Bahrain 2005
The 70th Anniversary of the Caledonian Society of Awali, Bahrain
by Nicol McLaren
B&F January 2006
This was the Glencraig Scottish Dance Band’s 11th visit to Bahrain to celebrate St Andrews Night and the gig has become one where we all feel we are returning to visit friends!
The Kingdom of Bahrain is an archipelago in the Gulf of Arabia with its principal island (Bahrain Island) being about 40 miles long, 15 miles wide, connected by a 22 mile causeway to Saudi Arabia and having two flourishing Caledonian Societies!
Bahrain was where oil was first discovered in the Gulf and the first well to produce oil was spudded in 1936, quite a few years before its massive neighbour Saudi Arabia began its search for ‘Black Gold’.
The Caledonian Society of Awali was officially formed on the 30th October 1936 (although the first St Andrews Dinner was held on the 30th November 1935) and its first President was Lt. Col P.G. Loch, father of former ‘Father of the House of Commons’ Tam Dalyell. Awali is a town in the centre of Bahrain which essentially started as a ‘camp’ for expatriate workers for the Bapco Oil company. In the 70 years of its existence Awali has developed its own self sufficient community with a hospital, school, shopping centre, hotel, social club and golf course!
After a full day’s travel via Amsterdam and Abu Dhabi airports, we arrived safely in Bahrain to be greeted by a temperature of 24 degrees at one in the morning. The accordion was safe (a big sigh of relief, although I must say KLM have been superb over the years, even ‘finding’ me an accordion to play on time when mine was delayed in Amsterdam!) and all our luggage was collected together by our welcoming party by the time we had cleared immigration!
Wednesday morning commenced with a trip to the capital Manama and some serious shopping in the Soukh, with its profusion of colours, sounds and aromas. All wares were sold, from cloth of colours and textures to gold and jewellery as well as the traditional array of spices and local produce. Bartering is expected, and indeed turned the whole experience of shopping into a challenge to see who would obtain the best price. The Middle East is renowned for the quality and craftsmanship of its gold products and, even after 10 years I still marvel at the sheer volume of quality jewellery in the Gold Soukh.
Then to the serious business of the day – the first game of golf for Messrs Howe and McLaren on the Awali desert course. (Dave and Kirsty decided to stay by the pool and have some serious relaxation time!) The Awali course is a remarkable construction in the middle of the desert (one HUGE bunker really) with the ‘greens’ being a mixture of fine sand and diesel and the fairways being marked by lines of bitumen in the hard packed desert sand. As the locals say, “lt’s a lot better than no golf at all!” It’s even better in 30 degrees of heat, so after a few beers to cool down it was off to the Manama restaurant for a cracking dinner, finally retiring at around 2.30am – not good news for Gordon, Jim Reyner (Guest speaker) and me as we were booked on the 1st tee of the Riffa Golf Club a mere 4 hours later with Society President Alistair Woods. Riffa is a fantastic Grass course (the only one in Bahrain) where the final event in the European Seniors Tour had been won by our own Sam Torrance only a week before. It did seem strange being back in the Clubhouse for breakfast shortly after ten!
The main event (and the raison d’etre) was the St Andrews Ball on that Thursday evening. Held in the Bapco Club, the 200 guests were greeted with home made Atholl Brose before sitting down to a superb, traditional, Scottish dinner of ‘Kail, Fish, Stirk and Crowdie’. Our guest speaker this year was Jim Reyner, who had been the Society President on our first visit in 1995 but is now an Education Adviser in Shetland – how extreme is that?! Jim assured everyone that, although he was concerned initially, “there is life after Awali” and gave a most entertaining speech (even though it was supposed to be the ‘Pious Memory of St Andrew”!) There have been some tremendous speakers over the years we’ve been there – Tam Dalyell (1996), Craig Brown (1997), Jock Brown (1998), Sheriff Irvine Smith (2000), Craigie Veitch (2003) and even Gordon Howe (1999) and Nicol McLaren (2002).
Although Bahrain is one of the most liberal of the Gulf States with alcohol being freely available, being drunk is a criminal offence, and so alcohol cannot be advertised anywhere. The major drinks companies get round this by sponsoring events and supplying all the evening’s refreshments – there were a few criminals around at the end of the night!!!
