FOOTSTEPS IN THE SAND
Photo shows the cover of Anne Al Bassam’s book titled ‘Footsteps in the Sand: Kuwait and her Neighbours, 1700-2003’. Anne, Kuwait’s own storyteller, has made a lasting contribution to Kuwait’s understanding of its
history.
Anne Al Bassam is a retired Scottish educationist, author, and speaker for whom Kuwait is home since the sixties. A gentle soul, Anne has made a lasting contribution to Kuwait’s understanding of its history with her book titled ‘Footsteps in the Sand: Kuwait and her Neighbours, 1700-2003’. The book published in 2004 is an interesting layman’s guide to Kuwait’s history and provides valuable insight into the colonial history of the country and the region.
Anne’s journey into the world of books and writing began in school. Born and brought up in Edinburgh, she loved reading. She studied at Boroughmuir and at the end of the school day, often visited a public library which became her second home given the amount of time she spent there. Like most book addicted youngsters Anne wrote stories of her own, but as so often happens, her writing slipped by the wayside when she began a teacher-training course at Moray House. A few years after working as a teacher in Scotland, Anne applied for a post overseas and was employed by Kuwait Oil Company then known as British Petroleum/ Gulf Oil. Since then, Anne has happily lived between Scotland and Kuwait. “I do not think it is difficult to be part of two worlds,” she says. “I slip from one to the other quite easily. I am very close to the Arab world. Moreover, Kuwait is an easy place to live in. It is lawabiding and peaceful.” After marriage, Anne gave up teaching, and it was only when her daughter left home for university that she felt the urge to put pen to paper once more. She unearthed a story she had written years ago, and after reading it through realized its possibilities and set to work on the plot. Her creative endeavours led to the birth of her ‘Dragonfire’ series. Anne writes full-time whether in Scotland or Kuwait, and she also gives talks at schools, libraries and festivals. As a former teacher, Anne wants to foster a love of books among children of all ages and encourages their creative endeavours by discussing ideas, plots, characters and use of descriptions etc. Her books for children written under the name Anne Forbes has been well received in Europe, the United States and Asia.
Petite and gentle Anne is always ready with a warm smile to introduce a newcomer to facets of Kuwait’s history and culture. In her words, she came to Kuwait ‘eight years too late to see it as a walled city’. It was a time when Kuwait was evolving from a seaport dependent on trading, fishing and pearl diving into an oil-driven economy. Anne’s subsequent marriage to a Kuwaiti led her to grow permanent roots in Kuwait. She became closely involved with the British Ladies Society and was actively involved in introducing new members of the British expatriate community to traditional Kuwaiti culture. Her interests in the region prompted her to research and explore its history further. Her findings and understanding found their way to her book ‘Footsteps in the Sand.’
A treasure-house of information on Kuwait, it won’t be wrong to say that Anne has more knowledge of Kuwait’s past than many of the locals themselves. Her book in Kuwait is not your usual history book, meant for academic reference and research; rather it provides those who want a better understanding into the past of Middle East an interesting reading and a clearer insight into events that shaped history. In her self-effacing words, the book is ‘interspersed with the odd amusing incident that serious historians would never waste paper on’. Her book dwells on important personages and incidents that guided the unfolding of events in the Middle East in the early 20th Century. “I tried not to be critical. It is not the kind of book a historian would have written, quite frankly. It is meant for people who want to know a bit more about Arabia and not for professionals or academicians.”
‘Footsteps in the Sand’ is Anne’s first book and by virtue of that alone a difficult enterprise. It was Dame Violet Dickson or Um Saud, the robust enthusiastic wife of the last Political Agent of Kuwait Sir Harold Dickson who inspired Anne to embark on her maiden undertaking. In the late eighties, Anne was a frequent visitor to Dickson House. She kept company with the grand old lady who lived her later years alone in her adopted homeland. “I read Dame Violet’s autobiography and realized that when she first came to the Middle East, the old Arab hands in those days were people like Gertrude Bell, Jack Philby and Sir Percy Cox. I started reading about them, and that is when it all started to grow,” recounts Anne.
Between the World Wars, Britain was the dominant foreign power in Arabia, holding protectorates over the Arab sheikhdoms. The British Political Agents in the Gulf played a difficult game of balancing local powers and keeping the area safe for the exploration of mineral wealth. Diplomats, soldiers, archaeologists and others played an important role in shaping the colonial history of the Middle East. “Many books have been written on Bedouin jewellery and Arab horses and old remains, but nobody has written the story of Kuwait in the context of its neighbours because happenings in other countries reflected in what happened,” she explained.
