Next stop Budapest

Some people value their parents’ advice above all else. For others, inspirational words from a teacher or grandparent provide their road map for life.

A few, who can sometimes be spotted on dark nights wearing their underpants outside their trousers, find their motivation in Marvel comics and Hollywood blockbusters. Me? I’ve found a priceless nugget of wisdom on a T-shirt.
I’m not talking about the irritatingly ubiquitous ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ and its myriad of variants, though I do like the pithy Glaswegian version ‘Och wheesht and get oan wae it’ (Translation: Stop moaning and just get on with it).

I’m referring to wise words by the great Irish writer, Oscar Wilde, which have reached me via a Comic Relief T-shirt from my sister-in-law: ‘Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken’.

I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I do wish that Lorna had given it to me a few years ago. Such sound counsel might have soothed my anxiety when we arrived here in August 2011. I had lived for many years in the East, Far not Middle, and my very patchy knowledge of this region came from books, news reports, and Lawrence of Arabia, but my unease was less about the place that was to be our home for the next four years, and more about my new role as ambassador’s wife.

Despite 30 years experience of diplomatic life, I was unprepared. I should have paid more attention during the course provided by the Foreign Office for those of us who were about to be catapulted into the strange world where we would become, first and foremost, the partner of a job title, but I was so delighted to be told that I needed to be ready to prick Iain’s bubble if he got a bit above himself, I didn’t listen to all the other vital information that followed.

When I was first posted overseas the ambassador’s wife, (they were all wives in those days), was a distant and formidable figure. If she decreed, embassy wives obeyed, even if it was that we must wear stockings to the Queen’s Birthday Party on a June day in Tokyo when it was 38 degrees and the humidity topped 90 per cent.

By the time Iain reached the heady heights of British Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain, any pretensions I may have had to presiding over my own empire of women had been left firmly behind in the last century. But while that made the role less intimidating, it didn’t take away all my anxieties.

I had never worried about being myself before. Yes, I would like to be taller, have golden skin, and to look more like my sister, but I didn’t actually want to be anyone but me. Suddenly I was worried that ‘me’ wasn’t enough. How could I possibly meet people’s expectations of an ambassador’s wife?

In my immediate family, two-thirds are thespians. I’m the other third. Iain and our son Calum are both comfortable on the stage, and indeed one December, many countries and thousands of miles apart, they were both treading the boards dressed as women. Unlike my husband and son, I have no acting ability and my approach to my new role was to say little and to try to remember to brush my hair more often. I couldn’t sustain either for long so it was lucky that I soon realised that ambassadors’ partners come in all shapes and sizes; I could only be the Bridget shaped one.

In a few months, I’ll start all over again in Hungary where Iain will take over as Ambassador in January. I first visited Budapest in 1983 in the days when Europe was divided by an invisible iron curtain. The overnight train journey from Warsaw was like a chapter from a Len Deighton novel, complete with baying dogs at dimly lit border crossings, and uniformed men waking me in the middle of the night to stare so suspiciously at every page of my passport, even I began to wonder if it was a fake.

Budapest was wreathed in freezing fog all weekend and I loved it. I have passed through many times since on my way to and from Bucharest. It is a stunning city and I’m expecting flowers every Saturday morning from my husband who will surely be influenced by the romantic River Danube that elegantly bisects Buda from Pest.

But before we get to Hungary we have to leave Bahrain and that’s going to be hard. There is so much I will miss, not least our big house in Manama.

British government representatives have lived on this site for over a hundred years and this house was built 60 years ago to replace the original that was demolished after the dining room ceiling collapsed. I picture the Political Agent and his wife as stalwarts of the empire, passing the marmalade across the breakfast table as the rubble fell around them.

Ageing houses can have infuriating quirks but most of the time ours is endearing. On good days, I think of it as 1950s ‘Mad Men’-esque chic.

It’s set in a green oasis in the heart of Manama and sitting on the terrace is like having the best seat in a private episode of Animal Planet. African Hoopoes stop off on their route north, Western Reef Herons are nesting in the trees at the bottom of the garden, and a couple of weeks ago I interrupted the important work of the British Embassy to drag the staff outside to witness the amazing aerial acrobatics of a flock of rainbow-coloured European Bee Eaters.

