The Gulf Daily News continues its series of Bygone Bahrain articles, which will showcase Bapco Energies’ golden history through personal stories brought alive by individuals who have been a part of the enterprise that first discovered oil in the Gulf region. Bapco Stories, recorded by Melissa Nazareth, will feature the memories of some of the pioneers, their partners and the children who grew up in Awali, as well as national and expatriate employees now carrying on the legacy of energy entrepreneurialism. The series carries on with English national Frederick Sidney Burton, who turns 93 this month. He arrived in Bahrain purely by chance. Even though his life in the kingdom was short lived – about 11 years – due to unforeseen circumstances, he cherishes the golden memories, describing them as ‘magical’. This is his story.
I am from Beetley in the County of Norfolk, close to East Dereham. Back then, I was 21 and my friend and I had decided to immigrate to Canada. It was easy in those days – you paid a small amount of money, they put you on a ship, you went there, worked for two years and became a Canadian citizen.
Before leaving, I had to have my tonsils removed, because they said, ‘Oh, in Canada it costs a lot of money’. So I went to the hospital. While I was there, I read in the newspaper about a job opening in Bahrain. I wrote to them and when I got home, my mother said, ‘There’s a man who has been ringing you from London’. I wrote back, and he asked me if I could meet him. The interview lasted five minutes and a week later, I was on a flight to Bahrain – ‘You’re just the man we need’, I was told.
It took three flights to get there – first from Beetley to Rome, then on to Kuwait, and finally to Bahrain. I arrived on February 4, 1954.
Coming from a tiny village where most people are manual workers, stepping into Bahrain felt like magic.
I was engaged as what they call a refinery operator. It was a technical job and I knew nothing about it. I had to learn from scratch. My educational qualifications were modest – I attended grammar school until I was 18 and then studied for two more years at technical college where we learned about combustion engines and mechanical things – just the basis of engineering. However, by the time I left Bahrain in January 1964, I was a shift foreman, in charge of the whole refinery.
Awali was a small town with a wire fence around it and expatriates and Bahrainis did not mingle much. But I chose to look beyond the fence, because for me, what I discovered outside mattered far more than what was inside. One of my friends had a car, and we would drive around the different villages in Bahrain. There were no roads back then – just a sandy track.
My friend and I decided to learn Arabic. I can still read and write a little. We made some Bahraini friends and I was invited to one of their homes – a ‘barasti’ (built with palm fronds) on the island of Sitra, where I worked for the first two years.
Almost 80 per cent of the people in Sitra came to work on a donkey. That was the main means of transport then. The other 20pc rode the buses that ran from the mainland to Sitra. Not many owned cars – there were maybe 20 cars in Awali at the time. We bought a car after six years...life in Bahrain was different back then.
Bahrain always had blue skies, whether morning or night – you never saw a cloud! While I lived there, it rained just once. But it rained hard and everyone came out of their house and walked around. It was spectacular.
In those days, HH Shaikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa would invite notaries of Bahrain to have coffee with him once a month. I worked with someone who knew the Royal Family and once, visited the Riffa palace – there were around 20 of us. Shaikh Salman, who was the Ruler then, walked in with his assistants and sat on the dais. He then clapped his hands and said something in Arabic, which I think might have been ‘make the coffee now’! It was an extraordinary experience.
When Shaikh Salman died, I was among those who assisted at the burial.
Then there was the time when I talked to his son, Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa. I actually talked to him on a couple of occasions in Awali. I heard he was born a year after me, so we were roughly the same age. He was visiting some friends when I happened to step out of my house just as he opened his car door. He greeted me casually, saying something like, “Hello, everything okay?”– it was friendly and casual.
These were some of the beautiful memories I forged outside of work.
Even at work, there was much to look forward to. One of my responsibilities was to welcome the new hires and show them around the island. That is how I met my then wife, Philippa Tuckey, about three years after I joined. She was hired as a perforator operator from Australia. We got married two years later and have three children – all of whom were born at the Awali hospital – Frederick John in 1959, Amanda Jane in 1960, and Philippa Ann in 1962.
Family life was easy. We decided that Philippa, my wife, would stop working and be a homemaker. I must admit, she could have continued – she was a specialist, and they even offered her the chance to stay on – but we chose not to.
We made friends with other families in the township, one of whom had two children born around the same time as ours. Our children were very young and spent their days splashing in a rubber swimming pool in our front garden. Sometimes, we went swimming at Zallaq beach.
I even built a boat which I took back to the UK when I left. I probably picked up the wood from the refinery, and someone sold me an old outboard motor. I made a trailer for it and hitched it to the car and we would go to an oasis between Sitra and the mainland. One day, we even saw people diving for pearls.
Other entertainment included sport – I played a lot of squash, and was on the Bapco hockey team. In fact, just before leaving Bahrain, we won the annual local tournament. That year, there were about six teams and I believe it was the first time Bapco won.
Life was great and going well until my son Fredrick developed asthmatic bronchitis from the mesquite thorn trees – the only type that grew in Awali those days. We sought medical treatment, and Philippa, my wife, travelled to the UK with our children in May 1963. I joined them a few months later, hopeful things would get better. However, they did not and I returned alone in September that year. Four months later, I left Bahrain forever.
It was an emotional decision for me because I had come to this magical place and did not want to leave. Honestly, I never wanted to return after that – I wanted to keep the memory of the place exactly as it was then.
After we left, we lived in the UK for about two years and then moved to other places, including Spain and France. I also spent some time working in Türkiye and Libya. During this period, I worked with different companies: Regent Refinery in Wales, Esso in Libya, Stone and Webster in Spain and Shell Berre in France among others.
I retired in 1985 when I was 53 and settled in Luxembourg where my wife Lucie works; Philippa and I separated some years before my retirement and I remarried. Lucie and I have a son Joel, whom we adopted from Peru when he was three. Amanda and Joel live in Melbourne, Frederick John in the Pyrenees, and Philippa, my youngest, in Holland.
Retirement has been eventful and I try to keep myself busy. Initially, we were focused on Joel but now, I spend time learning new things. I recently learned Luxembourgish and refreshed my Arabic, which I hadn’t spoken in a long time. I would say, Luxembourg is roughly the same size as Bahrain; about 100 kilometres north-south and 50 to 60km east-west. The children here learn four languages at school and most of them know six because their parents are from different countries. The community here is very diverse…much like magical Bahrain.
melissa@gdnmedia.bh
Editor’s note: If you would like to contribute to this unique series, email melissa@gdnmedia.bh with your nostalgic stories and old photographs.
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