Record Number: 33568

---

Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'We set off early along a dry river-bed green with date palms on either bank, pursued by thousands of flies which we could not get rid off until we reached the colder climate of the plateaux [...] we halted for lunch while it was still quite early, and their beduin spread out carpets on the sandy river bed in the shade of a large rock, and placed cushions for our backs. I realized then that the Hadhramis had a better idea about travel comfort than cluttered-up safari-minded Europeans, for it was all so simple and yet so adequate. Seiyid Salim inhaled long puffs from the hubble- bubble while Seiyid Hamid read aloud an ode to a railway train from a book of poems, and so the time passed pleasantly until our lunch of rice and dried shark was ready. This was followed by green tea.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 1 Jan 1937 and 31 Jan 1937

Country:

Yemen

Time

morning
daytime

Place:

city: Mukalla
county: Mukalla
other location: open air, in a riverbed near Mukalla

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

passive in company unknown
single serial unknown

---

Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Listener:

Doreen Ingrams

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

24 Jan 1906

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Wife of the British political agent of Aden and daughter of the Liberal Home Secretary, Edward Shortt

Occupation:

Writer, traveller, Arabist, and aide to the political agent in Aden

Religion:

Christian

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

Yemen

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

---

Text Being Read:

Author:

Anon Anon

Title:

[poems]

Genre:

Poetry, Ode to a train from a book of Arabic poems

Form of Text:

Print: Book, Read in Arabic

Publication Details

n/a

Provenance

unknown

---

Source Information:

Record ID:

33568

Source:

Print

Author:

Doreen Ingrams

Editor:

n/a

Title:

A Time in Arabia: Life in Hadhramaut

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

2013

Vol:

n/a

Page:

35

Additional Comments:

Pagination is from the 2013 new edition. First publication in London by John Murray, 1970.

Citation:

Doreen Ingrams, A Time in Arabia: Life in Hadhramaut, (London, 2013), p. 35, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=33568, accessed: 24 May 2025

---

Additional Comments:

Doreen Constance Ingrams nee Shortt (1906-1997) was the wife of the British political agent Harold Ingrams, and was travelling in a donkey convoy from Mukalla on the coast to Seiyun in the Hadhramaut in January 1937. This reading aloud took place in daytime in the open air in a river bed half a day's journey north from Mukalla, and was in Arabic. Seiyid Hamid bin Mustafa was a minister in the The Kathiri State of Seiyun, which was a British protectorate until abolition in 1967 under the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen administration (1967-1990). There was no railway in Yemen in 1937, and as of 2014, there is still no railway in the country.