If you’re living in Cairo at present, you’re probably feeling nostalgic for a quieter city with fewer people in the streets. Here’s a photo to prove that your city was once more peaceful, well, at least outside this hospital. And there was a world war going on!
With a theme like ‘Nostalgic’ I just had to return to my father’s war album. I often think I’ve blogged about his best photos, but when I dig around it long enough I can still find a photo to match a challenge, especially this week when Cairo is undergoing yet more trouble and millions of people are in the streets. It’s the ideal time to post a photo taken in Cairo in about 1941. My father wrote “9th BGH Heliopolis” under it, that is, the 9th British General Hospital in the suburb of Heliopolis, Cairo.
Postscript: Thanks to Ahmad Omar (see his comment below) I now know that this was originally the Heliopolis Palace Hotel, opened in 1910, which became a hospital in both WWI and WWII and since the 1980s has been one of the Presidential Palaces where presidential offices are located.
9th British General Hospital, Heliopolis, Cairo, c1941 (formerly Heliopolis Palace Hotel)
I have this photo which is entirely suitable for Ailsa’s challenge this week. She asks us to open the floodgates and let the creativity flow. Well, this photo is not a product of my creativity but of my treasure-hunting. I found it in my father’s WWII album, where it’s entitled ‘Weir in Nile’. The water is certainly flowing!
Often when I want to identify a location in one of these old photos, I can search the web for similar photos, which usually is a sure way of finding details about my image. This time, however, I’ve been unsuccessful. I’ve researched the dams,weirs and barrages on the Nile River in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia and not found any image that resembles mine. It’s possible that this dam has been rebuilt since the 1940s and now looks completely different. Click twice to enlarge the image.
If anyone out there is an expert on old Nile dams, and if you know what this one was called, please tell me. I’ll be very grateful!
Henry Holden decided to get an Italian prisoner-of-war after he had seen several at work on Esmond’s farm.
The Enthusiastic Prisoner, E. O. Schlunke
*****
Another short story by Schlunke, the author of The Irling which I wrote about a couple of days ago. This line, beginning with a very Australian name, Henry Holden, caught my attention particularly when I saw it was about an Italian P.O.W. It triggered thoughts of some photos from my father’s war album of Italians taken prisoner by Australian soldiers. Many of the P.O.W.s were shipped to Australia and placed in camps, and their services were offered to local farmers who greatly benefited from the Italians’ excellent knowledge of food production. There is a photo (above) of a stream of Italians heading towards their captor’s camp. There’s also this image of a suave bunch posing for the camera:
This week Ailsa showed us some unicolour tulip crowds where an individual stands out yet stands proud of ending up in the wrong garden. The photos reminded me of these two from my father’s war album. He wrote below the first photo ‘Visit to Cairo zoo’; it’s nicely arranged with each of the Australian soldiers positioned in the shot between pairs of Egyptian police. A real contrast.
Australian soldiers visiting Cairo zoo, 1941
Below the second photo where a salesman seems to be working the tables, he wrote ‘Outside café Heliopolis’. ‘Outside’ is an interesting adjective for that period when cafés in Brisbane, Australia, where my father lived (when not away at war), did not spread outside to the footpath in continental fashion as they do now. Even when I was a child, there was no such thing. The French had influenced Egyptian culture during their time as colonisers, but it took many more decades for the idea to catch on in Australia. Even if the soldiers returned with ideas and encouraged café owners to adopt this dining practice to which our country is so climatically suited, they were slow to try it out. These days, it’s a rare café that doesn’t have tables outside!
Australian soldiers at a café, Heliopolis, Cairo, 1941
Some looked away from the camera, like the Sudanese women in the header photo. (They’re bare-breasted; to be family-friendly I give you only their heads.)
Some happily faced it.
Bint (Arabic for daughter or girl), 1941
Others hid and peaked from behind a door curtain.
Village, Kantara, Egypt, 1941
The photos are from my father’s album, brought back after serving in the Middle East in 1941/42.
It was Ailsa’s idea to find photos reflecting women’s interests for International Women’s Day. Please look at her post, too.
Bridge photos, I’ve posted a few. But here’s one you haven’t seen:
Imbaba opening bridge, Nile River, Cairo, c1941
The Imbaba Bridge is a swing bridge in Egypt. A photo of the swing section can be found here.
