people in Arabia very sensibly confine their touring to the winter months
but I found that summer touring had two advantages. Firstly, very few of the
local people could imagine anyone being sufficiently stupid to travel abroad
in the heat when he could sit under a fan in a comfortable house with electri
city and consequently a refrigerator, with the result that my arrival was
always unexpected and often revealing. Secondly, a house, however comfortable,
always becomes monotonous in the summer in the east when there is not suffici
ent work to occupy one's whole time. The short tours that I made broke up the
weary weeks, and the extreme discomfort of travelling made me appreciate on my
return the previously unrealised luxury of the Consulate.
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' [119r] (237/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411639.0x000026> [accessed 26 December 2024]
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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.