Children of the Seven Sands: the Reveal.

The simple life of the Trucial States in the 1950s - A display at Ajman Museum...

As those of you that know me will by now have realised, there may be some book promoting going on around here for a while.

Suffer.

The good news is that this book is a bit, well, different. I try and make all my books different, but this one is differenter.

For a start, it's not a novel, a work of fiction, like the last six. It's 140,000 words of total fact. It's a very big book that tells a very big story indeed.

It's a roller-coaster ride of a tale that has never been told before in one place. And I kid you not.

Everything in it is not only true, but 100% verifiably so. It's meticulously researched and draws from archaeology, academic papers, ancient manuscripts, rare and forgotten books, archives aplenty and reputable, published (and many unpublished) sources. It draws together a story that tells of incredible innovation, of daring and courage - and of human perseverance.

If it doesn't make you draw breath and gasp at the sheer, blinding hugeness of what you didn't know, I'll refund you without quibble. Many of you are aware of my 'no refunds' policy. I'm willing to waive it for this one.

Children of the Seven Sands, set to be published in February next year by UAE-based publisher Motivate Publishing, is the human history of the United Arab Emirates. It's a 130,000 year-old tale that has, quite literally, never been shared before. And I guarantee you, it'll blow you away.

Bloody, gruesome, dramatic, vicious, honourable, glorious, brilliant, deceitful, noble, brave, bonkers and just plain splendorous, the history of the UAE is a wide-screen panorama of a narrative which has carried me away like a bewildered ant clinging to a log adrift in a winter wadi in spate - and I am going to delight in sharing it with you - here on the blog, but also in the book itself. You'd never believe the half of it - you'll never believe it's sitting here right under your noses. And it's all around you, even today.

It's a story I've set out to share with all its depth and vigour, charm and brio - it's a series of remarkable ups and downs, upsets and triumphs. It will challenge everything you thought you knew about UAE history but also quite a few unusual and unknown snippets of European and Indian history, too.

I kid you not - and I'm not overdoing it. I sent the final manuscript off to the publishers today and I can tell you that every single page contains something you didn't know, something that will challenge what you thought about this place and something that'll make you think about here in a totally new light.

Am I over promising? Let's see - but this, ladies and gentlemen, is what has been keeping me so very quiet as of late...

The Citadel Of Sigiriya - Lion Rock

 "Right lads, I'll have a palace up there and some pleasure gardens please. 

Quick as you like now. Chop chop!"

Sigiriya is an ancient palace built by a king who decided that if you're going to do 'palace', then it might as well be a gigantic, sprawling moated complex topped by a 200-metre high rock with a pleasure garden, pools and harem at its top.

The guy certainly had style, I'll give him that. 

Fighting off the insistent and rather seedy-seeming gentleman who wanted to be our guide to the sight, we bought our tickets (Rs3,900 for foreigners, Rs50 for Sri Lankans). These were expensive by UK standards, let alone Sri Lankan and our Sri Lankan friends felt shamed by the difference in prices. Oddly enough they seemed more annoyed by it than we were. 

But to be honest, we were a little taken aback. Understanding we earn more than Sri Lankans do, put in a system of concessions for schoolkids and the aged then find ways of presenting the experience that wealthier European or Asian travellers would pay premiums for rather than out-and-out gouging. There was no guidebook to the site and no audio guide on offer. There were no official guides and little evidence of any attempt to structure the experience as a value-added one beyond 'pay up and go up'. 

In some ways, this adds to its charm - it's not slick and over-developed. But then in others it detracts - the pestering freelance tour guide, the lack of any facilities or information. Even the availability of cold water until you get to the stalls in the drivers' car park at the exit. That apart, the site itself is splendorous.

I'm sure there was more information in the museum, but that was 500 metres the wrong way away from the site and we decided to skip it and get on with what looked to promise a hot, gruelling climb.

