Page 79 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

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Fourteen
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For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare

went on leave in the autumn of 1945 and returned in the following A Primary School in Muharraq
January. It was only the second time in over thirty years that I had
I endured an English winter but I did not feel the cold as much as the
people who lived in England. This bore out the theory that anyone who
has lived long in a hot climate is not, at first, susceptible to cold. My
Arab friends, who were addicted to personal remarks, greeted me with
exclamations at my loss of weight but the Shaikh’s comment was, ‘You
had too much stomach before you went on leave.’
After seeing England I realized how lightly the war had dealt with C.D.B. visiting a school
Bahrain. Partial rationing and a shortage of certain imported goods was Walter Sanders-, our tesy 'Life' Magazine. © 1952 Time Inc.
inconvenient but the bazaar shops were crammed with things which were
unobtainable in London and everybody seemed to be flourishing and
prosperous. Bahrain was quiet yet I was aware of a new, indefinable
feeling of an emerging political consciousness. One sign of this was the
increasingly important part which the Arab clubs played in the lives of
the educated young men. The Shaikh permitted the clubs and often
contributed gifts of money to enable the committees to put up buildings.
The clubs were supposed to be strictly non-political but as they were the
meeting places of the Intelligentsia they became political centres.
Besides the Arab clubs there were, in Manama, several Indian clubs
and the Gymkhana Club. From the time that it had its own premises,
with gardens, tennis courts and a swimming pool, it was resented by the
young Arabs because membership and entry was restricted to the British.
The existence of a bar, where members could buy liquor, was the main
excuse for not admitting Arabs. In many parts of the East club member-
ship has provoked strong political feelings and in Bahrain, which is neither
a British colony or protectorate, the existence of an exclusively British
club invites criticism and ill-feeling. Arab members were allowed in