On a sultry June evening in 1955, the dhow Farees dropped anchor in the deeper waters off the beach at Abu Dhabi and deposited one of the most extraordinary characters ever to wade ashore.
Striding through the shallows that day was a tall, slim, tousle-haired Englishman, Roderic Fenwick Owen. Still a young man, Fenwick Owen had already packed several lives into his 33 years.
Born into a wealthy family in rural Lincolnshire, educated at Eton and Oxford, in his early 20s Owen had escaped the constraints of English country life by running away to sea, ending up in Tahiti where he married a local princess.
Abandoning his royal bride, he returned to London as a confirmed bachelor, until the Second World War sent him to North Africa. Although a pacifist, he agreed to serve in Britain's Royal Air Force, spending the war constructing airfields in the western desert.
This latest adventure brought Owen to Bahrain to write a book about the Gulf region (The Golden Bubble would be published the following year).
Now he was in Abu Dhabi and about to embark on perhaps the most remarkable adventure of them all; one that would take him to a remote desert island where the foundations of one of the world's greatest oil economies were being laid, deep into the desert to witness history being made and, finally, a new role as a poet to the Rulers of Abu Dhabi.
That Owen was in Abu Dhabi at all was pure chance. In the mid-1950s the town and the emirate were largely overlooked in the scramble for oil riches elsewhere. Still in Bahrain, at an Anglican church service in Muharraq, the writer encountered an old friend from university: Tim Hillyard, the man in charge of offshore exploration for a newly created oil concession, Abu Dhabi Marine Areas (Adma).
The previous autumn, Hillyard had transported his wife Susan and infant daughter Deborah to a new life in Abu Dhabi. With his wife and child returned to England for the summer, Hillyard asked his old friend join him for a few weeks, dispatching his chartered dhow across the Gulf to bring him to Abu Dhabi. Over dinner on the first night Hillyard explained to Owen that etiquette required him to be presented to the Ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Shakhbut bin Sultan. The Ruler was receiving guests the next morning at the majlis of his mother, Sheikha Salama, just outside the walls of Qasr Al Hosn, the Ruler's fortified palace.
Hillyard decided it would be better to introduce his friend as a poet rather an a writer, since the Ruler was wary of anyone who might be considered as a journalist.
Formal introductions were accompanied by coffee. Sheikh Shakhbut had an inquiring mind and a well-deserved reputation for quizzing guests on sometimes esoteric matters. On this occasion, Owen later recalled, one of the chosen subjects was Eskimo life. According to Owen, the Ruler asked why anyone would want to live in such a harsh climate. The writer's reply might have seemed blunt: "Well, they might say much the same thing about you."
Alarmed that the Ruler might take offence, Hillyard interjected. "You mustn't mind what he says. He's a poet [shaaer] and liable to say anything." According to Owen, Sheikh Shakhbut responded: "Ah, shaaer! You are very welcome here in Abu Dhabi. Very, very welcome indeed."
After the meeting, Owen told Hillyard that he felt a genuine connection with the Ruler. He wondered what impression he had made on the sheikh and decided he probably came across as an oddity, but one who was not seeking money or concessions.
Hillyard then revealed they had been invited back for lunch the following day, an unusual occurrence. And a bombshell. The court interpreter had conveyed a message that a poem would be expected from the English poet.
Owen spent the rest of that day and much of the evening agonising over the subject and form of his verse. Concerned about loss of metre in translation, he eventually adopted the style of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, hoping this would better convey his thoughts and feelings. The composition was formed to be the words spoken by Sheikh Shakhbut to his brother Sheikh Khalid while walking on a beach.
Through Abu Dhabi's golden sands
We walked and talked, until the sea
Crept up and disenchanted me ...
The creeping loneliness of wit,
A future bleak with waves and grit ...
If there is Hell, Oh, this is it!
Oh, this is it! Oh, this is it!
Is not all friendship golden sand
We tread together for a while?
Of golden hopes for you and I,
We have so few before we die,
Khalid, so few before we die!
When asked for critical comment, Hillyard joked that the Ruler would either have Owen deported or "order you to be given a bag of gold; wouldn't care to say which!"
