Helen Balkwill-Clark
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When I arrived in abandoned Aden in early 1968, I used to wonder so much about the people that had once lived at the Dhobi Lines flats. The few kids of us that there were used to roam around the compound (we were well fenced in by copious loops of barbed wire) while our parents were asleep in the afternoons. Sometimes we would break into the many empty flats there, and could find household items - left behind, as if their owners would be coming back for them. Some of the flats, I seem to remember, were given over to laundry equipment (hence: 'Dhobi' Lines?).* In the sand around the flats we would find glass marbles around the place. The kids that lived there before us must have been mad keen on playing marbles(?) We collected so many of them, that we were able to play our own games of marbles. Also, I remember seeing - beyond the barbed wire perimeter - a redundant children's playground; neither we, nor the Arab children were allowed to play there - it was heavily patrolled.
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In fact, except at school (St Francis at Steamer Point), we were kept very much away from all of the local population. Sometimes, when we strayed too close to the barbed wire fence, we would have stones thrown at us by locals. All of the families in the Dhobi Lines compound at that time were Airworks personnel - seconded to the South Yemen Airforce. After about 7 or 8 months we all left the flats for houses at the White City compound, over the road. The reason we had not been able to move there first is that those houses had been trashed at the time of the withdrawal (largely, apparently, by British personnel not wanting to leave the infrastructure to Arab terrorists) and needed to be overhauled.
My other vivid memory of the weird sense of 'abandonment' in Aden is the large number of both former domestic pets roaming around the place - looking for homes. Also the unemployed Somali ayahs. When, on the few occasions that they would get close to us in streets and shops, they saw my mother with us kids, they would beseech her to take them on to look after us. It was quite pitiful. And I understand that many turned to prostitution in desperation.
Ah! What a strange life it was.
Helen Balkwill-Clark
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Ed: Helen has written a book titled "Boy from The Moor" which revolves around Aden. Check it out www.boyfromthemoor.com
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* The servicemen's flats, known colloquially as "The Dhobi Lines", were so named as they were located next to the Arab laundry (dhobi) area where there were always lines full of washing. The Arab launderers were known as dhobi wallahs.