Rowing enthusiasts will be unfurling their picnic rugs on the banks of the Thames this weekend, ready to enjoy the climax of the Henley Royal Regatta. The five-day, annual rowing competition, which was first held in 1839, now attracts more than one hundred crews from around the world to compete.
Back in 1966, however, when this photograph was taken, the sight of two men in traditional Arab dress outside the Steward’s Enclosure would have been rather more rare, but perhaps not the most eyebrow-raising.
Black and white newsreel shot by British Pathé at the 1966 royal regatta describes the social event as swinging with “Carnaby Street style”. Commenting on the mini-skirts being worn by some spectators, the announcer says: “Some were really with it. Some were nearly without it.”
Dress code inside official race enclosures was rather more strict: “Gentlemen are required to wear lounge suits, or jackets or blazers with flannels, and a tie or cravat” according to the stewards’ rules. This might explain the blazers being sported here by “two retainers of the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi”.
Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan, the Founding Father of the UAE, was visiting Britain that summer and, according to his obituary in The Telegraph: “He created a stir wherever he went, with his followers wearing desert robes, criss-cross bandoliers and ornamental daggers.”
* Clare Dight
