Dorothy Hibbard memoirs – 1923 (Egypt)

Dorothy and her aunt Zora go to Egypt for the first half of 1923, and have a whale of a time partying and riding with the British colonial occupiers.

I had originally planned to put the whole of 1923 onto a single page, but the two halves of Dorothy’s year were eventful in very different ways and so I have split Egypt from the rest.

Egypt

Dorothy and Zora’s time in Egypt was recorded by The Sphinx, the weekly magazine of the English-speaking (and mostly English) community in Cairo. “Miss Wickersham” and her niece are mentioned in nine of the eleven issues from 9 January to 24 March 1923, usually in the context of dinners and dances that they were attending (and occasionally hosting). Dorothy’s name is usually misspelt, mostly as “Miss Herbert” but also as “Miss Hibbert”, from which we may deduce that she and her aunt were not reading The Sphinx. (I wonder how many people did?)

From The Sphinx, January 13, 1923. Lady Congreve was not in fact American, but Lady Hadfield was indeed Zora’s sister Frances, known as Bunnie. Or perhaps the phrase “both of them Americans” was meant to apply (correctly) to Miss Wickersham and Miss “Hibbert”, or to Miss Wickersham and Lady Hadfield, but got misplaced in editing?

Over to Dorothy. NB that a number of her photographs are labelled ‘1922’ on the back, but it seems likely that this is a mistake; The Sphinx notes their presence only in January 1923, and the typescript dealing with Egypt is labelled 1923.

I don’t know why I kept no diary of the time in Egypt, and Papa didn’t keep any letters either, though I’m sure I must have written to him.  I’ll just have to rely on my memory.  Zora and I stayed at first at the Semiramis, then the best hotel in Cairo; we had rooms high up with a glorious view over the Nile. [Now replaced by a 32-storey skyscraper.]

Labelled “Zora at the Semiramis, Cairo 1922 [ie 1923]”

Dorothy’s aunt Zora, formally Lily Wickersham, lived from 1870 to 1956; she gave Dorothy an allowance until her marriage. She is buried in the same grave as her mother, her sister, her brother-in-law and her niece Dorothy in Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey; I tracked it down in September 2022, on the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.

Alice Astor was there with her mother, Lady Ribblesdale, and Alice and I saw quite a lot of each other. She was very attractive and very nice but not happy. Her mother had been a great beauty and was still very handsome and she seemed to think far more of having a good time herself than of seeing that Alice had one.

Alice was very fond of her step-father, Lord Ribblesdale, and he sounded a perfect dear from what she said, though I never met him.  Just as Alice was having a really amusing time with all of the rest of us young people she was dragged away up the Nile by her mother; she wrote to me several times from Assuan and Luxor.  Oddly enough in Serge Obolensky‘s book (she married him, I think the next year) he says she was at the opening of the tomb of Tutenkhamen, but in a letter to me dated Monday 29th (of April, I think, but am not sure) from Luxor she said they had been to the tombs of the Kings and had seen the two finest, which were marvellous, but she added “no luck as regards the newly discovered tomb, as it is kept with all its treasures under lock and key and Mr. Carter is very tired and cross and like a dog in the manger about it all.”

Actually 29 April was a Sunday, not a Monday, in 1923; it is more likely that the letter was dated Monday 29 January, which would fit very well with the formal opening of the inner chamber of Tutankhamun’s tomb on 16 February.

Yet she may have seen it after all; I have no later letter from her, or none that I kept, and I don’t remember her saying anything about it.  The infuriating thing is that I could have been at the opening of the tomb; Zora and I were going up the Nile, all reservations had been made and then a dance cropped up that I wanted to go to in Cairo, and Zora obligingly cancelled everything and we stayed in Cairo.  Of course we didn’t then know that the tomb was to be opened at that time, and we wouldn’t have guessed that had we been there we could have been amongst the small group of people who stood and waited while the priceless treasures were brought out.  But a man we knew was there, and he said afterwards that had we been there he could have got us into that group, as he knew someone very well – I forget which one it was he knew.  I think that was the thing I most regret missing in my life. And to miss it just for a dance, when I don’t even remember what dance or who was there or anything at all about it.  However, there you are.

In terms of life choices, let’s remember that Dorothy had gone to Egypt in the first place rather than take up a place at Oxford.

