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Part 3 Life in Cairo September 1943 - October 1944

When we reached Cairo our car left the convoy and we were taken to the Ambassador鈥檚 temporary residence. Then Dorothy and I and the two secretaries were taken to Moncrieff House at the north end of Gezira island on the west bank of the Nile. Moncrieff House was a newly built block of flats in a developing suburb of Cairo with the Nile on one side and a canal on the other. It had been taken over by the British Government a few months previously to house female civilian employees, mostly from the U.K., but some from the Dominions. Most of the Temporary Secretaries had a flat of their own or shared a flat in town. There were about 160 of us all told and in the first month I met two girls from my old school, one older, whom I recognised, and one younger who recognised me. On arrival we were greeted by Mrs Readman, who was in charge, and had coffee and toast in the lounge. Dorothy and I were sharing a large room with a balcony. We had a siesta after lunch, then went out and tried unsuccessfully to send cables home. It was very hot, 1943 having been the hottest summer for many years, we were told later.

Our baggage came after tea so we unpacked. We paid Egyptian 拢18.85 piastres per month at Moncrieff (an Egyptian pound being approximately the equivalent of sterling and 100 piastres to the pound). This covered three cooked meals each day and an early cup of tea. Some of the food was unfamiliar: fresh dates, Cape gooseberries and sweet potatoes, white butter that was made, I think, from water buffalo milk, and grey bread. Tea and coffee in the lounge, drinks at the bar and meals for visitors were also available on payment. There was usually plenty of hot water but occasionally the boiler failed and there was only cold available. Our rooms were cleaned daily. The servants were very good on the whole, seldom missing out on an early call or the early cup of tea at 7 am. They wore the long white djellaba and red tarboosh, although some wore a different headdress. During Ramadan when they were not allowed to eat between sunrise and sunset, tempers sometimes got a little frayed and there would be a great deal of commotion in the kitchen. On one occasion at breakfast time there was a terrific row when a waiter picked up a knife and chairs were brandished! I was not present at the time.

There was a little laundry almost opposite where you could get washing done, or wash things yourself and have them ironed. You would see your dresses hanging up on hangers on the street! There was an ironing room and a sewing machine available for a very modest fee.

As regards health I was rather susceptible to Gippy Tummy and in those days the treatment was castor oil, milkless tea and toast. I had three or four bouts during the year. We were well looked after at Moncrieff House and during one bout the doctor came to see me three times.

It was quite cold in the winter and there were two open fires in the lounge that were lighted in the evening, and also paraffin heaters in the lounge and dining room. Three of us sat at dinner once with a paraffin heater under the table, which sounds dangerous. There was also a distribution of eiderdowns in the winter. It was cold enough to wear a heavy coat outside, and for walking to work to be a pleasure, which I enjoyed when on the day shift.

The day after we arrived we were picked up by a car from our main Embassy in Cairo, that to the Egyptian Government. We learned that at the villa which housed the Embassy to the Yugoslav Government in Exile, there was no cypher security, so we were to work in the main Embassy cypher room. Here we met Bobby O鈥橰afferty who was in charge, a rather volatile Irishman with red hair and a temper to match. We also found some people we had worked with in London, including Tom Evans who was a civil servant like ourselves. All the others were Temporary Secretaries. We were then taken by a native messenger to the Minister of States office to find out about our allowances, and walked back in terrific heat. We got a lift back to Moncrieff in the Embassy car, had a siesta after lunch and wrote letters home. There was a terrific storm with lightning and rain in the evening.

The following day we started work. The Embassy was on the bank of the Nile in the main part of the town and a car was provided to ferry the cypher staff to and from their abodes. For this we paid 90 piastres per month. There were two drivers, Mahomet and Abdullah, who wore suits and tarbooshes and allowed one of their little fingernails to grow long as a sign that they were not labourers. When the car broke down or was being serviced we had to use the Embassy truck that was provided for the typists. It took ages to get round and was not very comfortable.

On early morning journeys we saw carts pulled by donkeys taking produce to the markets. As Moncrieff House was on Gezira Island we had to cross one of the Nile bridges on each journey and at night the river was very picturesque with all the lights, including those of houseboats, reflected in the water.

