A witness to the transformation of Bahrain

BAHRAIN was a very different place when Clive Jacques stepped off a plane from London nearly 27 years ago.

Donkey-carts still plied the roads, there was sea where tower blocks stand today and women still washed their laundry in the spring water of Adhari.

"Being driven across the Muharraq Causeway shortly before 7am, on a brilliantly sunny June morning, was a welcome relief from cool and cloudy London," said Mr Jacques, who left with his wife Nena this week, after retiring as general manager of the Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group.

Mr Jacques started life in Bahrain with the now defunct weekly Gulf Mirror, but within a few years joined the Gulf Daily News, rising to editor-in-chief before moving over to Al Hilal as general manager, in January 1996.

His first impressions of Bahrain were a far cry from the bustling, modern country of today.

"Initially booked into the Delmon Hotel for three nights - a leading hotel at that time - my boss suggested I wash and brush up before reporting for work at the Gulf Mirror offices, 'just a short walk away past the post office, a petrol station and across from the law courts in Government Road'," he recalled.

"On the 11th floor of the National Bank of Bahrain tower block - then Bahrain's tallest building - the offices provided a bird's eye view of Mina Manama from where dhows daily transported anything and almost everything, including passengers to Saudi Arabia in pre-causeway days.

"The tower also looked down on a vast wasteland, where the Regency InterContinental Hotel now stands."

Mobile phones, satellite TV and colour newspapers were still years away, said the veteran expatriate, whose journalistic career had earlier taken him from England to Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.

"At this time offshore finance was a fledgling but fast developing source of income for Bahrain," he said.

"Banking salaries ranging upwards of BD1,000 a month made my mere sterling-based BD400 salary look little more than a simple petty cash claim.

"Some of the top bankers enjoyed numerous benefits, ranging from boats and free family medical care to Mercedes cars and swank villas.

"One banker in those early 'pioneering' days even managing to get his London head office to pay for a barbecue set, boxer shorts and salt tablets, personally viewed essentials in his 'hardship posting'.

"For me home was a BD350 a month, company-paid furnished, two-bedroom apartment in the Astor Block (still standing but now in part a dry cleaners) in Palace Avenue.

"Almost opposite Ashrafs - which then sold groceries - the apartment was on an unsurfaced street, where goats scavenged from waste bins.

"But it was conveniently located for a nearby cold store, car mechanic and an all-important ice and water plant.

"At that time expatriates were advised to boil the brakish tap water before drinking and many additionally mixed in vinegar when washing their hair or taking a shower."

Many expatriates at that time organised Friday dhow trips from Muharraq with boat and crew available for BD70, he recalled.

Others headed to the south of the island in four-wheel drive vehicles - invariably open-top Suzuki jeeps - for barbecues at a time when there were no real military restrictions and it was possible to reach the tip of the island.

Some chose to explore, with Friday drives taking in local sight-seeing including the fish trap and dhow makers near where Pearl Roundabout is now, Adhari Park, where women still washed clothes in the nearby stream and the Amiri stables in Riffa.

"White donkeys pulling carts trotting alongside large American cars were a fairly frequent site on uncrowded roads," said Mr Jacques.

Friday lunch at the Airport Restaurant, which overlooked the airport runway, was a popular treat.

In the evening, with few forms of outside entertainment - the cinemas were mainly supported by Asians - many Western expatriates tuned into Aramco.

"It was the most popular television station at that time, though it only screened programmes from around 6pm until 10pm," said Mr Jacques.

There were few supermarkets, so the suq was also an essential, part of shopping, attracting expatriates and locals alike.

"The numerous fruit and vegetables traders in the Central Market invariably used torch batteries on their scales to weigh hand-selected purchases, with an extra apple, pear or banana, as additional thanks," he said.

"The non air-conditioned meat and fish markets were for the bravest, with the stench at times off-putting."

There was not a parking meter - or a ticket-bearing traffic policemen - ever in sight, he recalled.

"A quaint yet parochial feel to day business life led to some expatriates being known by their name and profession, such as Brian the New Zealand butcher and Pete the Irish power-man," said Mr Jacques.

'Many of today's Bahraini decision-makers were fresh from universities abroad, driving modest Japanese cars - often wearing Western style suits - and little more than juniors in their father's businesses."

There were few places to go at night, so when the video boom swept Bahrain, shops sprung up on almost on every street corner, hiring pirated tapes of varying quality, before the copyright laws cames in.

"Initially video machines were priced around BD700 and were brought in duty free from Dubai but later, as with so many new attractions, prices fell," said Mr Jacques.

The couple flew out of Bahrain last Saturday, with months of travel planned before they decide where to settle.