Page 753 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

1932

Sunday [25 September]

Court. Case between Kahlifah bin Sulman & Jasim Chirawi. Called on the old Shia Kadi at Senobis, always very messy &
dirty out there, he is too fulsome, but I think he is really very loyal. He had somehow heard of our plan to combine the Sunni
& Shia schools into one & seemed to approve of it entirely. Took a drive afterwards. In the evening I had one of my clerks in
& translated a lot of articles from a Persian paper about Bahrain. They published a history intended to prove Persia's claim to
own Bahrain, written by the Foreign Minister in Teheran, very interesting and well written, & by deliberately exaggerating
certain points & ignoring others they make their argument appear very sound. Persia is now almost as anti English as Soviet
Russia yet at one time they were so friendly. Got a wire from Fletcher, Imperial Airways, asking me to "arrange
accommodation" for one Armstrong of their Company so had to ask him to stay with me. There is no hotel here! My house
seems to act as one though.

Monday [26 September]
Court - Siadi case. Went up to see the Shaikh at the Palace in afternoon & worked on papers in evening.

Tuesday [27 September]

Fort in morning. I have nearly finished testing all the Police NCOs, & some men, for promotion. Very few of them are any
good at all, they are very badly trained & there have never been enough N.C.Os. I am going to promote a lot & so am trying
them out. Called on Yusuf Kanoo & had a long talk with him. Shaikh Abdulla & A.K b Awahab Zayani came in to discuss
the matter of the latter's divorced wife who has been causing a lot of trouble. Left the matter to Abdulla to deal with. She had
a child a couple of years after being divorced & says her previous husband is its father. Because he did not immediately deny
this at the time he now, according to Mohamedan Law, has no longer the right to clear himself. The lady herself came to see
me a few days ago & I thought she looked no better than she should be, though I know he is a bad hat. Armstrong arrived. He
is the head Airways man in Cairo & quite a nice fellow, very quiet. In afternoon D.G. had tennis on the Agency court & after
that we all went to his house for Bridge. Armstrong has been here before, some years ago. He is to stay till the first Airways
machine arrives - rather a long time!

Wednesday [28 September]

Worked in office in morning. Armstrong went out in afternoon to see the aerodrome & I went out to Ain al Hakim for a bathe.

Thursday [29 September]

Office. Motored out to Sakhrir to see the Shaikh in order to tell him how bad the revenue is this month, when I got
there I found he had just left to go out hunting so I came back, felt very seedy & lay down, awkward as I had people
coming to dinner but I sent for D.G. & asked him to act as host & went to bed. The doctor, who was one of my guests,
came in & saw me & found I had fever.