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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [156r] (311/336)
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.
154 -
ave patience a little, my friend, my tale is not yet told”, admonished
the Haji and continued.
It was, of course, a terrible shock and for a time he could not have moved
or spoken had he wanted to. It is not often that a man sees his entire for
tune disappear beyond recall in, as you would say, the twinkling of an eye.
He had nothing left but a few hundred
rupees
Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf.
for his immediate expenses.
This need not surprise you because most pearl merchants run the risk of invest
ing to their financial limit when the pearl harvest has been good and the mar
ket appears to be favourable. To reflect that his misfortune was due to his
own carelessness was a waste of time and Saler 1 wasted no time on such idle
thought. It was the will of God, and as such not to be contested or questioned
but to be accepted. That did not mean that he must do nothing to repair the
damage, far from it. He was a man of great courage and he quickly recovered
from the Initial shock of the disaster. He rose without a word to his servant
who had not seen the pearls and had no ideck o*|-what had happened and went
below to his cabin to consider his position.
The morning after the tragedy he surprised his fellow merchants by buying from
them the very cream of "(rKeir goods. He gave no reason for his unusual action
nor was he asked for on&J most people, assuming that as he was known to have
bought well that season, he intended to deal on a larger scale than usual.
His reputation stood him in good stead and he had no difficulty in arranging
credit terms, besides who would refuse credit to a man who was knoie^to have at
least £30,000 worth of goods of his own. Payment was to be irade for his ship
board purchases two weeks after the ship docked in Bombay. They arrived in
Bombay to find that prices had risen considerably and as he had chosen well,
Salem was able to dispose of his goods at a satisfactory profit. After he had
met his obligations he found that he had a profit of a little over £5,000, not
a fortune and but a fraction of what he had been worth before the disaster,
but still enough to make a fresh start in the business he loved and knew so
well.
By now the truth was known, how I don’t know, but always somehow it does
become known and we were all loud in our praises of Uis courage. Of all the
virtues we Arabs rank courage the highest, and Salem's stoutness of heart made
an irreaistable appeal to all of us. Now, however, he made a very serious
mistake. He thought that fortune was favouring him, aa indeed it had, and he
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' [156r] (311/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411639.0x000070> [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
- The copyright status is unknown. Please contact [email protected] with any information you have regarding this item.