So to the dance.
The dancing skills and, indeed, enthusiasm of the assembled company has, over the years, grown considerably to the extent that the tickets for the Awali Ball are snapped up very quickly. I’ve tried to introduce new, simple, set dances to the proceedings so that now, the first question I’m asked is, “What new one have you got this year?” It’s not only Scots either – South Africans, Irish, Americans, an increasing group of Danes (almost the most enthusiastic of all) and, dare they admit it, English!!!! (this year we even had a group of Japanese!) all tripping the light fantastic. The floor was packed from the start (Gay Gordons) at about 10.30pm until the last dance (Orcadian Strip the Willow) at 1.45am. As well as the standards (DWS, Eightsome, St Bernard’s etc) we managed requests for Virginia Reel, Riverside, Flying Scotsman, Reel of the 51st and The Circassian Circle. The dance floor is big but it did struggle to cope when every single person in the hall got up to dance The Circassian Circle – brilliant fun though!
For the Bahrain trip we only take accordion and fiddle with us, the Society supplying the digital piano, drums and P.A. (hiring from a local company). It works tremendously well and means we get superb sound and no problems with excess baggage – the gear has always been excellent! Friday (the Muslim ‘Sunday’) was spend relaxing and topping up the suntan (or more correctly, recovering, asleep by the pool!) for the boys but Kirsty had the opportunity to visit the ‘Gems of the East’ exhibition in Manama – a ‘girls only’ day (unusual in the Middle East but organised so that women could go without their traditional ‘coverall’ abaya. Models adorned with diamond encrusted gold necklaces valued at up to $15million each were being snapped up (the necklaces, not the models!) …but not, alas, by Kirsty. She’s still raving about it today!! (A wee bird told me she did, however, purchase a tiara for her impending wedding!)
The homeward journey commenced at 11pm via Abu Dhabi and Amsterdam again arriving in Glasgow at 10.30 on Saturday morning. After 15 hours traveling (Bahrain is 3 hours ahead of GMT) we were glad to be home, but I must say, the people of Awali and, in particular, the Committee of the Caledonian Society make this trip one of the friendliest, most hospitable, trips with the best dancing crowd of all the trips in which we’ve been involved. Roll on the 71st anniversary.
The Kingdom of Bahrain is an archipelago in the Gulf of Arabia with its principal island (Bahrain Island) being about 40 miles long, 15 miles wide, connected by a 22 mile causeway to Saudi Arabia and having two flourishing Caledonian Societies!
Bahrain was where oil was first discovered in the Gulf and the first well to produce oil was spudded in 1936, quite a few years before its massive neighbour Saudi Arabia began its search for ‘Black Gold’.
The Caledonian Society of Awali was officially formed on the 30th October 1936 (although the first St Andrews Dinner was held on the 30th November 1935) and its first President was Lt. Col P.G. Loch, father of former ‘Father of the House of Commons’ Tam Dalyell. Awali is a town in the centre of Bahrain which essentially started as a ‘camp’ for expatriate workers for the Bapco Oil company. In the 70 years of its existence Awali has developed its own self sufficient community with a hospital, school, shopping centre, hotel, social club and golf course!
After a full day’s travel via Amsterdam and Abu Dhabi airports, we arrived safely in Bahrain to be greeted by a temperature of 24 degrees at one in the morning. The accordion was safe (a big sigh of relief, although I must say KLM have been superb over the years, even ‘finding’ me an accordion to play on time when mine was delayed in Amsterdam!) and all our luggage was collected together by our welcoming party by the time we had cleared immigration!
Wednesday morning commenced with a trip to the capital Manama and some serious shopping in the Soukh, with its profusion of colours, sounds and aromas. All wares were sold, from cloth of colours and textures to gold and jewellery as well as the traditional array of spices and local produce. Bartering is expected, and indeed turned the whole experience of shopping into a challenge to see who would obtain the best price. The Middle East is renowned for the quality and craftsmanship of its gold products and, even after 10 years I still marvel at the sheer volume of quality jewellery in the Gold Soukh.