After lunch at the palace, Owen stood up to declaim his ode; which was translated line by line, with further elucidation being sought by Sheikh Shakhbut.
Hillyard later reported with some surprise, "He expects you to sit with him again tomorrow, and the next day. In fact, whenever you're not too busy thinking up more odes. No doubt your chef d'oeuvre sounded better in Arabic."
For the rest of his visit, Owen sat with Sheikh Shakhbut daily, talking about everything under the sun, promising but not actually producing more poems. Prior arrangements meant the writer needed to return to Bahrain before travelling to Kuwait and Qatar to research his book.
It was October when Owen came back to Abu Dhabi. He went first to Das Island, where Adma was constructing a forward base to await the arrival of the first deepwater drilling rig from Germany. The BP manager on Das had taken ill and asked Owen to take over while he went for treatment in Bahrain.
Having heard Hillyard talking about the need for an airstrip on Das, Owen also set about surveying a suitable area, using his old RAF skills to identify soft spots in the sand and marking out the future runway with oil drums. Finally able to leave for Abu Dhabi, the court shaaer marked his return with a new poem:
Love is not the sudden desire
That looks on lust and finds it good.
Love is not a leaping fire
That flares when light is set to wood.
Love is not a coloured plume
Down-drifted from a jewelled wing;
Nor yet a silence in the room -
But, simply, LOVE IS EVERYTHING!
Give me your golden wings, your voice
To wrap my music in a cloud.
I cannot see, I have no choice
But what you sing and sing aloud.
Perhaps a part may penetrate
My poor, defeated, blinded brain.
But that small part will compensate
For all my part-imagined pain.
Love is not the sudden desire
That looks on lust and finds it good.
Love is not a leaping fire
That flares when light is set to wood.
Love is not a coloured plume
Down-drifted from a jewelled wing;
Nor yet a silence in the room -
But, simply, LOVE IS EVERYTHING!
Discussion ensued, with Sheikh Shakhbut expressing delight, although the author was less pleased with his efforts, fearing they were "trite."
By early December, Owen's health had worsened and it was decided he needed treatment in Dubai, where the only doctor could be found. After being told of his poet's illness. Sheikh Shakhbut immediately offered his car for the difficult and uncomfortable journey.
Owen was well enough to return to Abu Dhabi on December 21, ready to spend Christmas with the Hillyards. To his distress, he learnt that the Ruler was leaving town on the 24th on what was believed to be a hunting party, and worse, that he would be gone for many weeks. Upset at being neither informed nor invited, Owen took his case directly to Shakhbut's majlis, gently admonishing the Ruler with "And just before our Christmas too! Our Eid!"
The Ruler observed his poet's distress and asked, "Would you like me to visit you at Bayt Hillyard?" Then Shakhbut added, "Will you come with me to Al Ain and Buraimi?" Owen records that he registered his pleasure at the proposed trip with a cry of "Alhamdullilah."
Hillyard did not share his friend's pleasure at the delay in the Ruler's itinerary, revealing that this was no ordinary hunting party, but rather a diplomatic summit between the Ruler of Abu Dhabi and the Sultan of Muscat and Oman, to be held at Buraimi. The leaders would agree on a border between the two nations and resolve to present a continued common front against Saudi territorial claims over the oasis. Hillyard hoped the Christmas visit would not mean that the Ruler's party would arrive late.
Christmas morning saw the sheikhs arrive first at the Hillyards; the Ruler in his new cream Cadillac convertible, Sheikh Khalid in a maroon Buick and the soldiers in a Chevrolet lorry. Tea, coffee, biscuits and cakes were served, Sheikh Shakhbut showed great interest in the celebrations, while Susan Hillyard's lead in singing the carol Once In Royal David's City, elicited a response from the Ruler: "You Nazrenis ought to have a church in Abu Dhabi."
The hunting party left the following morning, Owen joining Sheikh Shakhbut and squashed between soldiers in the back of the Cadillac. The American car was not ideal for a journey across the desert. When it stuck in the sand and stalled, the Ruler joked: "Now I'm left with only half a Cadillac!"
