Dubai-based Isobel Abulhoul needs no introduction. In fact, you would be forgiven if you think you know everything about her. After all, she is synonymous almost with the Emirates Literature Foundation, Emirates Literature Festival and Magrudy’s, all of which she has founded.
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Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/uae/people/watch-i-can-still-dream-and-feel-like-a-child-says-dubais-isobel-abulhoul-1.98889337
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #Dubai #EmiratesLiteratureFoundation
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NewsTranscript
00:00As a child growing up in England back in time, how was it for you personally? How did you cultivate the love of reading as a child?
00:12So I didn't...
00:13Which part of England were you born in?
00:14Cambridge, Cambridge, the United Kingdom. So it's an ancient university city with lots of libraries and lots of bookshops, then and now.
00:25So when I was born...
00:28Which is in?
00:291950.
00:33We didn't have television and there were none of the distractions that children have today.
00:40So both my parents were avid readers and we were read to by my mother during the day and my father would always read us bedtime stories.
00:53And by the time I was three, I could read, not because I was bright or intelligent, but because of the exposure that I had to books from a very early age.
01:05And what I realized looking back is how much books formed my character.
01:15They formed my imagination.
01:17They helped develop critical analysis.
01:21So I knew from a very early age that stories were not true, that they were fiction.
01:27And there were books that were true.
01:30So these are things that you gain along the way.
01:34I obviously had, because of my exposure to books, I had a good understanding, a good vocabulary, and I was a confident child.
01:43And I think much of this was down to, God rest their soul, my parents.
01:48So they cultivated my love of reading and my passion for books.
01:55I mean, to be honest, I'm addicted to books and reading.
01:59It's the one thing I cannot do without.
02:02I have always been able to escape into a book.
02:05So as a child, my mother would say to me, Isabel, can you pop upstairs and get, she wanted something she'd left upstairs.
02:12And so I would start to go upstairs, but on the way up the stairs, I would imagine I was a princess and I'd been kidnapped.
02:21And I was playing this game.
02:22So half an hour later, she'd call up, Isabel, where are you?
02:26And I was just playing this game in my imagination from the amount of books I'd read.
02:32And that was my, I can dream, I can still dream, and I can still be a child.
02:38And I think those characteristics have stood me in very good stead for whatever I've done in life.
02:45But also living outdoors.
02:47As children, even in the UK, where the weather can be changeable, we spent so much time outdoors.
02:55We'd go exploring.
02:56In those days, you could.
02:58My brother and I would wander off into the, and look for ponies in fields because I was fascinated.
03:04I really wanted to ride, which I did eventually.
03:07I mean, I did ride as a child, but not very much.
03:09But then when I came back to Dubai, when I came to Dubai, I was able to take it up seriously.
03:15So, you know, we, every weekend, my father would take me on long, long walks.
03:21We'd go on the old Roman road in Cambridge and just be out, outside every weekend.
03:29We would sometimes go to the seaside, sometimes go to different places of interest, visit family.
03:35So my mother's family were living in Wales.
03:39So we'd go and visit them.
03:41And, you know, just lots of time there is a poem that is to stand and stare.
03:49You need, as a child, you sometimes just need to not do anything, but just to be in the moment.
03:57Hopefully outside, I'd say.
04:01Now what brought you, so you did your English literature itself in Cambridge?
04:08I came here, I was, what I did was, after I'd finished school, I did a post, a post A-level course in business, business skills,
04:23including, you know, learning to touch type, learning to shorthand, learning how to write business letters, et cetera, et cetera.
04:30An A-level course in business?
04:32No, this was after I'd finished my A-levels.
04:34My A-levels were English, English literature, history and French.
04:41So, yes, but I then did this year course because I had a place at university to study sociology.
04:59And by then I had met my future husband who was studying English.
05:05He was studying in Cambridge, studying the English language, along with a group of boys from Dubai.
05:14You know, boys, they were young men.
05:16This was 1967.
05:19So I decided, he came back to the Dubai and joined Dubai police and I decided to follow him.
05:30So I came out first to meet his family and then came back and we got engaged and then got married.
05:38And so I've been here ever since.
05:41I got off the plane, I walked down the steps and there was sand beneath my feet.
05:47And I'd left, it was December, I'd left London, Heathrow, and it was cold, wet and grey.
05:55And here I was with exotic balmy air, you know, that smelt different.
06:01The scents in the air were completely different to what I'd ever experienced.
06:07And I felt in a really strange way that I'd arrived home.
