MEMORIES OF A NATIONAL SERVICEMAN
TREVOR SIDAWAY
ROYAL ELECTRICAL AND MECHANICAL
ENGINEERS
Resting in Tangier—at the EL
Farhar
Until it was granted its
independence in 1956, Tangier was an international zone initially
administered
T o exemplify
its International status,
by France, Spain and the UK and then in
1923, joined by Italy, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, USA and
stamps were issued
by several countries
With this colourful mix of
Nations attempting to control a
gateway to the
the centre of smuggling of all kinds, including drugs, served as a
playground for eccentric millionaires,
a meeting place for all kinds of characters--many of questionable
background--and a mecca for
speculators and gamblers of all
sorts
British
Spanish
Moroccan
Its residents and visitors included many talented and gifted writers and
artists including Americans
Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote, the British author and playwright Joe Orton also lived
there as did Kenneth Williams
the much loved British comedian and humorist
The richest woman in the World—Barbara Hutton—was there, as was the legendary
and hell raiser Errol Flynn
It was also the adopted home of the multi talented author and composer, Paul Bowles and his wife Jane
-----------------------------
It was April 1954 and the
three of us—Roger Merricks, John Gregson and me--all
REME conscripts,
were off to Tangier
We were aware that we were going to a city on another continent, which
encompassed many cultures,
including an exotic Arab culture, and we knew of its reputation as a
City of mystery and intrigue but
we were off to a small family run Hotel on the outskirts of the City,
far removed from the glitter of
Tangier—or so we thought
The
Holiday
subsidized by the Military in Gibraltar
We were amongst the first to take advantage of an arrangement, between
the Military in
the owners of the El, Farhar Hotel, which allowed personnel to stay at the Hotel at discounted rates in
return for free issue ration
packs, provided by the military
These packs were carried with us, they
were boxes full of tinned fruit and vegetables, they were stacked
high and it took a lot of
effort to move them around and to load them on and off the ship The
arrangement with the Garrison
Quartermaster at
X marks
the spot of the REME Camp, known as Governor’s Cottage Camp, and the view
, over the
Straights, was very special
with a constant stream of ships sailing east and west and at night the lights in
the Spanish Moroccan town of
The cloud, caused by the warm
easterly wind known as the levante, can be clearly seen obscuring the
summit, it sometimes settled for many
days and tended to lower the spirits of Military and Civilians alike
The
concrete water catchments, can be clearly seen on the right
A surly looking
Trevor Sidaway pictured on a transit pass to Tangier, via
The Pass was a special arrangement between Gibraltar and
It was subsequently withdrawn as relations with Franco's
Arriving in Tangier
Entering Tangier
harbour with fellow REME conscript John Gregson
Just around the headland was the site
of the El Farhar
Approaching the
city of Tangier
The City covered an area of
150 sq miles was and home to half a million
souls with French, Spanish, English and Arabic being widely spoken
As we got to the harbour we
sailed past a few ships that were beached and rusting away, we later found
that these had been abandoned by
smugglers, and the scene when we docked was an eye opener.
We were immediately
confronted with a hubbub of noise and activity, and of extremes—donkeys
and
carts side by side with
modern taxis and similar contrasts amongst the populous—an old Arab
woman,
small, dumpy and barefoot,
carrying a mountain of cut wooden branches on her head, side by side with
another Arab woman,
elegantly and expensively dressed from head to foot with painted finger and toe
nails, her black eyes
flashing above her veil
Striding up and down the key
side was a tall and slender Arab, clearly looking for someone onboard the
ship, shouting something
that sounded like a very guttural “farrrrrh farrrrh”
It was his pronunciation of “El Farhar”-he was there to meet us
and he had a taxi waiting-a good start!
The El Farhar Hotel
(also known as the House on the Mountain)
The El Farhar was on the
western outskirts of the city, I can’t remember much about the Hotel
itself,
inside we only got as far as
the dining room (we were housed in separate bungalow in the grounds).
But I well recall the
terrace area, overlooking a small bay, and a pleasant zig-zag pathway down a
steep
incline to a sandy beach.
On one side of the terrace
was a small bar, complete with piano, and behind the bar a small garden
area with a swing
In the grounds leading down
to the beach were the bungalows—five I think—and we were billeted
in one
of them.
