BRITISH COUPLE REVEL IN RETURN TO THE UAE
▶ Former residents Linda and Patrick Ford have relived treasured memories on their first proper visit to the country in 35 years, writes John Dennehy
When Linda Ford moved to Abu Dhabi in July 1982, the country was little more than 10 years old. People still wrote letters, listened to cassettes and did their shopping at the souq rather than large malls.
Mrs Ford found a job at the medical records section in a clinic that served the new oil town of Ruwais, about 240km west of Abu Dhabi city.
A year later, she met her future husband, Patrick, who worked at the clinic and the nearby hospital. Aside from a brief stopover en route to Australia 14 years ago, they had not spent any time in the country since they left in 1988.
But 40 years after their first meeting, they have now returned to a country transformed.
The couple arrived last month and have spent time tracking down old haunts.
Their journey has taken them back to Ruwais, down to Liwa, up to Dubai and north and east across the Northern Emirates in a trip filled with nostalgia and amazement at the changes.
Mrs Ford, who was 23 when she moved to the UAE, said few people in the UK had heard of the Emirates in those days.
“I had never seen so much sand,” she says of her first impression of Abu Dhabi.
From the airport, she took a bus to Ruwais.
“In 1982, the supermarket received fresh milk and meat once a week and there was a mad scramble to get supplies before the shelves were empty,” she says.
“Most frozen meat was labelled in Arabic and difficult to recognise.”
A company beach club in Ruwais and the Ramada Hotel, which is now known as the Dhafra Beach Hotel, provided entertainment for residents.
“The social life was hectic. Someone was always having a party,” Mrs Ford said.
The couple’s adventures in the UAE in the 1980s were chronicled in a series of remarkable photographs showing an older way of life and increasing modernisation.
The images portray old Ruwais, Abu Dhabi’s transforming Corniche, the snorkelling haven of Snoopy Island in Fujairah and a much smaller Sandy Beach Hotel with a simple line of chalets.
There are also photos of simpler times in Khor Fakkan, with old wooden dhows in the harbour.
One evocative shot shows a classic 1980s-style shop in Ruwais – which sold goods ranging from cassettes to shawarma – called “Honest supermarket”, but which was known informally as Honest Joe’s.
“Honest Joe’s had everything,” said Mrs Ford, who is from Wales.
“Walls lined with cassettes, tape after tape. It was just there in the middle of the desert. Just sand, then a shop and then sand for miles and miles.”
The couple married and moved to Abu Dhabi city in 1984.
They lived on the Corniche before leaving the UAE permanently in 1988 in search of a new challenge.
But memories of the country stayed with them and finally prompted the return trip.
“Treasure hunts are normally looking for jewels among the rubble but we were looking for rubble among the jewels,” Mrs Ford said with a smile.
“We were told we wouldn’t find anything.
“But a lot of things were in the same places.”
The couple found the beach between the hotel and what is now the Adnoc Club, where Mr Ford proposed.
“It is totally different now with a pier, but we knew where that was, so that was quite romantic,” she said.
The villa where Mrs Ford lived and the clinic where they worked is gone and a new hospital has now been built to serve the community.
Ruwais is also much larger than it was when the couple lived there.
“It is a city now. Before it was just a small housing complex,” she said.
“There is a massive shopping mall there as well now, big for Ruwais, all glossy and glistening but quiet.”
In the Northern Emirates, they felt the pace of change was slower and flickers of the old life remained in places, such as in Fujairah.
“The Sandy Beach hotel was fantastic. The old chalets are still there,” Mr Ford said.
Mrs Ford said the couple enjoyed the atmosphere they discovered during the trip to the Northern Emirates.
“It was so tranquil, like a haven of serenity. We thought maybe we’ll have to come back and spend a week here,” she said.
The capital is a different place now. But despite that, the city “still feels like home”.
“It would have been very transient in our day,” Mrs Ford said.
“People left at retirement but now quite a few people have retired there. It does seem to be evolving.
“We were also really blown away by people of determination. We want to take that home. Why isn’t this happening everywhere?
“It also hasn’t lost its kindness, and we feel safe.”
The couple travel back to the UK today.
They are proud of the time they spent in the UAE during an early and important phase of the country’s development.
“We were also very proud to have been there close to the beginning,” Mrs Ford said.
“We were small cogs but felt we were contributing.”
A few people have retired there. It does seem to be evolving ... it also hasn’t lost its kindness, and we feel safe
LINDA FORD
Former Abu Dhabi resident