The-Polyester-Prince

The outpost had been a punishment station for British regiments deemed to haveshown cowardice or other offences against discipline while in India. As one of its lastgovernors, Charles Johnston, noted in a memoir, it had been ‘he dumping ground,even as late as between the wars, to which regiments sent officers who had gotthemselves into matrimonial difficulties’.The colony also became the entrepot for the Red Sea and Horn of Africa, wheredeep-water ports were few. Cargoes of cattle hides, coffee, aromatic gums and pearlshell were brought to Aden by wooden sailing dhows, and bought by trading firmslike Besse, Cowasji Dinshaw, Luke Thomas and Cory’. In return, basic commoditiessuch as sugar, rice and textiles were shipped back.Between the world wars, the biplanes of the Royal Air Force kept the hinterland quietby machine-gunning the villages of any unruly Yemeni tribesmen. Behind this shieldof bullets, the middleman trade flourished. The definitive historian of British rule inAden, R. J. Gavin, noted:Aden indeed consisted of a hierarchy of brokers from the heads of foreign firms tothe lowest workman or child who offered his labour or hawked in the street.Speculators, hoarders and price rings frequently sent commodity and foodstuff pricesrocketing up and down, while moneylenders and dealers dampened the effect of thisfor the rest of the population at a price which included a claim to social leadership.Acquisitive individualism was mitigated only by ethnic and other local solidaritiesformed outside rather than within the town. Aden’s economy developed rapidly afterthe Second World War, but its business milieu still had some of this character whenDhirubhai learnt his basic techniques in the 1950s.The spur to Aden’s growth was the decision of British Petroleum to build a new oilrefinery in Little Aden, another crater jutting into the sea across the bay from themain town. BP’s existing refinery in the Gulf port of Abadan had been nationalised bya new Iranian government. The refinery employed up to 11000 workers at any onetime during its construction over 1952-54, and then had a permanent staff of 2500housed in a comfortable village. This sparked off a construction boom which sawAden extend be-yond the wastes and saltpans of the causeway which had been keptclear for defensive reasons in earlier times.Later in the 1950s, the British began concentrating strategic reserve forces in Adenfrom other bases in the Gulf and East Africa. By 1964, Aden had some 8000 Britishmilitary personnel plus dependents-and their demand for housing kept theconstruction activity going. Aden’s population grew from 80000 in 1946 to 138000 in1955.It became a more modern economy, and air-conditioning ameliorated the hothumid weather in the midsummer months. But it retained many exotic features,including the daily inward fight by Aden Airways of the mild narcotic called qat. Froma hedge like bush in the mountains of Ethiopia, the qat leaves had to be consumedfresh and were delivered to consumers in Aden within a few hours of plucking atdawn. ‘It is not medically harmful, so far as can be ascertained,’ noted Johnson, theformer governor, although if taken in excess it lowers the appetite and produces acharacteristic green-faced, cadaverous appearances.Just before mass air travel arrived with the first passenger jets, Aden overtook NewYork in 1958 to become the biggest ship- bunkering port in the world. As well as forcargo shipping and tankers, it was a refueling stop for elegant liners of the P &- 0and Orient Lines as well as crowded migrant ships taking Italians and Greeks out toAustralia.