Meanwhile I had made lots of friends.  Of course I met most of the 9th Lancers; I particularly liked the two Majors, Frank Crossley [Major the Honourable Francis Saville ‘Frank’ Crossley (1889-1959), later Baron Somerleyton] and Bimbo Reynolds [Captain Guy Franklin Reynolds (1886-1950)], and Minnow Palmer [probably Otho Leslie Prior-Palmer (1897-1986), later MP for Worthing].  My nickname there was Kipper, by the way, due to the fact that some man who was introduced to me understood “Miss Kipper” instead of “Miss Hibbard” and the name stuck.  Then there was Donald [Erskine; see below] himself, and all the other subalterns.  The colonel was Col. Cavendish [Frederick William Lawrence Sheppard Hart Cavendish, 1877-1931], and he had a most beautiful wife, Enid – she really was flawless, fair and slim with grey-blue eyes [born Enid Maude Lindeman, in Sydney, Australia, lived 1892-1973].  She often chaperoned me later, when we got to know them well.  

Donald Erskine (1899-1984) was the son of children of Montagu Erskine, 6th Baron Erskine of Restomel. He married Christina Baxendale in 1927, and had four children. He inherited the title of Baron Erskine in 1957 from his father, and the title of Earl of Buchan from a distant cousin in 1960.

Then a man named Kitchin, whom I’d met at Wenduyne, was there – in the Hussars, but I forget which – and Repton, whom I’d known in London, was with the Irish Guards who were stationed in the Citadel, and Air-Marshal Sir Edward Ellington, who was Mary Syers’s brother-in-law, was commanding the R.A.P. in Egypt, and we knew the Congreves, and the Allenbys.  John Congreves came out – I suppose at Easter – and he and I played golf a lot. We went to a couple of grand parties at the Allenby’s – I think Zora had known them before.  Lord Allenby was High Commissioner in Egypt.

Wenduyne is a resort on the coast of Belgium, but Dorothy has not mentioned any visit there. And I have been unable to identify Kitchin of the Hussars.
I find two brothers called Repton who were in the Irish Guards, George John Seymour Repton (1898-1943), who later married the actress Josephine Brandell, and Guy John Repton (1899-1942).
Sir Walter Congreve was the GOC of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force at the time. Sir Walter’s sons were Billy (killed in 1916), Geoffrey and Christopher Arthur John, who I find referred to as “Christopher” and “Arthur” rather than “John” elsewhere; Sir Walter’s only surviving brother did have a son called John, but he would have been only 10 in 1923.

The climate was wonderful by day, warm and sunny, but the moment the sun set it was chilly.  Zora had been in Egypt before so we were well prepared, but newcomers didn’t realise how cold it could get after sunset and often went out in flimsy dresses and then were frozen.  

Amongst the girls the ones I saw most of were Phyllis Allfrey [1902-1979, married Lancelot Joynson-Hicks, later 3rd Viscount Brentford, in 1931] – whose brother Basil [1898-1981] was in the 9th Lancers – and Pam Lomax [1902-1944, married Robert Abercromby in 1929, died in a drowning accident in Scotland], who had also a brother, Cecil [1898-1988], in them – and Geraldine Kirby, who was a bit older than most of the girls but very nice and rode well [Frances Geraldine Kirby (1896-1982), married Geoffrey Wyndham Breitmeyer (1898-1952) in 1924]; we did a lot of riding, and most of the men played polo.  One of them let me practise once with his pony, but I don’t think I managed to hit the wretched ball even once; the pony got quite cross with me.  Each time I missed her ears went back and she whirled round and galloped back at the ball, only to have me miss again.  

Alice was the girl I liked best, but I never saw her after that time in Egypt – oh yes, I did see her once in the south of France at some restaurant, and just spoke to her for a moment, but I think she hardly remembered me then.  She and I went at least twice in the mornings to poke round the bazaars; I remember a man in one shop offering me a large commission if I’d persuade Alice to buy a lot there, but needless to say I didn’t attempt it, and I don’t think she’d have paid any attention if I had!

There were lots and lots of dances, and picnics, and I played golf, and rode.  Once some of the 9th asked me to go hunting; apparently there was an Egyptian prince who owned a pack of hounds and had said that any of the officers of the 9th could hunt them.  So one morning very early a dozen of us went off – I think I was the only girl – and drove out to the kennels, where our ponies were waiting.  But the kennels were locked and the kennel-man wasn’t there; eventually he was found and we collected the pack and Frank Crossley, who had hunted his father’s hounds in England, tried to hunt them.  But the hounds weren’t used to English methods and we lost several of them, though I think they turned up the next day, I know I asked about them, and was told they had.  We had an odd day.  Hounds chopped something in covert – someone said it was a mongoose, I don’t know.  The covert was sugar-cane and the owner was most upset, so we all reimbursed him – we afterwards found we’d paid more than the whole crop was worth, and hounds had damaged very little.  Then someone claimed to have seen a fox, and hounds were encouraged on the line, and we all galloped along, jumping the little irrigation ditches, towards the Ismailieh Canal, but if there was a fox we lost him.  Still it was fun.

