Page 114 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

referred to as ‘Bclgravc’s "fancy” and when people went to the bazaar
to buy materials some old Arab in a hole-in-the-wall shop would call out
to them telling them what Mrs So-and-So had bought. The final chorus
of the pantomime was always the same, with different topical verses each
year; sung to the tune of‘Much Binding in the Marsh’, a wartime B.B.C.
-i; ■ favourite; it went as follows;
wit
.
On Bahrain Island in the Gulf
On every New Year’s Eve there is a party.
On Bahrain Island in die Gulf
A;'---
‘r • ’• ' •, ‘ • ■ 1 - The food is grand, the guests all gay and hearty.
And after dinner all the folks arc seated, line on line,
-V ;.v, To watch and be amused by dais delightful pantomime,
m* The acting in it’s awful, but die scenery’s divine,
In Bahrain Island in the Gulf.
:r'M
■'V. •’
■V:
On New Year’s morning there were more callers but this was an
*■ 'W
official affair and I received them on the veranda, feeling rather tight—
.
_____ _ sartorially, not alcoholically—wearing my grey morning coat, made in
1932 which I still wore in 1957. Some of the Arabs who knew us well
Shore near Manama, where the ancient capital of Bahrain, went into the house to ‘wish’ Maijorie, who did not appear on this
2000 B.c., is being excavated occasion. With the Shaikh and liis relations I then proceeded to the
Political Agency, next door, to pay an official call, then I drove with the
My house on Jidda Island
Shaikh to a Reception at the Residency at Jufair, three miles beyond the
town, going slowly to enable the mounted escort to keep up. Everybody
who had called on the Resident was invited to the annual Reception so
there were usually about 600 people. Many of them showed signs of its
being ‘the morning after the night before’. It was strange to see so many
people wearing dark glasses—irrespective of whether the sun was shining
or not!
Pig]
■vg On New Year’s Day there was another celebration. The manumitted
slaves and their descendants demonstrated their gratitude for their
-5,-' freedom. They collected in front of the Political Agency and in my
compound and sang and danced. Some of them were old men and women
who had escaped from slavery many years ago, others had been manu­
mitted more recently, for until a few years ago slavery existed in Qatar
. and in parts of the Trucial Coast. Their dances and music were typically
African, and as I watched them I could imagine myself back in Tan­
ganyika or the Sudan. They danced to the sound of drums, cymbals and
horns. One man wore a leather kilt on which were hung hundreds of
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