The setting was very
peaceful, the bungalows comfortable, the sun was shining and we looked forward
to
a holiday that promised to
be very different from those usually spent by most military in the bordellos of
the Spanish border town
It lived up to its promise
but we were blissfully unaware that there was a lot more to the El Farhar than
its small family-run image
portrayed
The Buckinghams
Winthrop Buckingham, an American, and
his wife Ellen
Irene, the daughter of an English clergyman,
owned and ran the El Farhar Hotel. They had six children, five
daughters and a son
The Buckingham family line-up, pictured around 1950 on the El Farhar
terrace ;
Dad Mom and the six “ kids”
(twins)
An opportunity missed
So, with five daughters, there was no shortage of pretty girls around,
although we
saw few of them except for the youngest Dizzy (Patricia Desiree) who, by the
time
we arrived a few years later, had matured into a young teenager and had
certainly
dumped her bobby sox
Robert wasn’t around—he was at a boarding school in
Dizzy was always in the company of her
close friend Yvonne and we became quite friendly but they had a
very annoying habit of switching from English to French in the middle
of a conversation, it was an
obvious tease, my schoolboy French wasn’t up to it and got me a
little riled, in spite of that Dizzy did
regularly invite me to “have a go” on the swing in the
enclosed back garden!
One evening, we messed things up totally by failing to turn up to a
party—we went downtown instead-- we
later discovered the party had been specially arranged by some of the
girls for our benefit —so that was a
missed opportunity!!!
C’est la vie!
A
bar pianist
I also recall a pianist, who seemed to be North African although he
wore Western style clothes, he played
some very haunting Arabic music on the bar piano, I’d heard very
little of that type of music before and
although a piano seemed to be an odd type of instrument for such music
it made an impression on me that
lasts to this day
On the terrace with fellow soldier Roger
"Brummie" Merricks, and Mustapha the barman
Pictured in the direction of Tangier
The secluded sandy beach can be seen in the background, down through the
hotel grounds
On the Beach
The small sandy cove was at the bottom of the Hotel grounds and was
effectively a private beach; the
weather was perfect so we spent a fair amount of time there
Top
o’ the World Ma
and
Top o’ John Gregson
The dog belonged to the Arab "minder" of three teenage girls,
formally dressed--cloaks, headscarves,
yashmaks.They stripped off,
almost starkers, frolicked in the surf, dried off, redressed--complete with
Yashmaks and off they went
Even
the dog had his ears pricked
An unfriendly Royal
Artilliary Captain fellow guest
We took our meals in the Hotel, together with the Buckingham
family, the only minus was that there was
another Englishman there, he turned out to be a rather snobbish
Royal Artillery Captain from
and he clearly didn’t relish the thought of dining with a bunch
of National Service squaddies
I can’t recall that he caught my eye once during the whole week
To make matters worse, it turned out that he had extended his stay at
the El Farhar by one week and we
had to ship his extra rations as well as ours which accounted for the
“mountain” of food that we had to
carry from
He could at least have said thanks!
The day before we left we were joined by other guests—two well
built English women,
one of whom was reputed to
be a sculptor—they were not very friendly!
Three sailors at the El
Farhar in 1952
They were
based in
two years later
Zoe (without a head and inset) and Dizzie with three sailors on the El
Farhar terrace
Sailors,
left to right: Ray, Peter, Robert.
They were serving on the frigate HMS Loch Craggie,
This was part of the Mediterranean fleet based mainly in
transferred to the Reserve Fleet Division again at
Portuguese in 1963
World famous celebrities at
the El Farhar
So the holiday was over and all that we
were expecting—pretty quiet and peaceful in a very friendly
family run place made a little more
interesting by the unexpected “ gaggle” of Buckingham daughters
However, it wasn’t until
years later, when I had the time to research the place a little, that I became
aware
of its pretty colourful history
In the late 1940’s and
early 50’s Tangier was a haven for a set of artistic and gifted people,
some of
whom had cultivated a
reputation for a flamboyant and questionable lifestyle and it slowly began to
dawn on me that there was more to the El Farhar than I had assumed and
that, over the years, it had
played host to some of these personalities
Truman Capote
Amongst these was Truman Capote, the
legendary American writer, best known for writing
“Breakfast at
Tiffany’s” and for the massive success of his non-fiction book
“In Cold Blood” this was
published in 1966 and made into a
The book told the story of the
cold blooded murder of the Clutter family
by a couple of small time thieves,
Perry
Smith and Dick Hickock in 1959
Capote
spent several years researching the murders, including numerous interviews with
the convicted
killers and he was present
when they were hanged in 1965 after freely admitting their guilt
The Clutter family (clockwise from
top);
Perry Edward Smith, under arrest
in 1960
Herbert, Bonnie, Kenyon and Nancy
