'A Grandfather's Tale: Memoirs being mainly concerned with service in the Indian Army and the Indian Political Service in India and the Persian Gulf from 1932-1947' [‎46r] (91/118)

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that of many of my contemporaries, the Auk should have resigned rather than
let this happen. I wrote at the time n These trials and their farcical results
have done more to wreck the Indian Army and the other Services than any one
other thing. "
A month after the Auk's visit I had, in the absence of the Political
Agent, to meet the Australian Prime Minister, Mr. Chiffley,and Dr. Evatt his
Foreign Minister, who were passing through. They were quite pleasant but not
impressive and in speech and general appearance might well have been a plumber
and his mate. At least that was my feeling at the time.
As well as my ordinary work I spent an hour or so every day swotting
at Arabic. Luckily there was an excellent teacher in Manamah, Yakub Zelouf,
an Iraqui Jew. He was a jeweller by trade but taught Arabic as a side line.
Colonel Galloway, the P.A., who was already an Interpreter Class II, still had
lessons from Zelouf every week. It is a fascinating language and I worked hard
at it, but with the possible exception of Pushtu I found it the most difficult
I ever tackled. I succeeded in passing the Preliminary examination before I
left Bahrain and could carry on a general conversation with the Sheikh without
an Interpreter but it would have taken years to learn the language properly
and it required constant practice both in speaking, reading and writing to
remain fluent. It was hard as it was, to fit my lessons in but during the ho
weather, when most people were having an afternoon siesta, and the ofiice was
closed from '\ .30 p.m. I found the afternoon the quietest and best time to work
at reading and writing. In the summer our official office hours were from
8 a.m. to I .30 p.m. but I usually had at least two hours work a..er t.^t,
addition to my Arabic.
In addition to my brother Politicals we made great friends with Peter
and Hita Williams. He had taken over as Air Liaison Officer in the Persian
Gulf from Jasper Coates and they lived in the house nearest „o the A.P.A ,
where we had stayed with Jasper in 1939. Our children were roughly the same
ages and there was a good deal of coming and going across the half mile ot
desert between the two houses. We had a number of friends in Awali, the
Bapco "camp'- fifteen miles North of Manama; in particular Ken and Ursula
Grisewood. He was concerned with the company's personnel problems, both
Arab and European or American and this, I think, ow we Court
contact, when some of his Americans were defendants in a case m my Court.