Part 7 - Burnett in Aden
Burnett in Aden
In those days most Probationers had the ambition to be posted to Aden Refinery for a spell in the Colonies with a substantial rise in salary. Charles and I both applied for transfer to the tropics and come March 1959 we were told that our applications had been successful. We were told what our new salaries would be. (In my case I would now be earning £1737 per year, virtually double my UK salary). Once we had obtained our passports and all our vaccinations we were soon on our way to take the place of the probationers who had gone out two years previously. We flew out on a Douglas DC7, a four-engined propeller-driven aircraft, along with a third probationer from Kent, John Marchant. In those days there were no great long hops and the DC7 had refuelling stops at Rome in the late evening and Khartoum early the next morning, before finally reaching Aden in the sweltering heat of the next day. Little Aden was some 20 miles from Khormaksar, the airport for Steamer Point, and to the best of my remembrance we were taken there by Land Rover.
John, Charles and I were put up in a three bedroomed fully air-conditioned bachelor bungalow in Essex Street in the British quarter of Little Aden. Each bedroom had its own bathroom; (en-suite, they call it nowadays!) there was an L-shaped lounge/dining room and a kitchen. The floor throughout the bungalow was Terrazzo. The cook/boy who had been servant at the bungalow with the lads who had just gone home presented his references and I being the oldest of the three took him on at, I think, 340 East African shillings a month! Well, Mohammed seemed quite happy with that, and since there was something over £4000 per annum coming into the household we weren't displeased. Mohammed kept a family in the native village in the next bay, so his room at the foot of the garden was left vacant. This was soon occupied by a dhobi woman who did all our laundry and helped Mohammed with the housework. The woman's pay was EA120/- per month. Well that's what Mohammed suggested we pay her, and who were we to argue. It only just occurs to me that we never did learn her name, I am pretty sure that she couldn't speak any English, so any problems with the washing were sorted out with Mohammed. Both Mohammed and the dhobi woman were Somalis and black as the proverbial ace of spades. (By the way, 20 East African Shillings were equal to £1 Sterling).
We were initially taken in hand and shown round by the training officer, an Aberdonian by the name of Bob Andrew. In casual conversation he had learned of my prowess at golf and when he introduced us to the Technical Superintendent, Matty Gaul, another Scot, an associate of Heriot-Watt College, and a keen golfer, Bob nodded at me and informed Matty that I played off six. "Well" said Matty; "We'll have to get him in the Technical team".
The next day we were all shown into the deputy general manager's office. After a short spiel from the DGM he asked us if anyone had any particular departmental preference. He looked at me, so I said "We're all pretty new, so anything is a new experience for us".
"Right" he said, "Pender will go to the Technical Department, the rest of you will go into Operations". It seemed that the golfing Mafia had been pretty quick off the mark! This meant of course that all the others were immediately put on shift leaving me the only one on permanent days.
I was put into the Gas analysis laboratory with Ches Sullivan ex Sunbury Research Centre and an Indian who was known only as Raj. I suppose he had another name but if I knew it, that too is lost in the mists of time. This was in the very early days of gas analysis and Chromatography was still in its infancy. The only GLC apparatus was a serpent of glass tubing filled with molecular sieve fixed to a rectangle of plywood. This was the Janak apparatus whose job was to determine the light ends in the gasoline fraction. The principal method of analysing petroleum gas mixtures was the Podbielniak apparatus. This was a well-insulated laboratory distillation column; the reflux was refrigerated with liquid nitrogen. The whole Technical Department was air-conditioned so the only time we broke sweat when working was when we had to go on to the plant to obtain a gas or gasoline sample for analysis.
The outside air temperature seldom fell below about 85ºF even in "winter" except at night when it fell to about 75 degrees, but as far as I can recall, it was only very occasionally over 100ºF in the day, though when it did rise to say 106ºF it felt that you were looking into an open hot oven, not a pleasant experience, it seemed as if your eyeballs were drying out!
Rain was a very unusual occurrence in fact I think it rained only once during the time I was there. We were on the golf course at the time, and it was really teeming down. The course became almost immediately unplayable so "rain stopped play". Nothing for it, I'd go home and crash out on the bed. I got home to find that the roof was leaking and was pouring rainwater straight on to my bed! Everything was soaked. The only source of heat in the bungalow was the gas cooker, so I lit up the oven and draped the blankets and mattress round the oven in the kitchen. It was fairly late that night before I was able to get to bed in the dry, cursing the weather the while.