I should probably apologise to my husband for abducting his workforce but I’m not going to. We take for granted too many of the wonders around us, whether it’s in our hometown – I’ve only ever been to the Tower of London with visitors – or in our adopted home where, after the initial flurry of activity prompted by awe of our new surroundings, the extraordinary inevitably becomes routine.

All sorts of people come through our doors and it has been wonderful to meet them, be they royalty, politicians, carpenters, or octogenarians who played in the garden as children while their fathers were being told off by the Political Agent.

I am often overawed by our guests and sometimes my inner fan-girl escapes. I will neither confirm nor deny that I may have contrived to be loitering in the hallway just so that I could open the door to Damon Hill when he came to see my husband.

On cold, cloudy, grey European days in land-locked Hungary, I know that I’ll long for the sunshine, the azure sea, palm trees lining the roads, and the mesmeric sound of the call to prayer. However tasty the cake and hot chocolate, it won’t replace Bahraini breakfast, and goulash will never compare to a delicious bowl of Baba Ganoush. But as good as those things are, they aren’t what make Bahrain the country we love and the fifth highest in the world on HSBC’s most recent Expat Explorer Survey.

From the outside, Bahrain is an enigma. Despite the constant efforts to steal back land from the sea, it will always be a small island. It doesn’t have the natural spectacles of Oman or the historic wonders of Jordan, and its tallest building is dwarfed by the sky-scraping architecture of Dubai, but I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve met who came for a year and stayed for 10, 20, or a lifetime. Those of us who have had the good fortune to live here know that the reason is very simple. It’s all about the people.

It’s easy to gush about the residents of these islands and I make no apology for doing so. I’m so glad that my introduction to the Gulf was in this tolerant, welcoming island where family is still central to life and foreigners are greeted with open arms and treated to hospitality that is as generous as it is damaging to the waist-line.

My ever-lasting takeaway from Bahrain will be friendships that will endure distance and be rekindled when we meet again.

Writing this column has been one of the many privileges of my time here. Thank you, Stan, GulfWeekly’s Editor, for persuading me that it was a good idea. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to share some of my experiences and thoughts and learnt the useful lesson that there are few things more daunting than a blank page and a rapidly approaching deadline.

The final piece of work often bears little resemblance to my first draft, not only because my less than linear thought process takes me to unexpected places, but also because my last edit has to be done wearing my ambassador’s wife’s hat. Sadly, it’s a virtual hat. If it were real, it would be a broad-brimmed straw confection, adorned with gaudy, artificial flowers and with a wide yellow ribbon tied in a big bow under my chin.

I can’t leave you without an update on the cats. The adorable if neurotic BSPCA graduate, Merlin, has left us for a better place. No, not that better place; he has moved in with Rick and Heather who love him dearly. He has already trained his new slaves to pander to his every whim and both he and Fergus are far less stressed now they have their own humans.

Fergus has found his voice that had been drowned out by Merlin and he is enjoying telling me exactly how unimpressed he is about the usurper we foisted on to him. He’s dusting off his Romanian passport, which has already taken him from his birthplace in our kitchen in Bucharest to UK, Hong Kong and Bahrain, in anticipation of his return to Central Europe.

Thank you for reading and spare a thought for me in January when you’re slipping on a sweater because it’s down to 18 degrees in Saar. I’ll be waddling off a plane in Budapest, bundled up against the cold in a fair impression of Michelin Man.

Ambassadors’ partners aren’t expected to make their first appearance in T-shirts emblazoned with slogans but I’ll be wearing Oscar Wilde’s words underneath my other layers, both to remind me that I can only be me and to keep warm my heart where they’ll always be a special place for Bahrain.

Pingu’s English Bahrain celebrated its first anniversary at Seef Mall recently with the launch of its free Story Time Club.

VIP guest reader Bridget Lindsay, wife of British Ambassador to Bahrain, Iain, kept her listeners enthralled with the story of The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson.

The children enjoyed a question-and-answer-session with Mrs Lindsay after the reading and Pingu nodded his head enthusiastically when asked how much he enjoyed the story. The children also had Gruffalo-themed pictures and activities to colour in and complete, said founder and owner Anne Kesterton.

Pingu’s English is a fun and entertaining children’s English course based on the popular TV character. Story Time will be held monthly. Call 17002977 to receive your invitation to the next club session.