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'"NO MEDALS THIS TIME" by Sir Tom Hickinbotham, KCMG, KCVO, CIE, OBE' [70r] (139/336)
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.
of flats and shops. The cemetery was still thara but ao longer conspicuous,
lost as it was aaong the buildings. Gone ware the
dhow
A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean.
yards, removed bodily
to an island in the harbour which had been provided with a new beach, com
posed of spoil dredged from the harbour, specially for their reception. The
extensive port installations now covered the area of sand and water they
once occupied and like then, gone too was the water on to which they used to
be launched, all has been reclaimed, such is the penalty of progress.
Just after the "Bab As Salaam" the car turned left and we drove straight
across the eastern limits of the harbour along the new causeway which carried
also the pipelines from the refinery at Little Aden to the oil berths on the
south side of the harbour. This causeway and the wide tarmac road had been
constructed at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds in the early fifties
when the refinery was built. The Italian salt works were away across the
water to our right, still with their windmills but with vastly diminished
heaps of salt, as India now manufactured her own and new markets had been
hard to find. The Royal Air Force station at Khormaakar had grown out of all
A
recognition and the desert of the Isthmus had disappeared beneath rows of
married quarters and blocks of flats and the houses of officials, Protectorate
potentates and wealthy Arab and European merchants right across to the great
Khormaksar beach. As far as the eye could see were houses, and wonder of
wonders, aaong the white houses could be seen the green of trees and gardens.
Where the causeway joined the land once more, the town, no longer the village,
of Sheikh Othaan was on my right and to my left were the oil storage tanks of
tw<^ of the oil companies engaged in refuelling ships. The road swept on with
the toddy palms still where they were but the pools of water on which I sjhot
duck, had fallen victim to an energetic Medical Officer of Health and had \
,
bfen filled in during an anti-malarial campaign. Nearby on the landward side
were the white residences of the Protectorate Federal Ministers flanking theV
fine white headquarters building of the Federal Administration. This was,the
new Western Protectorate's federal capital of A1 Ittlhad which meant simply
"The Federation" and was the local Canberra.
A
| (\
\
/Ve crossed the
Wadi
A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows.
A1 Kablr by a concrete Irish bridge and drove straight \
\ \
along the wide tarmac road to the Pars! saltworks where the creek was crossed
by a swing bridge and once again I had come to Little Aden, but by such a
different route and to such a vastly changed place.
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' [70r] (139/336), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F226/13, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100094411638.0x00008c> [accessed 5 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.