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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [121r] (241/336)
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.
- 119 -
recruited retainer to Qarlyat - thirty-six miles away by sea where they were
to procure donkeys from the Governor for the land section of the expedition
and bring them up the
Wadi
A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows.
lilglas to the date gardens at Suakim to which place
I intended to drive and where I hoped to camp the first night out from Muscat.
The retainer was an odd creature who had left his own country, the Aden
Protectorate, almost certainly for his country's good and had been earning his
living peddling scent in the more remote areas of Oman and the
Trucial Coast
A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates.
and in the course of his travels had acquired a wide and peculiar knowledge of
the most out of the way places, which I thought might be useful to me. In
fact, he proved to be more of a rogue than I had imagined and not long after
our return from Sur, he disappeared one night never to return.
The land section of the expedition comprised, in addition to myself, my driver
Naser, my Goanese cook and Salem a lad of slave descent whose lapses from grace
made me realise how true is the Arab saying, ’’When you buy a slave, buy a
stick", but whatever Salem's failings, and they were many, he invariably put
my interests before those of other people and this trait in his character led
eventually to our parting company. The beginning of the end came when I
found that he was maintaining the level of my handkerchiefs by refreshing
them from time to time from the suitcases of guests in my house - but that is
to digress. We were lightly armed with a rifle and shotgun,the former to pro
cure fresh meat if we came close enough to any gazelle, the latter to deal
with any sudden emergency that might arise, a shotgun is so much more destruc
tive than a revolver at close quarters. I had had the back seats taken out of
my station-wagon and after seeing the launch off we packed the kit into the
car ready to leave the following day.
Early the next morning we set off, full of confidence which lasted for nearly
five minutes before an ominous bumping on the back axle warned me that I had
too much weight behind. If the springs were down on the axle on the best
road in the whole country, Heaven alone knew what would happen when we had to
find our way down the stony
wadi
A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows.
beds which led to Suakim. Something had to
be done at once so we stopped at the petrol station in the little village of
Rlyan, a mile from Muscat, and Naser and I between us removed the rear bumper
and the additional spare tyre which was fixed to the backboard. This light
ening of the car at the rear gave us a reasonable chance of being able to
reach our destination without a major mishap. Leaving the bumper and the
tyre with the custodian of the petrol station, we followed the coast road 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' [121r] (241/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411639.0x00002a> [accessed 25 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.