After breakfast, there were more problems starting the vehicles, with the Cadillac breaking down five times before lunch. "Would a Rolls-Royce do better in my sand?", Owen recalled being asked by the Ruler. "They say it's the best car in the world".
Owen replied that, "A Rolls-Royce is like an Arab steed. You can't expect it to go like a Jeep, which is no more than a workhorse!"
As camp was broken, Sheikh Zayed arrived, immediately organising the rescue of a truck that had become stuck in the sand and taking control of the camping arrangements. This was Owen's first encounter with Zayed and he was immediately impressed by the careful deference he showed to his older brother, writing later in The Golden Bubble: "Sheikh Zayed was always the model of a younger brother, never dependent or obsequious, but never without a certain defence in his bearing. This gave me great respect for him and more appreciation of Sheikh Shakhbut's importance."
The Rulers of Abu Dhabi and Oman met the following afternoon with Sultan Said, flanked by his civil and military advisers. Like Sheikh Shakhbut, the Sultan also had an Englishman in his entourage, who introduced himself as "James Morris, Times correspondent."
Morris, later to become better known as the travel writer Jan Morris, would publish Sultan in Oman about his experiences, and observed to Owen at the time that while the Sultan had the greater number of advisers, Sheikh Shakhbut "at least now has a court poet at his side."
The celebrations the following day were hosted by the Ruler of Abu Dhabi after agreement was reached over the border. Sheikh Shakhbut installed Owen at his side, in front of 50 yards of food laid out on the ground, including innumerable goats and chickens and at least three camels. A houbara supplied by Sheikh Zayed took place of honour on top of a mountain of rice.
Diplomacy concluded, the hunting party moved on. When camped the Ruler was flanked by Zayed and Owen, frequently being called on to give judgement on disputes and often seeking advice from his brother.
During the trip, the court poet honoured Sheikh Zayed's achievement in defending Abu Dhabi's right to Buraimi by preparing an ode that also made reference to his firm rejection of a Saudi bribe to buy his support for their rival claims to the territory:
They need not praise you, Zayed,
For your determination
To set an overwhelming bribe
Contemptuously aside.
But I have felt the inspiration
Of your loyalty
(A frailty of the human mind?).
A kind of strong humility
To cause consternation in the marketplace
And to the enemy, whatever enemy -
By making men think of integrity
And family;
Things easily decried by men of small imagination,
Little honesty,
And less pride.
Zayed rewarded Owen with a bed, having commented that not being a Bedu he would be unused to sleeping on the sand. The iron bedstead, with no mattress, proved more uncomfortable, though less damp, than the sand.
Hunting days followed a pattern; setting off in the Cadillac, top down, with a falconer and at least one of the soldiers standing up, gripping the windscreen to keep balance while the car lurched over rough, sandy, stony ground. Zayed's Jeep would follow and after him a truck with more soldiers. On sighting a houbara, one of the hawks (usually Tallal or Nehar) would be released.
Later listening together to a quiz show from Radio Cyprus with male and female presenters, Owen asked, "How long will it be before you allow a woman from Abu Dhabi on the air?" The Sheikh replied, "As soon as Abu Dhabi has its own broadcasting station."
Influenced by the hunting and perhaps the radio-inspired conversation, Owen presented the only poem he ever wrote directly in rhyming Arabic:
Ana Ter -
Ente Hubara!
Ana Rejul -
Ente Mara!'
Translated to "I'm a hawk, you're a houbara! I'm a man, you're a woman!" it was simple, but in repetition the roles of man and woman were transposed; each in turn became both predator and prey. The soldiers confirmed it was understood, with a cheerful rendition while working.
The hunting party spent two days without sight of a houbara due to a shamal and then, on a cold night, the tents were blown down. When Owen asked about their return, the Ruler refused to answer beyond: "Bedu keep silent when they move their tents!" Approaching Buraimi again, via an area of trees called the Bois de Boulogne by Shakhbut (who had visited Paris three years earlier), a lunch in honour of Zayed was being prepared. Two hawks were presented after the meal by leaving them when driving away, the donors neither wanting nor expecting thanks.
On the journey back to Abu Dhabi word had spread about their return. Many people arrived with greetings, including Tim Hillyard, with news that BP proposed to invest large sums in exploratory drilling off Das.
