Aden in War-Time

Abstract

It was a profound relief to AB to be back in Aden, with day-to-day life once more in the familiar rhythm; though his swims and his climbs were necessarily less strenuous than before his accident. There is an elegant reference in Freya Stark’s memoirs: …

Hilda Besse and Anton, sparkling with gaiety and malice. King of the Red Sea coasts and their commerce, and living — as befitted the manipulator of so many of its complicated strings — a little and not uncritically apart, he would take me climbing over the dead crags of Aden…¹

But as far as the firm was concerned the impact of war conditions was heavy. We have a letter from AB to one of his Shell friends, written in the early summer of 1941:

As soon as France collapsed and I saw the awful trend the policy of her so-called leaders was taking, I cabled Davis to put everything I possessed at the disposal of the Government here. And sure enough, when I arrived I found practically all my instruments of work, both material and human, working for the common cause. My two ships, of which I was so proud, have been driven almost to death and have not seen a dry dock for eight months.