You travel through the ruins of glorious water gardens and what once must have been an amazing citadel towards the rock towering above you. You can see the steps stretching up to the foot of the rock, then the gantries and walkways stuck to the side of it and vertigo already cuts in. We chose a hot, sunny day and it was certainly warm going. There are delightful signs all over the place telling you to stay silent to prevent hornet attacks. Shame they weren't in Korean or Japanese. 

The hornets, presumably unable to speak Korean or Japanese themselves, let the babblers pass. 

The climb up, taken with care, is not onerous if you are relatively fit. Many choose to go as far as the 'lion's feet' and leave the final - and most vertiginous - part of the climb to more foolish folk. 

The Mirror Wall. No, it's no longer shiny. 

Not even Dubai could be shiny after 2,000 years...

On the way up you pass the Mirror Wall, a porcelain wall once apparently so burnished the king who built his palace atop this 200 meter-high boulder could see his face in it. You also get the chance to clamber up a spiral staircase to look at the remains of the frescoes some experts believe once adorned much of the rock. We passed, it was too hot, too busy and none of us much liked the look of the buttressing holding the viewing platform together. 

It's only when you're traversing rock a couple of hundred feet from the staging point below looking out over vistas of Sri Lanka's forest carpet that you realise you're standing on a flimsy structure nailed to a rock and maintained by the Sri Lankan Office of Public Works (or some such). The presence of a broken strut on the ground below doesn't add to any vestigial feelings of confidence.

It's not until you're on the way out you get to see what you've been walking on. 

Which is lucky, really...

Struggling to the top (not because of the climb, but negotiating the press of people coming down - even a section which had two walkways, clearly intended to be one for up and one for down, was crammed with people going both ways), you're rewarded by an amazing view of the lush countryside, as well as a scramble through the stepped ruins of the palace, complete with a huge cistern and water pools. 

Apparently yer one had 200 wives and liked to disport with them here. You can't blame him. If I were the King Of All I Surveyed, I'd be tempted meself...

Mind, it didn't do him much good - he was defeated and fell on his own sword in AD495. 

This is where Sri Lankans discover why their ticket only cost Rs50...

Delightfully, once you've struggled to the top and wandered around a bit, you come across a sign that says 'GOING DOWN IS DANGEROUS'. Thanks, you might have mentioned that before...

Sigiriya is a true marvel. Suck it up, cough and pay the inflated fee. Give this at least half a day. Do not, under any circumstance, pass it by.

Ancient Monument

No, not me - don't be cheeky. I posted the other day about UAE attitudes toward personal privacy and included an anecdote about the day I was nicked for snapping puddles (a bonus anecdote always adds such value to the 'standard' post one finds) in Sharjah. A late spring clean the other day took us to our old photo box and lo and behold, didn't I find the very film I was nicked for clicking? So here's Sharjah's Ramla area neatly underwater:

You'll note the lack of women in the shot. In its day, before the big drainage program was put in place, Sharjah used to look like this all over - particularly at that time when the rains were very heavy and even Al Wahda street sank without trace into the looming puddle that covered the city. Only four wheel drives had unfettered access, the mortals in their cars had to hug the central reservations and even then many didn't make it and conked out, leaving their owners to strike out for dry land and wait for assistance. It was all rather fun, hence the urge to record the whole thing for posterity!

Another old piccie we unearthed is this one. I didn't take it (I could not, for the life of me, tell you who did), I blagged it from a newspaper archive for some project or another I was working on way back when. It's Flame Roundabout, the eternal flame which used to burn in front of what is now the intersection between DNATA and Deira City Centre. Flame, together with 'Clock' and 'Fish', formed the city's  complement of decorative roundabouts. Clock had a clock on it and I'll leave you to fill in the final blank.

I don't even have a precise date for this snap, although it would likely have been the very early 1990s. I can only tell you that Flame was constructed, judging by the dumper truck in the picture, by big UAE construction company Khansaheb, which translates rather prosaically as 'Mr Khan' after its founder, Mr Khan.

