In 1968, the United Arab Emirates was known as the Trucial States – a British Protectorate that operated under the Foreign Office in London. Julian Bullard, Margaret’s husband, worked as a British political agent in Dubai from 1968-71, whose role included offering advice and assistance to the sheikhs while maintaining peace between the states.
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Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
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00:00Dubai, I don't know whether you have a hidden secret board of very clever architects
00:06who get together and see that the things all look nice together.
00:10I think it is quite architecturally quite amazing.
00:17He was a diplomat with an office in London, it's called the Foreign Office that look after you.
00:23We had had a treaty with these people who lived here
00:28that they should not attack British troops, British ships
00:33and that we would protect them against any foreigners who tried to take their oil
00:39or later take their oil, Saudis taking their oil or any difficulties.
00:46Technically we were protectors, we didn't rule,
00:51we saw to it that the rulers stuck to the treaty that they had signed one day.
01:02I went down to see the cook and talk about what we were going to have to eat
01:08and looking through the window I saw three very fiercely dressed Arabs
01:15with ammunition over there and rifles and they had hawks on their wrists, birds.
01:24And I said to the cook, what are they doing?
01:31Squatting in the sand outside.
01:34The rulers sent them to learn how to make baked roast potatoes.
01:40When you say, looking where I left any mark on my stay in Dubai,
01:47well perhaps I had something to do with the library,
01:51but I'm really being rewarded for something.
01:54The library, as it might have, I recollect no similarity with the library today.
01:59Very modest affair in those days.
02:04But the roast potatoes were probably the same,
02:07so maybe I brought roast potatoes to the Gulf.
02:11My house was the largest house with air conditioning
02:15and it had a room with two shelves in it.
02:18So it collected a few books to add to that
02:22and I went home in the summer, in the hot weather,
02:26and I bought a whole lot of second hand books.
02:31And then my husband said, I don't think we can have people coming into the agency
02:36because we were all worried about security
02:38and they'd have a man at the door, see that they couldn't have people
02:41walking in off the street to change their books.
02:44So he produced this office that we had in the town which wasn't being used.
02:52And so we moved in there.
02:54Then, we're just approaching the point of me leaving,
02:57and then somebody came from Bahrain and said
03:00we could not use government property to run the library.
03:05And so I thought we had arranged that the British Council would take the books
03:10and add them to their library because they were just going to open here
03:14and they always had a library.
03:16I thought that was all arranged.
03:18I went thinking it was all in safe hands.
03:21And I'm afraid I did not ask what happened.
03:24I was too busy thinking what I was doing next in another country or something.
03:28And when I came back in 200, it was to my astonishment,
03:33I still had the Duffs and the Allens and people were still alive and here.
03:38And I learned that they said, come and see your library.
03:42Although there was interesting work for my husband,
03:44it wasn't all the time.
03:46And you'll go to working in London.
03:49There are papers that come in and you have to deal with them
03:52and papers and papers and you have to sit up late
03:54answering the papers and getting them.
03:57But Dubai wasn't like that.
03:59There may be some trouble which might take suddenly all your time
04:02for a day or two or something.
04:04But in between, it wasn't a pressure of work coming in.
04:09I have the feeling that there was plenty of time to do.
04:12Also, if you did excursions, you could always say it was your job
04:17because my husband's job was to be familiar with everybody
04:22important in all of the sheikhdoms.
04:27So if you said you really wanted to go to Muscat
04:32because you'd never been to Oman and you wanted to see that,
04:35you could say it was very important to look at the possibility
04:38of development for Bartender Coast or something like that.
04:42When my husband left, he said it was the most enjoyable post he had
04:48and that Dubai was a splendid place and a splendid job
04:53and a splendid country.
04:56The thing which is a startling thing is how clean it is.
05:00I mean, it was very dusty in those days
05:03and all the roads were lined with rubbish
05:06and being eaten up by donkeys, no, goats.
05:10Amazing. Everything looks as if it's been just washed.
05:14Dubai, I don't know whether you have a hidden secret board
05:21of very clever architects who get together
05:24and see that the things all look nice together.
05:27I think it is quite architecturally quite amazing.