When British Petroleum Co was starting up in the Middle East early in the century there was a high proportion of Scotsmen among the staff. Accordingly wherever BP put down roots, very soon there were the makings of a golf course. Little Aden was no exception and while I was there, there was a nice 12 hole course carved out of the sand. Not a blade of grass in sight. The tees were concrete platforms with an inset of soft bitumen on either side to stick your peg tee. "Fairways" were regularly sprayed with salt water and rolled with "the wobbly wheel" a trailer with umpteen large treadless, very under inflated, tyres that had the effect of compacting and smoothing the "fairways". The "Browns" were sand mixed with heavy fuel oil and smoothed with a coir mat pulled round and round the "Brown". Because of the nature of the "Browns" and tees normal golf shoes were impractical not to say forbidden and "sandshoes" were the order of the day. The terrain required a different technique from grass, and the members who had been in Aden some time and in Bahrain and Iran before that certainly had the knack. I seem to recall that at one point we were required each to carry round a small square of carpet and play all our shots off that, but I cant remember why, it seemed rather cissy to me.
The principal recreation after golf was the Staff club, which was of course licensed. (Having said that I don’t know if a licence was strictly necessary. After all we, the British, were the occupying force, and we were still Top-dogs, though our reign, as it turned out, was about to come to an end though we weren't to know that at the time). Once a week there was a whist drive; it wasn't much but it filled in the time. There was also an open-air cinema that alternated British/American films with Indian Bollywood masterpieces.
The heat of the day meant that walking any distance was just not on, (apart from on the golf course strangely enough). Shortly after I arrived therefore I bought a small 6-year-old Fiat Topolino from a man who was going home on leave. The price was £80 including a driving lesson which was necessary since up to then my experience of driving was totally theoretical and at the age of 27 I had little or no idea how to drive a car. The car was a two-seater with a pretend back seat, but since I didn't expect to be taking in lodgers it was quite big enough for me.
The roads were not busy and there were plenty of people ready to risk life and limb by sitting in the passenger seat to give me practice, so I was soon ready to take my driving test. I arranged the test with the police and one morning I was taken along to the local station by John Marchant. Several people had turned up for the driving test that day. Since I was the only white man being tested I was taken first by the white police inspector.
"Right" he said, "drive out to the dual carriageway and turn right". This I did and drove about one hundred yards up the empty road.
"That's fine" said the inspector "you're OK, make a U-turn at the next opening and drive back to the station, I've got a lot of these Arab boys to get through".
"Is that it?" I asked.”
“Good God no,” said the inspector "You've got the theory to get through yet!"
We got back to the Station without mishap and I was taken in hand by the Arab sergeant of police. He had a stack of black & white photographs of traffic signs, which he started showing to me one at a time. The fact that each card had printed in English across the bottom what it signified seemed to me to make the test pretty pointless, however I said, "what do you want me to do?"
He looked at me as if I were daft and said, "What are the signs, please?”
From then on the test was fairly easy, as my eyesight at that time was good even without glasses and my knowledge of written English was at least up to standard.
So we made a start on the test:
“School”
“Correct”
“30 Speed limit”
“Correct”
“T-Junction”
“Correct”
“Hospital”
“Correct”
And so the test went on. Eventually the sergeant said, "OK, you pass". I believe I had the highest pass mark of any of the participants that day! I can only say "Ain't Edification a wonderful fing!"
This theory test certainly showed that driving tests in Aden were intended for people without a knowledge of written English or that white men were all expected to be able to drive before coming out to the colonies, or at least were not expected to fail the Aden driving test.
John had bought a big old Opel Commodore by this time while Charles had taken on a rather newer Fiat 600, which did not have the character of my Topolino, so the household was completely mobile, and there was always some transport to go shopping in.
Looking back on our time in Aden it was all pretty boring, but at least I had my golf to keep me happy. Just before Christmas 1959 we three were sitting in the lounge talking about this and that and the subject of beards came up. Nothing daunted we decided to hold a competition to see who could grow the best and bushiest beard. I must admit the first few weeks you just look rather scruffy and the deputy Technical Superintendent kept on at me to shave it off. This only made me more determined. Charles couldn't get over the scruffy stage and he gave up after a couple of weeks. John and I kept going till we both had a real growth at which point John backed out and shaved his off. I kept mine going till about May the following year at which point I shaved off the beard and found that I had a big curly moustache. I kept the moustache for a month or so gradually trimming it back to see what suited me best.
