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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [126r] (251/336)
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.
124 -
below the house. Temporary huts of palm leaves had been built for the date
harvesters and near them were camel loads of dates done up in matting ready
to be moved down to Qarlyat the next morning. Women were busy about their
domestic affairs. One was bruising coffee beans in a stone mortar with a
brass pestle, another was bringing water in a goat skin slung over her back
from a shallow well nearby and a third was baking flat cakes of unleavened
bread for the evening meal on a circular metal plate over an open wood fire.
The women's garments of red and black cotton hung in graceful folds as they
moved about their tasks, very erect in carriage with a walk that came from
the hips. Immediately below me an old man was saying his evening prayers
and two small boys in next to nothing lay on their thin stomachs idly throw
ing pebbles at a large black dung beetle. Further away a string of camels
was making its way slowly but surely to the shelter of the gardens for the
night. As I watched, a Hindu merchant came trotting by perched high on top
of his luggage on the back of a sturdy donkey, followed by three more don
keys laden with his merchandise and his servants running beside them. He
was making for the little village around a corner of the garden where he
would lie for the night, proceeding on his way before sunrise the next day.
They are nervous people, these Hindu merchants, with a horror of the sight
of blood, yet they are to be found in the remotest of places alone among the
musllms trading and money-lending. One can suppose that their business
instincts and their cupidity have overcome their fear of, and dislike of,
people asx>ng whom they spend the greater part of their lives.
On the garden side of the house men were going home from their work and
small boys and girls were driving the goats into shelter for the night.
Close to the house Naser and some of the others had gathered around the base
of a palm watching a man cutting dates. Dates grow in great clusters of
fruit weighing from fifteen to twenty pounds Just under the waving leaves
and are attached to the trunk of the palm by a thick fibrous stalk from
which grow the long thin stalks to which are attached the dates, sometimes
as many as fifty to each thin stalk. The cutter was working his way up the
smooth trunk of the palm with the aid of a circle of rope which passed
around his body and around the trunk. His method of progress was ingenious.
His feet were pressed against either side of the trunk and he leant back in
the loop with his hands on either side of it. He worked his feet a few
Inches up the trunk then pulled himself forward and flicked his loop a
little further up the trunk and then leant back and started the manoeuvre
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' [126r] (251/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411639.0x000034> [accessed 14 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.