5.1 A New Decade

1 January 1950 ushered in a new decade. The Second World War with all the attendant disasters and troubles was of the last decade. London was looking forward to the ‘Festival of Britain’ which I too attended in 1951. In the ‘Dome of Discovery’ we could wonder at the modern television-like monitors (small and black and white) such as we had only seen in a few shop windows. Here they proudly displayed the achievements of British research and industry. The imaginative slim ‘Skylon’, its pointed ends top and bottom, one secure and the other stretching up into the sky has long since disappeared but the Royal Festival Hall is still buzzing with activity. In London the second Elizabethan age was ushered in in 1952, with the accession of Queen Elizabeth. The following years of the decade witnessed a revolution in domestic affairs, as the country increasingly looked inwards, and there was a corresponding decline in British influence worldwide.

The Trucial Coast, unknown and of no interest to most of the world, was also entering a new era. There was expectation, and disappointment ahead. The pearl industry, struggling for a couple of decades was about to give way to the oil industry. Codrai wrote in October 1950 that the current year's pearling season had been very good and profitable for Dubai. But other reports tell us that the pearling dhows, one after another through the decade abandoned their age-old occupation while the oil industry in its all too slow arrival mirrored the equally slow decline of the pearl trade. Dubai was again ‘bucking the trend’ and in January 1951 Henderson wrote that the proceeds from the customs were reported to be ‘over one lac per month. (these are nett proceeds and exclude the slice taken by the customs chief)’ Then he also wrote ‘Trade appears to be increasing daily, and Captain Holden declared the creek navigable to all company craft.’

The company was about to drill the first well on the Trucial Coast. The hardships suffered by divers were soon to pass into history as slowly the opportunity to earn a regular wage was becoming possible either at home or in one of the neighbouring countries.