Page 630 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

628

1931

change from the usual Bridge or roulette. Tiff was there and got very excited over it, she has the makings of a real gambler, so
awkward for a missionary. Their house looked really quite nice and Mrs D.G. had one another dress, she has a very large
trousseau and some good clothes, a lot from Margaret Marks, who is not cheap.

Tuesday [13 January]

Biladya meeting at Manama. Sh Sulman came in and dealt with divers. Tennis at the Mission.

Wednesday [14 January]

Went down to see the Shaikh at the Joint Court and then to the Shera court to see about a case. Stayed a long time there. The
Kadis were quite sensible and did what I wanted them to do in the case.

Thursday 15th Jan 1931, (continued)

A dinner party at the Mission. They had everyone in the place and some dined at the Pennings and some at the Hakkens, we
were at the former. Quite a good party but a poor dinner, it tasted of petrol, their food often does. The two Poles were there,
the Pole is very comic, a large man with a big reddish moustache, the little man, who is a German but naturalised American
talks English quite well, the Pole hardly at all but he kept on going off into convulsions of laughter all the time, and I noticed
that they were talking to eachother by signs, like the Arabs do. It was rather rude but his laugh was so infectious that people
didnt mind it. After dinner we played games in the Dames house, arranged by Mrs Dame who specialises in such things.
Some of the games were very good. In one everyone had their silouette cut, by Dr Tiffany, before dinner and they were hung
round the room and we had to guess who they were, it did bring out peoples bad points! Double chins and receding chins hit
one in the eye, I had a lock of hair standing straight out behind my head. It was a good game. An "incident" occurred during
the games. The Mission are all very violent teetotlers, they are quite fanatical on the subject, Pennings and I, he is the parson,
were playing in a treasure hunt game and went into a little lobby opening out of the drawing room, inside it was discovered de
Grenier with a flask and four little cups set out on a ledge and a very strong smell of whiskey, Hakken, another Missionary,
came in behind us and saw it too, he was very angry, it was really a dreadful thing to do and decidedly "not done".

Friday [16 January]

A Wing Commander Breese came to call in the morning with Bentley, they are going down to India. Barden Walker and
Steele gave a Treasure Hunt luncheon, quite a good show. We went in cars, dividing up families, and found clues hidden in
various places and finally arrived at the Portuguese Fort where there was luncheon. I had Mrs Dame as a partner but we came
in far behind as we missed one of the clues. It was quite an exciting game and there were about a dozen cars in it. Rather cold
and sandy out there. In the afternoon we went to the Agency for tennis and Bridge. Cold day and a strong wind. We need
fires in the afternoons these days.