You might also be interested in this post of mine from July about another opening bridge on the Nile, the El Gala’a Bridge, or, as it was known in 1941, the English Bridge.
And below, from a post in December, this excellent bridge perspective. Thanks to Ahmad Omar (see his comment below) I’ve discovered the name of this bridge: Aboul Ela Bridge, also known as the Abou el Ela, Abou al-Ela, and the Boulak Bridge. It was constructed between 1908 and 1912 and dismantled in 1998.
Abou el Ela Bridge, Cairo, c1941
And you should look at the Beckett Bridge in Dublin by night, on Ailsa’s blog.
Many of the photos in my father’s album are unique, and though I’ve posted most of them over the past year, a few remain. I like this one because of the stepped heads: a soldier’s head above a camel’s head above a soldier’s head. Repeat.
Since the day Ailsa suggested a theme of multiples, I’ve been noticing them here and there.
Tuesday, lunchtime in the city: I saw 3 people wearing sunnies in 3 different ways: one wore them on the back of his head, another had them across her forehead and a third had them under her chin.
Wednesday, 3.30am in bed: I couldn’t sleep for worrying about the 140 fires burning in NSW.
Wednesday 4.30am in bed: The 5 stars of the Southern Cross and its 2 pointer stars were so bright I could see them through sheer white curtains without my glasses.
Wednesday 2pm, arriving home: I received a postcard from a French friend that’s identical to the postcard she sent me last year.
Thursday 9am, my room: A string of 4 Indian elephants, their rumps decked in bells, a Christmas present I bought for an elephant-loving student before the lessons were cancelled, hangs on the wall and drifts in the breeze, its tinkling bells disturbing the dogs next door.
Thursday 9.30am, my desk: I remember this photo in my father’s war album of 5 beautiful boys. I’ve never posted it on this blog because I’ve seen it in multiple places. It was probably a postcard the soldiers bought as a souvenir.
Ailsa’s photo challenge focuses on travel, http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/12/21/travel-theme-festive/, and most (if not all) my contributions have been of photos taken far from home. Usually, travel is for the fun of it. But occasionally, throughout history, people have travelled to far-off lands to help defend them. For soldiers, travel is small compensation for a life that is dangerous, short on comfort and long on discipline. Christmas, for those raised in countries where it is celebrated, is a time when they feel particularly separated from their countrymen back home. For the A.I.F. (Australian Imperial Forces) in the Middle East in WWII, some comfort was offered in the establishment of a newspaper, the A.I.F. News. It was not only the first army newspaper for Australian troops, but the first in any theatre of war. Initially it was printed in Jerusalem, and later transferred to Cairo. Here’s the Christmas issue for December 1941.
“The A.I.F. News”, Cairo, Saturday, 20 December 1941
Another form of comfort was writing. So far away from home at Christmas, the soldiers didn’t feel festive or joyous, especially if they’d seen horrors and lost companions in grim battle scenes. Many wrote poetry about the separation from girlfriends and families; the following poem, Christmas Bells, expresses both kinds of grief, separation that is temporary and the other, which is for ever. The poem is in my father’s poetry anthology, but it was written by Spr. E. Locke and was published in the A.I.F. News Christmas edition in the photo above. I’ll add my transcription after the image.
Christmas Bells, p. 1, author unknown
“Christmas Bells”, p. 2, author unknown
Christmas Bells
“Say, cobber, did you hear a sound
above the battle’s din?
A sound as sweet as music
that awakes response within;
I’m sure I heard it clearly,
above the bursting shells,
I’m sure the sound was happiness,
the chime of Christmas Bells.
“It wasn’t on the battlefield,
but came from o’er the foam,
from the land of joy and sunshine,
and the folks we left at home;
It seemed to hold a note of peace,
to tell of joys to come;
of many happy Christmases,
when fighting days are done.
“And now the dust of battle
and the torn and broken ground
have changed into a happy scene
and friends are all around;
How strange! The noise of screaming
shells has changed, and now I hear
The merry laugh of happy friends
That I hold ever dear.
“The scene is fading fast, mate,
But the Christmas bells ring clear,
and they’ll miss us over there, mate,
when they greet the newborn year;
But yet we will be there with them,
to give the year a start;
For though we’re miles across the sea
We’re always in their heart.”