Hanged with Dick Hickock in
1965
Pictures courtesy the Guardian Newspaper 16/11/2009
The book earned Capote more than $2m and allowed him to buy several
homes in the
one in
partying
One party is accepted as the
biggest and best party ever seen in
from the world of high
society, politics and the arts
The list included such luminaries
as Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow, Arthur Miller,
Lauren Bacall,
Henry Ford
11, Henry Fonda, Darryl F Zanuk, Gregory Peck, Vincente Minelli to name
but a few
It was called the “Black
and White Ball” all the men in black tie and all the women in white and it
marked the end of an era as
the “Party to end all Parties”
He went on to have other
stories turned into movies and in 2005, the
was released and won an Oscar for its
leading man—Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Truman Capote Dancing with Marilyn
He was less than 5ft 4in tall and was openly gay
He died in 1984, aged 59, from liver
disease complicated by multiple drug intoxication, symptoms of his
flamboyant and often outrageous lifestyle
Truman Capote on the beach at the
EL Farhar
Truman Capote on the left and
Cecil Beaton second right with the headband
Jane Bowles is looking out to
sea
For many years Cecil Beaton was the official photographer to the
Royal Family and was a leading fashion
photographer and stage designer. He won two Academy Awards for Costume
Design in the Broadway
musicals “Gigi” and “My Fair Lady” and four
Tony Awards. He was knighted in
1972
Alec Guinness comes to tea
at the El Farhar
The picture on the left of Mr and Mrs Buckingham was taken at one of their five daughters
weddings
Behind them, sporting an eye-patch, is a Michael Scott, he lived in a very large
house on the headland
behind the El Farhar—it can be seen as a white blob, over the
shoulder of
Roger Merricks in one of
the earlier photos
He was a family friend and on one occasion when he was invited round to
tea at the El Farhar he asked
if it was OK to bring along a friend who was staying with
him—that someone happened to be none other
than Alec Guiness
I’m told that the Buckingham’s youngest daughter Dizzy bumped
into him in the living room and hasn’t
been the same since
The year was likely to be 1953
when he was in filming both in
“The Captains
The story line was of a ferry captain
who had wives in both ports and made the most of it!
Paul
and Jane Bowles at the El Farhar
Paul Bowles and his wife Jane were writers and Paul in
particular was a multi-talented and very
successful writer, composer and translator of European and Arabic
stories
For many years Tangier was his adopted home and in the late 40’s
he rented one of the bungalows at the
El Farhar on a long lease keeping company with the many gifted,
sometimes notorious, and often very
rich people who found their way there.
His first novel—The Sheltering Sky—written in 1949, was
made into a
of his short stories were brought to the screen in
“Halfmoon”
One of the stories—
A
downed American WW2 pilot at the El Farhar
During WW2 the American owner of the El Farhar,
intelligence for the Anglo American authorities in Tangier and on one
occasion smuggled a downed
American Pilot into the Hotel, took care of him, and finally rowed him
out from the beach to a waiting
submarine
Details of his wartime activities are mentioned in the book
about the
So
the El Farhar, rather than the stereotyped small, family owned,
out
of town Hotel that three REME conscripts from
expecting,
was in reality a haven for a few of the jet setting glitterati
that
had been drawn to Tangier in the 1940’/50’s
It
had also played a role in the Allied cause in WW2
And the El Farhar now
The Buckinghams
finally sold up and moved out of the Hotel, into the five bungalows in the
Hotel
grounds—the very ones that we were housed in--and the youngest
daughter, Dizzy,
still resides
there with her family
A more recent photograph of one of the bungalows in And the view from the Hotel grounds
hasn’t
the
grounds of the old El Farhar Hotel
changed in more than 50 years
The Buckingham family now
With
the exception of Dizzy, the family are scattered far and wide:
Marilyn, Robert and Zoe in the
Ida May in the Argentine
Barbara Ann in
Dizzy in Tangier
Dizzy’s friend, Yvonne, also resides in the USA
Mr
and Mrs
Buckingham are buried in the same grave at St Andrews churchyard in
Tangiers
Post script
I often wondered if the term
El Farhar had any Arabic meaning, and I’m now told that it was the name
given to the establishment by
guests were told that it meant
“my delight”
His son Robert Buckingham tells me that although there is no
strict translation it may have been
conjoined from the Arabic
words Faran and Farah which have a meaning like joyful, gladness
Thanks to;
The Buckingham family, especially Zoe and Robert
for their help and for permission to use some of
the photographs
Tamara
Dragadeze
Yvonne
Kleefield
John
Gordon-Kirkby
# Better than the Bahamas #
# More about the models
#
# Playing trains with Prince Charles and Princess Anne #
# Football in Gibraltar (Part one)
#
# Football in Gibraltar (Part two) #
# Keeping the Laundry going and other Sports #
# The REME Badge #
# Home #
email me trevor_sidaway@hotmail.com
Link to "Black Country Stories"
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