Page 1409 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

1406

1942

Saturday 16th November

Fort, found everything in an awful mess, barrack rooms soaking & Jail 2
feet deep in water. Got all men onto scrubbing floors & putting out beds
etc to dry in the sun & then went to see the drainage work being done by
Mohd Saleh. Went again after breakfast & spent most of the morning going
round with Dr Snow looking at houses etc. The poor people are in a
terrible state & many are living with feet of water in their houses. The
water in places is knee deep.

M went around to school PM. Graham came round in the evening.

Very heavy rain again last night, more trees down, one in the garden beat
all night against the bedrom window. There have been a number of deaths
from falling houses.

[The entry for 16th November is written on the page for 12th October,
which has been torn out and attached by paperclip at this point in the
diary. The following entry is written on the reverse of this page
(headed 13th Oct), and appears to follow on from the 16th November entry]

Brilliant sunny day, good for drying the town. Went round in morning to
see the progress on the drain we are digging in the Western quarter, not
as effective as we had hoped. Office, various people came in, a pearl
merchant about customs on necklaces, Byard about police uniform & various
others. A house close by fell down & damaged three men. Did a bit of
gardening & then drove to Idari & planted trees there. Painted a sketch
of Muscat, mainly from memory, quite satisfactory.

Rather a pleasant F.O. man, staying at Agency, called, by name Trott,
going from Jedda to Tehran.