Page 1254 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

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1940

Tuesday 18th April

Fort, practising march past for the royal visit, about 130 men on parade daily. Sh Mohammed came & as

usual moaned about money. Went down to the Customs, not much going on there, trade very slack.
Office. Steele came, discussed tattoo with him. Cool pleasant day. Drove out to Rumaitha in afternoon to
see HH. A nice drive, took about an hour, some of the country is quite green but very short grass. We had
tea by the roadside on the way back. HH was sitting on the steps outside his little house surveying more
camels & young ones, it is a small place high up & nice air. He tooks us up to a hill from where we could see
the fort at Hawar & also HW's launch returning from there, he went to visit the place. Discussed the
succession, he asked what HW had "decided" & I said it was for HH to decide, then he said well you must
settle then. He refused to make any decision about oil money or Sh Mohd's allowance, all left over till
Abdulla retuns. Wonderfully cool weather for the time of year. HH much interested in Rosevelts speech.

Wednesday 19th April

Office. Two Russians who were put out here from an American boat, stowaways for America, were sent
back to us from Katif where they did 2 months in prison. I had to arrest them - a poor looking couple,
rather like bad type of ....

Usual tennis & bridge, quite a hot day, south wind.

Thursday 20th April

At Agency for some time in morning hearing about H's trip to Hawar. It seems to have been satisfactory
from our point of view.