We were working on a shift system, the first shift being from 5 am to 8 am, which entailed a 4.30 am morning call, and the last one finishing at midnight. Apart from the early shift each shift was four hours and we did two each day and had every eighth day off. Owing to the exigencies of war we worked as usual on public holidays. The cypher room jutted out into the Embassy garden and had very heavy bars on the windows. At night the lights would encourage insects to come in and here I saw my first praying mantis. You could also hear the bullfrogs in the Embassy garden. Sometimes we shut the shutters but in moonlight the garden looked beautiful, on one occasion looking as if it were covered in snow.

We took it in turns to be on call between midnight and 5 am, and a few weeks after our arrival, there was a knock on my door at 1.10 am and a telephone call to go to the Embassy to decypher a priority telegram. The car came for me and I managed to open the cypher room and safes but it was a bit intimidating being there all on my own. I then had the satisfaction of getting one of the diplomatic staff out of bed but was not so pleased when he required me to stay to send off a reply!

We had diplomatic bag facilities for letters to and from home, and had to have British stamps sent out to us so our letters were ready for posting in London. My first letter from home arrived on 6th October. I also wrote regularly to Nancy in Whitchurch and my brothers at their various postings.

In November, three colleagues from London, all of whom I had worked with, and one of whom was a close friend, came out to help with extra work involved in the Cairo Conference from 22nd 鈥� 26th November, and then went on to Teheran for the Conference there from 26th to 2nd December [Stalin met Churchill and Roosevelt at Teheran.]. They stayed in Moncrieff House and spent another ten days in Cairo on their way home. It was nice to have their company and my friend Pat went to see my parents after she got home. We were particularly busy around that time, and a night shift was started from midnight to 8 am. The December nights were cold. I wore black woollen stockings, slacks, a Shetland wool jersey I had knitted for camping in England, a suede jacket and an overcoat, and took a rug! There was a camp bed and a stretcher so we could have an hour or two鈥檚 rest and we were able to heat up soup.

It was usual to work in pairs and Bobby arranged the pairings. For the first few months I partnered Rosemary Adams, the wife of a Colonel, who was very nice. On one occasion when we were on nights together she had a bad cold so I did the whole eight hours on my own which was a bit spooky but I got a lot of work done! Later on I was paired with Dorothy and by that time we had graduated to single rooms at Moncrieff House so were able to spend more of our free time together without being in each other鈥檚 pockets all the time.

The atmosphere in the cypher room, which tended to be quite crowded on the day shifts, was often quite explosive, and I noted in my diary that the swearing was 鈥榮omething awful鈥�. Coming from a home where swearing was literally non-existent, it came as quite a shock.

We found plenty to occupy our free time. We joined the Gezira Sporting Club but I didn鈥檛 use it much apart from a few games of tennis. One of our fellow residents at Moncrieff House took us along to the Ladies Choral Society and we attended the practice when we were able. At Christmas, together with the Services Choral Society, we gave a concert of Carols and part of Handel鈥檚 Messiah in the Cathedral and at a venue called 鈥淢usic for All鈥�, a place where members of the Services could attend concerts, both live and recorded, and obtain refreshments. Part of the Cathedral concert was recorded and broadcast at home. At Easter we sang Brahms鈥� Requiem.

I had several visits from Alan (鈥楤asher鈥�) Pickford, a friend of my sister Nancy, who was serving in the nth? Tank Regiment in Syria and came to Cairo on leave and on duty. The first was only two weeks after we had arrived and unfortunately I was laid low with 鈥榞ippy tummy鈥�. However, a couple of days later I was recovered and in the evening we went out to the Giza Pyramids and walked to the Sphinx in the moonlight. I had seen them already in the distance from the roof of Moncrieff House. On one occasion he took me for dinner to the Mena House Hotel, quite close to the Pyramids and Sphinx. Alan and Nancy were married after the war.

A neighbour of mine at home had an uncle who was the Professor of Architecture at Cairo University and she very kindly put us in touch. Mr and Mrs Wickenden lived in a flat on Gezira Island and were extremely kind. They entertained Dorothy and me to tea and Mahjong quite often, and at Christmas when Dorothy and I both worked two shifts on Christmas day, and Dorothy did not finish until 8 pm, they arranged their Christmas meal accordingly, so that we could join them and their daughter and son-in-law, also living in Cairo. They had normal dairy butter and white bread! Just before Christmas, Dorothy had a surprise visit from one of her brothers who was on leave from the Navy for a few days.