Flame is no longer a roundabout, but the monument has been preserved and moved and the eternal flame still flickers in the vee of land as the airport road splits to take weary commuters to either Garhoud or the Floating Bridge.

We also dug up loads of pictures of us being young and silly and, if I have to confess, painfully gawky. It was all great fun to wade around in for a while. And no, I'm not sharing the gawky stuff. If youth today lives its life online that's youth today's choice. I, for one, am rather glad I can keep my memories of being younger and considerably more stupid (I know it's a stretch, but you'll have to just take my word for it) in a box to enjoy in private.

Nostalgia, Ephemera and Aeronautica

I said I'd share some more stuff from my wee collection of information on the Handley Page biplanes that used to ply the pioneering route from Croydon to Australia in the 1930s. There's more info here and here and a fantastic video of Sharjah airport (Kalba, incidentally, was the location of the 'backup' air strip and therefore posessing a greater importance in the 1937 scheme of things than, sleepy little town that it is, it does now) as it was back in the days of Empires, tally-hoes and people whacking the ball long and straight, dont'cha know.


This is the plane itself. These used to land at Sharjah in Oman (from Basra via 'Koweit and Bahrein) on the way through to Gwadar in Baluchistan. Let's just take the [sic]s as read. With 36 seats (and TWO toilets - you listening EK? A bog for every 18 pax!) and a bar, the planes were luxuriously decked out in mahogany and the like. It must have been a gut-wrenching ride.

The planes' engines had to be completely overhauled overnight at Sharjah, where guests were put up at the Mahatta Fort, a remote outpost (the fort was built for Imperial Airways by the ruler, who also provided a guard) containing three stir-crazy Brits and assorted staff. The met report used to be done by flying a light bulb up on a balloon to measure the wind.




This is the 1936 timetable. Arab readers might like to note where Gaza is located. Have a think about these journey times! Given that the 7 hours to Heathrow gives me mild shudders, this trip must have been a complete joy and let us not forget that these planes flew low, had no weather radar, no stabilisers and had wings made out of stretched canvas. Oh! And when you get to Shar-Jar, there's no AC. Let alone Gwadar and the others!

Mind you, if you think the hack to Sharjah's bad (4 overnights, including a train journey from Paris to Brindisi), it's a 14-day, 12 night flight to Brisbane!

Perhaps interestingly, my information is out of whack with the info on Wikipedia - it is my strong understanding that one of the HP42 series 'planes was lost at sea in the late 1930s in the Indian Ocean, while Wikipedia says only one was ever lost to a hangar fire in the UK. Hmm...

I also have a set of 1938 timetables and if anyone's interested in better quality scans that aren't quite so JPEGed, do just drop me a DM on Twitter or a mail at the usual address. I collected all this stuff because of an abiding fascination with Mahattah (which is, after all, on my doorstep) and the idea that one day I'll get a novel out of this lot...

If anyone owns copyrights to these, I'm not aware of them so please do let me know and I'll arrange appropriate attributions or whatever.

Air Outpost

I love HDR. Official.

This might not be a technically ‘correctly composed’ shot, but it makes a smashing desktop image (if I say so myself) – drop me a mail or a Tweet if you’d like a full sized image. Nick probably won’t apply. ;)

The image was taken in a mooch around a much-loved monument; Sharjah’s Mahatta Fort Museum. If you haven’t been there, I can only urge you to go.

A nice little slice of the UAE’s history – and a little slice of British history too, is wrapped up in the story of this odd little fort.

Mahatta Fort used to be a mile from the old town of Sharjah. Today it’s enveloped in the city – but the road outside that leads from the traffic lights just down from Mega Mall past the ‘Saudi Mosque’ and through Ittihad Square to meet ‘Smile You’re Insane’ (Sorry, ‘Smile You’re In Sharjah’) roundabout is suspiciously straight and slab-like, with dribbles of bitumen infilling the slabs. There’s a reason for that – the road is actually the old runway of Sharjah International Airport, before the airport was moved out of the city.