There were some gymkhanas and I rode in them; the polo ponies were just the things for musical chairs on horseback – the chairs being a sort of stalls made of light bamboo, and one was taken away each time, Then there were those idiotic events where a man puts on pyjamas – while, mounted – and rides to his partner, who is waiting, and she gives him an apple or something that he has to eat, and they gallop back hand in hand; perhaps it wasn’t quite like that but that sort of tiling.  I did get into the finals in one of those things but I forget who my partner was; anyway we didn’t win.

Then of course we went out to the Pyramids, and rode camels. Zora knew Colonel Delancey Forth [Nowell Barnard de Lancey Forth (1879-1933), from Australia] of the Camel Corps and he mounted us several times.  He had a magnificent camel picked out for Zora, but she refused to ride it, she preferred something quieter, so I had it.  It had such a smooth gait one felt one was floating along.

Labelled “In the desert near Khanka 1922 [ie 1923] ——-, Zora, Col Delancey Forth, Joan Du[d]geon, ——-”
Labelled “Zora. Egypt. 19223”
Labelled “Me with a standard bearer of the Camel Corps, near خنكة Khanka, 1922 [ie 1923]”
[NB that خنكة is a misspelling of خانكة]

Twice we went to stay in the Delta with Swanee Roselli, who was running a cotton mill there. [Frustratingly, I have been unable to identify Swanee Roselli.]  Zora didn’t go, but Enid Cavendish chaperoned us.  Geraldine Kirby went, but I don’t remember who else of the girls; the men were all 9th Lancers.  We dressed up in all sorts of strange garments that Swanee had.  One day we went to lunch with some Egyptian princes who lived near and who gave us a most enormous meal; they were very scornful when the Englishmen couldn’t eat as much as they did.  Afterward they shot pigeons round the house, which Enid and I hated, though as she said we couldn’t stop them.

One incident I remember that day; we were driving behind our hosts’ car – perhaps they had come to give us a lead as we didn’t know where they lived – and they were going rather fast.  Some little boys were playing in the dust, and the car went right over the white robe of one of the boys; you could see the wheel-marks on it.  The child didn’t move, he was frozen with terror.

Swanee took us into the cotton mills where very young Arab girls were working; I thought the air seemed full of white dust and was rather worried about it, but what could I do?

Another time Zora and I went to spend a week-end at the Dudgeons; Dr. [Herbert William] Dudgeon had a hospital in the Delta, and he and his wife and their daughter Joan lived there.  Joan was a beautiful girl – I think she was only 17 then, but she was the Junoesque type, with golden hair and blue eyes; I remember her telling me she’d love to be small, she’d always wanted to be a pocket Venus. [Joan Greville Dudgeon (1905-1982), married Brigadier Richard Walton Hobson in 1936]

After a time we moved to Gresham House, which wasn’t nearly as expensive as the Semiramis, and we had a small flat of our own there, with two bedrooms and a sitting-room; we could either have meals in the main dining-room or have them served in our own flat, so it was quite independent.  [Gresham House is still operating as a budget hotel in Cairo.]

It would have been nice, but Zora wasn’t happy, and I was too selfish and too wrapped up in my own affairs to realise it.  She missed Dollie, and there wasn’t enough for her to do; she had spent a winter in Egypt before, and I don’t think she ever cared very much for sight-seeing.  When people are unhappy they aren’t, as a rule, easy to live with, and we had a good many rows.  But sometimes things were all right.  But I think I was unusually stupid that spring, I’m not proud of myself when I look back on it.

General and Mrs. MacEwen and Veronica, his daughter by his first marriage, were staying at one of the hotels.  One evening we had invited a couple of subalterns to dinner when Mrs. MacEwen rang up to ask if we could possibly go to them; I don’t know why she specially wanted us but Zora thought we should go, so we put off the subalterns.  They were annoyed, and I think we were wrong to do it – I didn’t want to.  Anyway I don’t think I was ever on quite such good terms with them all after that.