We explored Cairo and its environs pretty thoroughly, visiting the Zoo, the Aquarium, the Nilometer and of course the Sphinx and Pyramids at Giza on several occasions. These were particularly memorable by moonlight. We also climbed Cheops Pyramid with the aid of a dragoman. The facing marble has long ago been looted and the underlying blocks form steps about 2陆 feet high so a helping hand is almost essential. Climbing the Pyramids has long been forbidden now.

We hired bicycles one day to go into the country that can be seen from the Citadel in the town and also took a train ride and a tram ride out of town. A colleague also took us to the P.D.S.A. hospital [the Brook Hospital] on the outskirts of Cairo where the couple in charge, Jane and Hans Bloom, made us most welcome. Their main patients were the pathetic-looking overworked donkeys with sores, being nursed back to health. I sometimes spent my day off helping there.

Dorothy and I had three holidays during our year in Cairo. The first was a long weekend in Luxor in March with a group excursion organized by the Y.M.C.A. We travelled by train, the outward journey being overnight. The train was extremely overcrowded and it was impossible to get along the corridor. There were five of us in our compartment and we took it in turns to travel in the luggage racks to try to get some sleep. At Luxor, we visited all the archaeological sites including the tomb of Tutankhamun. The gilt sarcophagus was there but the gold sarcophagus and other artefacts were in the Cairo Museum which was closed during the war. Our return journey was made in daylight so we were able to see the Nile Valley.

Our second holiday was two weeks in Palestine and Syria. As Government employees we were able to get a pass enabling us to travel on War Department transport. We had several lifts on the first leg of the journey to Ismailia, on the Canal, which was the departure point for crossing the Sinai desert. To our surprise, we found three old armchairs in one truck we were travelling in. Then we found a tariff pinned up and realized we were in a travelling barber shop! We spent two days in Ismailia, staying overnight at the Y.W.C.A., as we failed to get a lift, but on the third day we got a lift in a staff car. At midday we stopped at the frontier post at Abu Awergela on the border between Egypt and Sinai, then mandated jointly to Egypt and Britain. Not long after leaving there the car broke down, emitting clouds of steam when the bonnet was raised. A leak in the radiator was diagnosed and we got a tow back to Abu Awegela from a R.E.M.E. car. Ken Onions, a R.E.M.E. lieutenant was at the post and was returning to Jerusalem in his truck the following day so we spent the rest of the day there, having a couple of walks in the desert which were interesting. The O.C. at the post gave up his room to Dorothy and me for the night, but unfortunately, our slumbers were spoiled by bugs in the beds! The next day we went in Ken鈥檚 truck to Jerusalem and spent five nights there staying at the Church Army hostel. We visited all the places of interest in and around the City, including the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. We also saw quite a lot of Ken Onions, and he and Dorothy were to marry later in Athens in June 1945. We spent the next night at Haifa and had a lovely walk on Mount Carmel. From Haifa we managed to get to Beirut and checked in at the Service Women鈥檚 hostel. Our hope was to get to Damascus but after 3(?) days in Beirut we had to admit defeat and head back to Cairo.

Our third short break was a weekend in Alexandria, purely recreational with a lot of swimming in the sea.

In 1944 our Embassy to the Yugoslav Government moved to Bari (Italy) in preparation for the liberation of Belgrade, but Dorothy and I were dropped as cypher officers. One of the Secretaries in the Embassy (a Secretary in Foreign Office parlance being one of the Diplomatic staff) had a sister working as a Temporary Secretary in the cypher room and she was appointed instead. We were promised we would get the next appointment out of Cairo as we had already said we did not wish to stay there on a permanent basis. In August we had a letter from the Foreign Office saying they would like us to stay longer, and we would be sent to a European post as they opened up. The following month we were told we would be going to Athens.

At the beginning of October, Dorothy and I went to see the Head of Chancery at our Embassy to the Greek Government, who was in charge of the move to Athens. In preparation we were issued with Army valises with blankets, pillows, mosquito nets, linen, plates, mugs and cutlery. Two weeks later we took our heavy baggage to the Embassy. It was originally intended that we would go from Cairo to Athens by sea but at the last moment the plan was changed. On 24th October we spent the night at the Y.W.C.A. in preparation for an early start the following morning and the next day we flew in an R.A.F. Dakota to Athens, making a refuelling stop at Al Adem in Libya en route.

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