Anne speaks with easy familiarity about people who had an impact on the politics of the Middle East which included the Ottoman Empire. The main actors in the unfolding drama apart from local tribal leaders were the British at the height of its colonial power, the Russians powerful in Persia and commercially rich Germany with imperial ambitions of its own which included coveting India, the Jewel in the British Imperial Crown. It was the planned German construction of a Baghdad-Berlin Railway in the late 19th and early 20th Century that prompted different players to take up their respective positions on the chessboard that was the Middle East. While the Kaiser was debating and planning out his ambitious venture, Turkey was trying to absorb Kuwait into the ‘vilayet’ of Basra, to take control of trade. Their intentions were however foiled by Sheikh Mubarak, the ruler of Kuwait. “He was a true leader of men and commanded respect from everyone who met him. Turkish schemes to take over the country came to nothing,” said Anne. It was with help from Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India that Sheikh Mubarak was able to play the game of politics. “Lord Curzon became Viceroy of India in 1898. He was a clever, astute man and took the protection of British India very seriously,” explained Anne. “When Germany and Turkey became allies, however, and the Berlin-Baghdad Railway was proposed, Lord Curzon took decisive steps to curb German influence in Mesopotamia. In 1899, three years after Sheikh Mubarak came to power, Curzon offered him a secret Treaty of Friendship with Britain to block German access to Kuwait’s deepwater harbour in return the British promised to come to Sheikh Mubarak’s assistance should the need arise.”
Anne peppers her account of Kuwait’s history with interesting anecdotes and trivia. She mentions some dynamic administrative officials of British India, who kept the colonial flag flying. Men like Captain Shakespeare, the British Political Agent in Kuwait from 1909-1914, who drove a single cylinder Rover, bought in India for 250 pounds, from Bushire on the Persian side of the Gulf to England in 1907 and served a typical British dinner of roasted lamb, mint sauce, roasted potatoes and asparagus to important guests like Ibn Saud and Sheikh Mubarak at the newly renovated British Residency in Kuwait. Anne’s accounts are informative, but they lack the dryness of historical facts. “Cox ruled the Gulf well,” she said. “Naval ships patrolled the area to keep piracy at bay and also protected the pearl banks of Bahrain from foreign interference.”
Apart from her contribution to the understanding of Kuwait’s history, Anne Al Bassam is also well-known in Kuwait for her closeness to Dame Violet Dickson, a British woman who has become a part of local folklore because of her knowledge and love of Kuwait. Her regular visits with Violet Dickson gave her a unique perspective of the unusual and unique journey of the old British lady who spent the better part of her life learning and loving the traditions and ways of life of the Arab people It is because of this close association that Anne at times organizes regular excursions to Dickson House, home of the Dicksons and one of the few pre-oil structures to have escaped the destructive effects of time. While taking groups of expatriates through the house, Anne fills them in with bits of background history about the political situation in the Gulf and the arrival of British Political Agents in the early 1900s. And she speaks in great details about the lives of Colonel and Violet Dickson in pre-oil Kuwait and the discovery of oil.
Anne Al Bassam arrived in Kuwait when the country was undergoing a change from a tribal entity to a developing nation after the discovery of oil. “The preservation of Dickson House as heritage property is very important as it marks the close ongoing friendship that Kuwait has shared with Great Britain for more than a century. From 1904 to 1935, the building was leased by Sheikh Mubarak to the Government of British India as the official residence of British Political Agents in Kuwait,” remarked Anne as she discussed the heritage status of Dickson House. “The British Political Agents in the Gulf were all army officers who had transferred to the political service of the Indian Government. The first British Political Agent, Major Stuart John Knox, a fluent Arabist, arrived in 1904. Colonel Dickson was Political Agent from 1929 to 1936. He supervised the building of the new Agency (now the British Embassy) and lived there with his wife, Violet, for a year before he retired.”
When Colonel Dickson first arrived in Kuwait with his wife, they were greeted by conditions that were distinctly primitive, shares Anne. “The Dickson including their two children Sa’ud and Zahra, arrived in Kuwait in May 1929, on a British India steamer and were carried ashore on chairs by porters. Kuwait in those days was a small, walled city. The town, itself, Anne said, was a scattered network of narrow streets and sandy alleyways bordered by high mud-brick walls that sheltered both houses and courtyards from prying eyes.
“Violet Dickson was a strong, capable woman who supported her husband in his work and tended to the needs of the Bedouin women who visited the Agency,” says Anne who took coffee with Dame Violet during weekly visits. “Dame Violet gave the women customary gifts of items such as flour and coffee as well as lengths of cotton for dresses and, more importantly, she gave a patient hearing to their problems. When Colonel Dickson retired from political service in 1936, he and his wife were allowed to return to their old house through the good offices of the Amir, Sheikh Ahmed who was grateful for his help during the long and tense negotiations for oil concessions and for his work as Sheikh Ahmed’s Liaison Officer with the Kuwait Oil Company.”
Dame Violet did not return to England after the death of her husband, who is buried in the Christian cemetery in Ahmadi. “She very much belonged to the old school,” explained Anne when asked her why Dame Violet chose to remain in Kuwait. “She was out of touch with the British. Violet Dickson had lived in Arabia for so long that after the war England was a strange place for her. She felt at home in Kuwait with her many friends and decided that she would stay back.” The ladies of the British community including Anne Al Bassam took turns to visit Dame Violet. In August 1990, Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait. Dame Violet who was old and sick was airlifted to the UK on one of the mercy flights. “Dame Violet was carried into Kuwait when she arrived in 1929 and, as fate would have it, she was also carried out,” muses Anne.
Anne Al Bassam, Kuwait’s own storyteller, has many such stories in stock, and the good thing is these stories won’t get lost with time. Some of these anecdotes are captured in the book she has written, and they help to paint a detailed and fascinating picture to locals and expatriates of a time and a region lost in the mists of time.