Owen left Abu Dhabi with no particular ceremony. In the Bedu style he had observed, he simply got up and went via a BP Jeep to Dubai and then to Bahrain. He was to return again at the end of 1957 and in 1989.
With The Golden Bubble having been published to some acclaim, Owen prepared for his next adventure. This was to focus on Pakistan, retracing his great-uncle and namesake's journey to Chitral. Owen travelled by tanker from England via Bahrain to Abu Dhabi, arriving in mid-December.
There was great expectation that oil would soon be found as Owen arrived in Abu Dhabi. The inauguration of the drilling rig Adma Enterprise by Sheikh Shakhbut was due on December 26, 1957. Having settled into Bayt Hillyard, Owen was warmly welcomed when he presented himself to the Ruler.
Owen observed that the Ruler seemed almost melancholic about the prospect of oil discovery and commented: "Das will soon be more important than Abu Dhabi." Flying to Das Island, landing on the airstrip he had surveyed a few years earlier, Owen noted many developments, including an impressive harbour where the rig was moored ready to be towed to the drilling site. A guided tour of the rig was undertaken and its operation explained to the party, which included Sheikh Shakhbut and Hillyard. Owen's main impression was the lack of flies on Das; millions of them had plagued his last visit. Relating this to Shakhbut, the Ruler replied, "The flies have had their season. Now it is time for ours. Allah alone can tell how long our time will last."
As befitted the role of poet, Owen then presented a poem, entitled The Sand-Tiger, at this auspicious time:
So old is that old tiger in the sand -
An hundred million years ago, or more -
Creeping to its lair beneath the land,
Compound of shells and debris on the shore.
Before the hills in order stood -
And long before Earth received its name -
Oil like an ever-moving flood
Beneath the Desert came.
It rolled (we hope)
It stopped (we think)
In Abu Dhabi bay.
In quantities to make you blink.
That's why we're here today.
Owen and Sheikh Shakhbut were not to meet again until October 1984, in London. An acquaintance who worked for BP informed the writer that the Sheikh had asked after him. A meeting was arranged the following morning. The Sheikh was out when Owen arrived. He inscribed a copy of his book Away to Eden (based in part on his travels in Pakistan), while waiting, with these words:
Time passes as we travel far
But all the miles our feet have seen
Are not so long as one quick step
Dividing "is" from "might-have-been"
Later the Sheikh returned with warm greetings and an offer to stay for lunch. Owen was unable to accept, but remained to talk with the Sheikh and receive an invitation to visit Abu Dhabi at any time he wished. They were not to meet again.
Owen offered his condolences to Sheikh Zayed on the death of his brother Shakhbut by letter in February 1989. He received thanks and an invitation to visit Abu Dhabi. Arrangements were made for his arrival in December; meanwhile, he made contact with Edward Henderson, a former British political agent whom he had met in 1955, and who had stayed in Abu Dhabi to found the Centre for Documentation and Research. Henderson was now based in Qasr Al Hosn, no longer the Ruler's palace.
In advance, the court poet, now 67, prepared a work, entitled Talal, based on the time spent hawking in the desert, remembering Zayed's love of hunting:
Talal, my hawk -
My darling hawk -
Perched sullenly on a tree-stump.
Bewailing the fate which let a fat Hubara
Outfly your eager talons.
Talal, my hawk -
My darling hawk -
You refuse to take the lure;
You scorn the pigeon, stone tied to its leg,
Fluttering to the ground.
Talal, my hawk -
My darling hawk -
I, too, am sulking on my stump.
Sad at the failure of my plans for glory,
Brooding, inconsolable.
Talal, my hawk -
My darling hawk -
I know one day you won't come back
To please your master with a blind obedience.
You'll be gone for ever.
Talal, my hawk -
My darling hawk -
Go, then! I grant your wish,
Loving your wildness but lamenting
Your wild desire for freedom
Talal, my hawk -
My darling hawk -
I can't, like you, escape.
When God calls, I must, of my own free will,
Accept captivity
He decided to await inspiration for a further poem to celebrate the achievements of the Ruler and the development of Abu Dhabi. As his plane approached Abu Dhabi, Owen was astonished to see bright lights stretching as far as he could see; a stark contrast to his memories of barasti huts dominated by Qasr Al Hosn.