06:13And I had read, the one book that I'd read that one of my mother's friends had given me before I came was Arabian Sands by Wilfrid Fessiger.
06:24And that gave me so much insight into this part of the world.
06:32I think one of the things that was a complete unknown to me, I'd never seen anything like it, was the gold souk.
06:41Which, the gold, gold souk in Dubai.
06:46So my family, to be, took me down to the gold souk.
06:50And I had, first of all, I had never seen so much gold.
06:53Shop after shop after shop.
06:56And I just was, I mean, I don't wear, actually, jewellery, but I was just transfixed by, it was like Aladdin's cave.
07:04So that was a very strong memory.
07:06And then, I think, going to the desert for the first time, and by then, by that time, the desert was Khawanij.
07:17There was no road beyond Dubai airport.
07:21You were into the desert very fast.
07:23And I'd never been to, you know, and then we sort of drove in four-wheel drives across the desert.
07:29It was just incredible.
07:30And one time we did it, we came across, just by chance, a camel race happening across the desert.
07:38You know, I mean, it was like a fairy story.
07:40You just don't expect these things to happen.
07:44I think it was a very small community in 1968.
07:48There were not many.
07:49In fact, if I drove on the roads of Dubai, which were very few, you'd be lucky if you saw three cars.
07:58It was a completely different place to the Dubai of today.
08:04And, I mean, there were obviously British families living here in various jobs and roles.
08:12But I was living in Faridja Murrah, which was where most of my family lived.
08:18Faridja Al Murrah.
08:20Which, if you go across the tunnel, you go under the tunnel, it's along there.
08:26But at that stage, they hadn't reclaimed the land.
08:34So I could see the sea from our windows.
08:40It was very close to us, the sea.
08:42So we lived very close to the shore.
08:44And, in fact, the first morning I woke up ever in Dubai, I was staying in the guest room for my future brother-in-law's house.
08:54And I pulled the curtains and looked out, and there was a donkey trotted past.
08:58Just a wild donkey.
08:59I mean, it was like, you know, it was just this incredible sort of, and in the distance I could see the sea and the shore.
09:09And just a very natural, I mean, the beaches I'd been to were all sort of, you know, English beaches.
09:15They were so different.
09:16How different?
09:17Well, this was just natural.
09:19Everything about it was natural.
09:21There was no buildings, there was nothing.
09:25You just had the shoreline and the sea.
09:28I hadn't come out here to be part of the British expat community.
09:33I'd come out here to start a new life.
09:37Do you think expats don't make enough of an effort to learn Arabic here?
09:48Well, I don't think you can generalise like that.
09:52I think they may not see the need for it.
09:55I had a need for it when I came.
09:57I learnt Arabic because I needed it.
10:00And I thank my lucky stars I did, because it's been incredibly useful.
10:05You know, my written Arabic is atrocious.
10:08I can't read very well in Arabic, but I can speak.
10:11And communication is what we speak.
10:13So if you ever meet an Arab and you can speak Arabic, they are so happy that you have taken the trouble.
10:26So it is like they will then ask you questions, they will want to know.
10:35So it opens up a conversation by being able to speak even a few words.
10:41And I think really everyone should, wherever you travel in the world, even if you go on holiday,
10:45I would always try and learn a few words.
10:48You know, please, thank you, at least, good morning, good evening.
10:53It doesn't take, it's no problem to learn a few words.
10:57But at least you made that effort.
11:00And it does make a difference.
11:02Legacy is my children and my grandchildren.
11:06How many grandkids?
11:07Eight.
11:11So nothing has given me more pleasure.
11:15Nothing has given me more joy.
11:18Nothing has fulfilled me in the way that being a mother has.
11:24Nothing can ever, ever be more than that.
11:30And I have the same feeling for my grandchildren.
11:33You know, it's, I am blessed with having very close, wonderful relationships with all of our children.
11:42And being, you know, being part of their lives too is really important for me.
11:52And professionally?
11:55I don't have a profession.
11:58I have a passion.
12:00Seriously, I don't.
12:03Everything I've ever done in life is because of passion, not because of a profession.
12:08If I don't have a passion for it, I will not do it.
12:13And I shouldn't do it.
12:15Because what's driven me all my life is that.
12:18It's that feeling that each one of us is put on this planet to do something good.
12:27And it doesn't matter how small it is, but you should leave this world a better place than when you came.
12:34Even if it's only one child who's caught the bug of reading, that's, you know, that's a good thing.
12:41We all have to, we all have to have a feeling that we owe our world a favor.