This weeks Sepia Saturday theme is Castles but as we don't have castles in Australia, I have instead digressed to some other well known monuments.
My Grandfather, Allan Scott, was in Egypt in 1942, during World War 2. The following photos are from his photo album.
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| King Farouk's palace |
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Which we were told became the Cairo Museum
This photo was taken in 2008 when I visited. |
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| 1942 |
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| 1942 |
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| 1942 |
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Alexandria
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Allan Scott is on the left
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Allan Scott is in the front row, second from right
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In both these photos, Allan Scott is hiding at the back centre.
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On 15th October 1942, he wrote to my grandmother:
"They seem to all live together including donkeys, camels, goats, fowls and anything else there happens to be about the place. It looks rather funny to see a great big Arab on a little small donkey, his feet almost touching the ground and yet the donkey seems to be able to carry them without any trouble. Alot of the country I have seen so far reminds me of the back of old Carrots place except that there is very few trees anywhere.
They grow some quite nice oranges in places and they are usually surrounded by a hird of prickly hedge. I have had a few bits of water melon too but none so nice as your dad used to grow tho they could easily be better at different parts of the season.
There are very few birds or wild animals so far as I have seen about but there are lots of little lizards very similar to some of the Australian kinds. I heard some of the lads talking of seeing rabbits but I missed out on them. I've seen mobs of goats just like we see small mobs of sheep at home".
I've been inside that museum - it was very impressive, even though we were touring it with three young children in tow.
ReplyDeleteThat would have been very hard with children!
DeleteThey say that if you look at every item for a minutes, it will take about 3 months to view everything!
I enjoyed these photos, they led me to checking what tank it was... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusader_tank ............ and reading about Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps. I wondered how he got involved with those wearing civvies...who are they...they seem a little overdressed for Egypt conditions. I have an ancestral album of a great aunt(ish) who was a nurse in Alexandria in WW1, but I have yet to study it in detail and identify the exact locations.
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally, last night I watched a new BBC documentary...The Road to El Alamein: Churchill's Desert Campaign -Jonathan Dimbleby...as follows:
On 13 September 1940, 80,000 Italian troops marched into Egypt to threaten the epicentre of the British Empire at a critical point in the Second World War.
By 1942, the desert skirmish in North Africa had become pivotal to what was by then a truly global conflict, with hundreds of thousands of men from over ten nations fighting on one of the most inhospitable battlefields on Earth, culminating in the Battle of El Alamein. It was a triumph that marked, in Churchill's famous words, 'the end of the beginning'.
This is the story of how the men who fought and died here were players in a volatile drama scripted by Churchill, Roosevelt, Mussolini and Hitler in the war capitals of London, Washington, Rome and Berlin.
Jonathan Dimbleby travels to all the key locations, among them the Cabinet War Rooms deep beneath Whitehall, Hitler's vast bunker in Poland, the tunnels under Malta where civilians sheltered from the Nazi bombs and the Brenner Pass, where Hitler and Mussolini met to decide the world's fate.
Based on Dimbleby's book, Destiny in the Desert, the film sheds new light on the significance of this key campaign, on which Churchill gambled both his own future and that of Britain itself.
WOW! I am very impressed. Thank you very much for helping me with my research. I have linked the information about the tank to the photo.
DeleteUnfortunately my grandfather didn't label the photos except for "Middle East 1942".
He was evacuated from Egypt with Rheumatic Fever. I wondered if the photo was taken before he left? Do you know if they dressed those repatriated in civilian clothing?
What a great collection of photos. And didn't those nurses in WW1 and WW2 do a stirling job.
ReplyDeleteI have all the letters that my grandfather wrote to my grandfather. He often referred to her as "old girl" and she was in her early 30s!
DeleteGreat set of photos and I enjoyed your grandfather's letter. I've never heard of goats or sheep forming mobs though!
ReplyDeleteHa Ha Ha. I didn't think twice about the use of the word "mob", as it is used frequently to describe a group of anything in Australia. We have mobs of Kangaroos too! I didn't realise that it was Aussie slang!
DeleteWhat a wonderful family archive especially when you have the letters to link with the photographs. I have some war time photographs of my father in Paris & Luxembourg in 1944 together with letters to my mother and am in the process of pulling them together into a narrative - a very satisfying and at times moving project. Good luck with your research.
ReplyDeleteI really need to scan and transcribe all of my grandfathers letters too, before they fade as they are primarily written in pencil.
DeleteI hope that you will share your photos and letters on your blog? I look forward to reading them.
Am I correct to assume that the palace was not pink until its later reincarnation? These are wonderful photo to have - especially combined with the letters!
ReplyDeleteLol. I wouldn't think so.
DeleteWhen we were at the museum, we were told that it was previously King Farouk's palace. My grandfather had labelled his photo King Farouk's castle but now that I have looked closer, I don't think that they are the same building. Maybe King Farouk had more than one palace?
Sharon, how fortunate you are to have such a wonderful set of images in addition to the letters from your grandfather. Thank you for sharing them.
ReplyDeleteThank you Jennifer. I am very lucky that my grandmother kept those letters for so many years. She didn't tell anyone she had them and they were discovered after she died in 2006.
DeleteLetters and photographs, it doesn't get much better!
ReplyDeleteThank you Kristin. I am very lucky to have such good records but I hope that one day I can write as interesting posts as you do!
DeleteMy brother spent time in the Mediterannean during WWII on aircraft carriers,; he was not impressed with Egypt, His photos included Aleaxandria, Suez Canal and a lot I can't identify as I don't have the originals just poor images from a video of scanned images - no tanks, but lots of aircraft. You have a fine collection here.
ReplyDeleteThose photos of aircraft would be very interesting. My grandfather wrote on many occasions that they "had a job to do" and didn't write a lot about his surroundings. He didn't talk much about his experiences during the war, except for Egypt. I think he was amazed with the pyramids and sphinx. Egypt is the only overseas place that my mother wanted to visit due her fathers photos and comments. I was lucky enough to take her in 2008.
Deletehttp://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog/shazlex/3/tpod.html
Bit ironic, I visited the Tank Museum in Bovingdon last week and there you have a tank which by the look has lost it's track. You just gained a follower.
ReplyDeleteThank you Bill.
DeleteI am afraid that I hadn't looked that closely at the tank (I am more interested in my grandfather). Or maybe its a girl thing :)
These are wonderful images to have! No sign of a tour bus or anyone hawking stuff.
ReplyDeleteLol. And the streets of Alexandria are bare. When we were there, the traffic was bumper to bumper.
DeleteWhat amazing photos - and wonderful to be able to quote from his own writings home! Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThank you Sarah. This was the one letter that stood out as when Mum and I visited 60 years later, we saw the same sights that he mentions :)
DeleteYou have some interesting photos. I enjoyed reading your grandfather's observations in the letter.
ReplyDeleteThank you Wendy. I am very glad that we have the letters but I think the letters would have been more interesting if my grandfather had kept the ones that my grandmother wrote. She was a great letter writer. However my grandfather would not have been able to carry them around during the war!
DeleteThank you. You have just given me my L post - Letters!
What a treasure trove of photos. I really enjoyed his writing - very nicely done and so descriptive. That palace is really something. Sure wish I could visit the museum.
ReplyDeleteNancy
Thank you Nancy. The museum is amazing! Mia Mia!! I don't know how they spell it, but Mia Mia is Arabic for fantastic.
DeleteI am lucky enough to have been there twice. The second time was with an Egyptologist, which was great, as unfortunately many items are not labelled very well.