Page 9 - Life of Gertrude Bell

INTRODUCTION xi
portrait of Gertrude’s mother; to Lady Plowdcn, another of
Gertrude’s nieces, Lady Arthur, Mrs Geoffrey Dixon, and Mrs
Daphne Owen; and to Mr John Bell Dixon whose patient search
through his grandmother’s diaries enabled me to fill a number of
gaps in my knowledge of the family background. In the same
context Mr John Dorman Bolckow provided me with extremely
useful background on the people and the structure of the steel
industry in the north-east of England in the days when his own
forbears and the Bells were its leading figures.
Particular acknowledgment must also be made to Mr Seton
Dearden, author and authority on Iraq and the Middle East, who
kindly found for me a letter from Captain Shakespear to Gertrude
which he rescued from the old Baghdad chancery, and who
was the first to publish a selection of the Doughty-Wylie letters,
in the Cornhill Magazine. Although I went back to the original
letters I have referred to his well-ordered presentation of the
story and have quoted him in connection with it. As for the later
chapters which deal primarily with the Iraq period, I am greatly
indebted to Mr C. J. Edmonds and Brigadier S. H. Longrigg,
incomparable authorities on the Kurdish question and Iraq
respectively. In that connection too, my thanks to Mr Lionel
Jardine who responded generously to my frequent and impor­
tunate calls on his time and patience. Also in regard to the Iraq
period I would like to thank Dr John Clayton, son of Sir Gilbert
Clayton, and Mrs Margaret Gosling for their help. Of those who
remembered Gertrude Bell in the later years of her life and who
were able to give me personal accounts of her, none stands higher
in the esteem of those who know Arabia than Dame Violet
Dickson, who still wanders among her friends of the desert, and I
wish to express my gratitude to her for allowing me to quote her
impressions, especially those contained in her book Forty Years
in Kuwait; and to her daughter Mrs Zahra Freeth, my constant
guide in the Arabian peninsula. I am also grateful to Lt-Colonel
Gerald de Gaury for his knowledgeable observations.
The official and academic institutions on which I have relied
heavily are acknowledged elsewhere. I would, however, like to
thank in particular Mrs Penelope Tuson of the India Office,
whose guidance through the files of what might broadly be called
the ‘Gulf’ region has saved me, and many other researchers, much
time and effort; her expert help was tantamount to encourage­
ment of my project. Mrs Anne Cullen researched for me in the