The following morning he met Henderson and the two men attended boat races presided over by Sheikh Zayed and his guest, the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Owen and Henderson were invited to sit closer to the Ruler's retinue before being warmly greeted by Sheikh Zayed and Arafat.
Back in Henderson's office, confirmation came of an audience with the President. Owen walked round the old palace, recording that "the place had become a 'heritage' site, vaguely like the battered, homely fort it had once been, but unlike it in a myriad other ways; the glory hadn't departed, so much as transformed into something richer, therefore poorer".
Travelling to Al Ain the following morning, Henderson commented, "We will be there in good time for lunch." This summed up the changes for Owen; it had taken two days when travelling with Sheikh Shakhbut in 1955.
Al Ain had been transformed, and Owen wrote that: "It was as if a djinn had escaped from his bottle and conjured a whole luxuriant oasis out of the dry desert sand. The djinn, of course, was money; gushing out of the earth in a seemingly endless stream of golden bubbles.
"But there had to be some other agency at work to ensure that the oil money was turned to such green account; and that agency had been Sheikh Zayed. Kuwait, oil-rich several years earlier, had created an urban marvel at its end of the Gulf; but it was as nothing compared with Abu Dhabi."
They returned to Abu Dhabi that afternoon. The proposed laudatory poem was prepared and translated. It was raining as Owen was driven to the palace for his meeting with the President.
The official accompanying the party commented that the rains had started early. "Great good luck! His Highness will be in a wonderful mood." He coached the writer to say "Mubarak aleikum s'muttair", meaning: "A blessing on your rain!"
The majlis that day was held in a circular room of green. Zayed started the conversation with the improvements made in Abu Dhabi but was steered back to 1955 gently by Owen. It seemed the right time to introduce the prepared poem, In Praise of Zayed, each quatrain read first in English and then translated:
A thousand grains of Sand whirl in the sky
To mark the journey of one passer-by
If then a Cavalcade disturbs the scene,
Shall such grains sing before they start to fly?
What man of Honour, and to Honour bred
Will fear to go wherever Truth has led?
For though a Thousand urge him to retreat
He'll laugh, until such counsellors have fled.
Stands always One, defiant and alone
Against the Many, when all Hope has flown.
Then comes the Test; and only then the time
Of reckoning what each can call his own.
History will not forget: that one small Seed
Sufficed to tip the Scales in time of need.
More than a debt, the Emirates owe to Zayed
Their very Souls, from outside influence freed.
No praise from Roderic can increase his Fame.
Steadfastness was the Essence of his name.
The changing years grow Gardens in the Sand
And build new Roads to Sand which stays the same.
But Hearts are not rebuilt, nor Seed resown.
What was, remains, essentially Alone.
Until the Golden Messenger, all-wise,
Calls out: "Come now, my Friend!" - and All is known
Next Owen presented Sheikh Zayed with a copy of his book Great Explorers and two jars of honey, collected from the hives in his London garden. Zayed examined them and commented "liquid honey is the best". Owen countered that his was liquid when collected but had since crystallised. Zayed insisted, "Our Bedu honey stays liquid!"
The two men had found a topic of common interest and continued to discuss bees and honey. Owen wrote later that it was as though the bees "had blessed us by their presence; a honeyed time, with Zayed as he used to be." Sheikh Zayed had suggested that Owen stay another week and be taken wherever he wished, but he felt ready to move on. The Abu Dhabi that he remembered and loved was long gone.
Back in England, Owen wrote expressing his gratitude to Sheikh Zayed for his hospitality; he was embarrassed but flattered by the gesture of a sum of money being transferred to his bank but treasured more the invitation to visit as the guest of Sheikh Zayed whenever he wished.
Owen was not to visit Abu Dhabi again. He passed away in March 2011, just a month short of his 90th birthday. The inscription on his memorial includes "Court Poet to Sheikh Shakhbut of Abu Dhabi".
The inadvertent poet of the UAE
The amazing true story of Roderic Fenwick Owen, the court poet to Sheikh Shakhbut.
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