General Douglas Lilburn MacEwen (1867-1941) was CO of the second battalion of the Cameron Highlanders. His first wife was Sophia Margaret Jameson Millais (1868-1907), daughter of the painter John Everett Millais; they had three daughters, of whom the oldest was indeed Veronica Effie Glen MacEwen (1894-1977). He had no children with his second wife, Mary Ganzevoort Edwards (1878-1962), who was American.

Someone, I don’t remember who, lent me a little sail-boat and Zora let me sail it on the Nile provided I always took one of the Englishmen; she wouldn’t let me go along  with the Egyptian who looked after it, though I really think it would have been perfectly safe.  It wasn’t really very exciting; the current in the Nile is so strong, and the wind is usually down-stream; all one could do was tack back and forth and then run before the wind coming back.  But I loved sailing and I used it a lot.

We somehow got to know a few of the rich Levantines in Cairo; I remember going to tea with one family and having a most lavish tea in a very palatial house.  There was a pretty daughter of the house who had a pet parrokeet which flew about freely and came when she called in and lit on her finger or her shoulder.  But I got the impression that those girls, in spite of all their money and their luxurious houses and lovely Parisian clothes, didn’t have a very interesting time.  They were sometimes invited to some of the biggest dances, but pretty and charming as they were, they never seemed to be enjoying it much or to have many partners.  Indeed one of our English friends was rather horrified at our seeing anything of them.  Those girls were most carefully chaperoned and perhaps they wouldn’t have been allowed to do the things that the rest of us did.  I don’t know, and I may have got it all wrong, but I had a feeling they felt left out, and that they really were left out.

I can’t quite remember when we left.  I think it was in May, but it may have been later.  I know we were there for Easter because I remember the Tenebrae service in Holy Week at one of the churches there. It was most impressive; I wish we still had it.

One of the few things I still have, in addition to some faded snapshots, is an invitation from the Allenbys to a party in June, and I don’t suppose I should have kept it unless we’d gone to it, so perhaps we didn’t leave till the middle of June.  We crossed to Marseilles on a Messageries Maritimes ship; the Allfreys, that is, Mrs. Allfrey and Phyllis, were on board.  We ran into rough weather and most people were seasick, but I wasn’t.  Mrs. Allfrey felt fairly well next day and came to luncheon with me in the dining-saloon. She didn’t eat much, but she sat there, until I asked for a second helping of some particularly luscious pudding.

“No, Dorothy, I can’t stand it,” she said then.  “If you’re going to eat any more I’ll have to leave you.”  And she did.  Zora, I think, stayed in her cabin the whole time.  Phyllis Allfrey, whom I liked, but who had never been a really intimate friend, for some reason poured out her heart to me and then begged me to forget it all – which I have done as I can’t remember anything she said.

Phyllis’ mother was born Norah Church Meiggs (1877-1961); she married Herbert Cyrial Allfrey (1874-1935) in 1897. As noted above, their son Basil was born in 1989 and their daughter Phyllis in 1901.

Once at the races at Heliopolis I saw lots of Egyptians all hurrying to see something, and someone told me that a very fine Arab mare, which was known all over the Arab world, was there.  So of course I wanted to see her too, and the man who had told me took me.  She was of course small, like all Arabs, and brown in colour – brown, not bay or black – and she was being led round a big enclosure by -a groom. I couldn’t see anything exceptional about her but of course I don’t know anything about Arabs; the Egyptians were all gazing at her almost in adoration.  Incidentally I had always supposed that Arabs were terribly swift, but of course they are not; their great quality is their stamina – they can go on long after any other breed would have given up.  I rode a few of them; actually I can only remember one, but I think I rode others.  I found that one rather uncomfortable, with a short jog-trot that one couldn’t rise to, you just had to sit still and be jolted.

That year, in February, while we were in Egypt, Prince Nicholas [of Romania] gave a small dance in London, and Nicholas Mishu [not otherwise mentioned] wrote to Mr. Hansell [Prince Nicholas’ tutor] to ask him to invite me too, but of course I was away, and I’ve never seen him since Roumania, except once when Bunnie drove me down to see him at Eton, and we gave him luncheon or tea or something.  He wasn’t allowed to come in the car, I remember; we saw him in the street and would have picked him up but he explained that according to the rules he would have to walk.  It wasn’t so easy talking to him with Bunnie there.  Bunnie wasn’t very good with young people anyway.

I spent quite a lot of time in the museum in Cairo; I thought they had wonderful things then, but when I saw the Tutenkhamen treasures the last time I was in Cairo, in 1960, the other things looked very shabby beside them.