Then to the serious business of the day – the first game of golf for Messrs Howe and McLaren on the Awali desert course. (Dave and Kirsty decided to stay by the pool and have some serious relaxation time!) The Awali course is a remarkable construction in the middle of the desert (one HUGE bunker really) with the ‘greens’ being a mixture of fine sand and diesel and the fairways being marked by lines of bitumen in the hard packed desert sand. As the locals say, “lt’s a lot better than no golf at all!” It’s even better in 30 degrees of heat, so after a few beers to cool down it was off to the Manama restaurant for a cracking dinner, finally retiring at around 2.30am – not good news for Gordon, Jim Reyner (Guest speaker) and me as we were booked on the 1st tee of the Riffa Golf Club a mere 4 hours later with Society President Alistair Woods. Riffa is a fantastic Grass course (the only one in Bahrain) where the final event in the European Seniors Tour had been won by our own Sam Torrance only a week before. It did seem strange being back in the Clubhouse for breakfast shortly after ten!
The main event (and the raison d’etre) was the St Andrews Ball on that Thursday evening. Held in the Bapco Club, the 200 guests were greeted with home made Atholl Brose before sitting down to a superb, traditional, Scottish dinner of ‘Kail, Fish, Stirk and Crowdie’. Our guest speaker this year was Jim Reyner, who had been the Society President on our first visit in 1995 but is now an Education Adviser in Shetland – how extreme is that?! Jim assured everyone that, although he was concerned initially, “there is life after Awali” and gave a most entertaining speech (even though it was supposed to be the ‘Pious Memory of St Andrew”!) There have been some tremendous speakers over the years we’ve been there – Tam Dalyell (1996), Craig Brown (1997), Jock Brown (1998), Sheriff Irvine Smith (2000), Craigie Veitch (2003) and even Gordon Howe (1999) and Nicol McLaren (2002).
Although Bahrain is one of the most liberal of the Gulf States with alcohol being freely available, being drunk is a criminal offence, and so alcohol cannot be advertised anywhere. The major drinks companies get round this by sponsoring events and supplying all the evening’s refreshments – there were a few criminals around at the end of the night!!!
So to the dance.
The dancing skills and, indeed, enthusiasm of the assembled company has, over the years, grown considerably to the extent that the tickets for the Awali Ball are snapped up very quickly. I’ve tried to introduce new, simple, set dances to the proceedings so that now, the first question I’m asked is, “What new one have you got this year?” It’s not only Scots either – South Africans, Irish, Americans, an increasing group of Danes (almost the most enthusiastic of all) and, dare they admit it, English!!!! (this year we even had a group of Japanese!) all tripping the light fantastic. The floor was packed from the start (Gay Gordons) at about 10.30pm until the last dance (Orcadian Strip the Willow) at 1.45am. As well as the standards (DWS, Eightsome, St Bernard’s etc) we managed requests for Virginia Reel, Riverside, Flying Scotsman, Reel of the 51st and The Circassian Circle. The dance floor is big but it did struggle to cope when every single person in the hall got up to dance The Circassian Circle – brilliant fun though!
For the Bahrain trip we only take accordion and fiddle with us, the Society supplying the digital piano, drums and P.A. (hiring from a local company). It works tremendously well and means we get superb sound and no problems with excess baggage – the gear has always been excellent! Friday (the Muslim ‘Sunday’) was spend relaxing and topping up the suntan (or more correctly, recovering, asleep by the pool!) for the boys but Kirsty had the opportunity to visit the ‘Gems of the East’ exhibition in Manama – a ‘girls only’ day (unusual in the Middle East but organised so that women could go without their traditional ‘coverall’ abaya. Models adorned with diamond encrusted gold necklaces valued at up to $15million each were being snapped up (the necklaces, not the models!) …but not, alas, by Kirsty. She’s still raving about it today!! (A wee bird told me she did, however, purchase a tiara for her impending wedding!)
The homeward journey commenced at 11pm via Abu Dhabi and Amsterdam again arriving in Glasgow at 10.30 on Saturday morning. After 15 hours traveling (Bahrain is 3 hours ahead of GMT) we were glad to be home, but I must say, the people of Awali and, in particular, the Committee of the Caledonian Society make this trip one of the friendliest, most hospitable, trips with the best dancing crowd of all the trips in which we’ve been involved. Roll on the 71st anniversary.