In 1937 this runway was a sand landing strip and served Imperial Airways, the (at the time) miraculous air-route that led from Croydon to Australia – a route that traversed Europe, taking passengers to Egypt and from there either through Darkest Africa to Cape Town or through Darkest Arabia through India, Asia and down to Australasia.

This first ever attempt to create a global airway brought the whole (Sun Never Sets On It) British Empire together. It meant travelling from Croydon to the desert town of Sharjah in just four days! From South East Asia, the Imperial Airways service was handed over to the Queensland and Northern Territories Airline Service. You’ll likely recognise it better as QANTAS.

We have a copy of the documentary film Air Outpost, made in 1937 about this remarkable desert airstrip, the fort that was built by the Sheikh of Sharjah to house the 38 passengers of each flight and protect them from marauding bedouin as they made their way through from Alexandria via ‘Bahrein’ to Qwaidar in Baluchistan and on to Karachi in India. In the morning after the Alexandria overnight stop, staff would have to be despatched to the city’s brothels to round up wayward passengers. Honest.

Sharjah held no such attractions, of course...

The film itself is important, credited as being likely the first ever true ‘documentary’ film, one of a series made by director Alexander Korda for Imperial Airways by his London Films company – and featuring a soundtrack composed by William Alwyn, now recognised as an important C20th British composer. The film is preposterous in the extreme, from the quoits-chucking Brit goons playing in the courtyard of Mahatta to while away the time between arrivals through to the stiff fish carried on donkey-back from the ‘Arab city of Shar-Jar’ to serve the lucky guests. There’s even a grumpy looking Scottish station manager who signals to the Sikh walla to ring the bell announcing the arrival of the flight – using, as the instruction, the very same bell-ringing motion he could have used to damn well do it himself. The Iranian petrol-boys play cards as they wait for the flight to arrive and the Sheikh's guard of honour turns out to greet the passengers. Tally ho!

It still amuses me greatly.

The planes used to fly from Alexandria to Gaza in Palestine, and then on to Habbaniya and Baghdad by following ‘The Trench’ – a guideline laid across the black desert of Northern Trans-Jordan by trawling a bunch of chains behind a tractor. After the overnight stop in Baghdad, it was off to Basra, Kuwait, Bahrain and, finally, a landing in Sharjah as the last of the day’s light played itself out.

Imperial Airways eventually became BOAC, the British Overseas Airline Corporation and then just simply British Airways.

Sharjah airport was used to house Spitfires in WWII (A pal of my dad’s used to fly ‘em here – “What you want to live in Dubai for, boy? It’s just a bunch of mud huts on a creek!” I kid you not) and then flew commercial stuff until the new airport was built and Mahatta fell into disuse. The extensive (and fascinating) area of Nissen huts and workshop buildings that used to litter a swathe of central Sharjah was eventually cleared for development, only the broken down remains of the old fort eventually remaining. And then, wonder of wonders, it was renovated and turned into a delightful museum – which is well worth a visit, BTW.

The story of the Handley Page Heracles class biplanes, 38-seat luxury airliners decorated inside in mahogany and chintz (featuring, of course, a bar) that linked the world for the first time ever is a remarkable one that has long captivated me. It ended in tragedy when one of these great planes was lost en-route to Sharjah in the Indian Ocean, somewhere off the coast of Kalba, or perhaps in the Eastern Hajjar Mountains. Nobody is quite sure.

And that is where I end my tale. With a thought for the 228 people who didn’t make it to the runway this week, either, lost somewhere in an ocean. Where, nobody is quite sure...

UPDATE
With consummate cool, The National has posted the full copy of Air Outpost up on its website! You can find it here!