Preview: for publication in 2012

Travels with My Hat is the memoir of an Australian nurse who through skill and determination, switched careers to become an award-winning travel writer and photographer. It is a colourful record of her experiences defined by travel, undertaken on her own initiative, often without official help, and frequently against all odds. “We don’t know who you are,” she was told by the travel editor of the Daily Telegraph on arriving in London in 1974. “To get a name here, you need to write a book.” Which is exactly what she did. Publication of The Gulf States and Oman in 1977 brought a deluge of commissions on the Middle East. Books followed on Jordan and Pakistan. Christine was invited to visit Iraq by the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein. Since visas were not issued to British journalists, she returned home and obtained clearance from the Iraqi Vice-Consul in – of all places –Bondi! Her journeys to Iraq, Ethiopia, Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan and Morocco are rounded off with letters to her mother who had never left Australia. We join Christine avoiding bandits in Yemen, diving in the Red Sea, and dining with Arab sheikhs in a racy account of forty years of travels when only one of a thousand and one problems, was being a young, western woman working in a man’s world. I have occasionally wished I were a boy, she writes in a chapter on Yemen. Not for the penis per se, but for the freedom it allows a man, since reality for a woman traveller is that her sex presents constraints…

Photos by Christine Osborne

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http://travelswithmyhat.com

Experience, travel and

Travels with My Hat: from Chapter 3 Member of the Royal Press Corps

...The Concorde bringing the Queen to Saudi Arabia touched down in Riyadh......Suddenly there was pandemonium. Everyone, including the State Guards, was running this way and that and after years of working alone, I forgot our strict orders not to leave the press group. Dashing outside the airport, I hailed a passing taxi.

‘Quick! The Nasirya Palace!’ I told the driver.

The Queen and the Duke were to stay here while the Britannia sailed to Dhahran, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. A photo-call at the palace was not on our itinerary, but I hoped to sail in on a bit of bluff. Especially since I was an honorary man!

The Indian taxi-driver entered into the spirit of the moment as though his country was still under the British Raj. Speeding along the sandy highways and byways of Riyadh, he screeched to a halt in front of a mammoth building flying the Union Jack. And above it, fluttering in the desert wind, was Her Majesty’s personal standard.

‘This is the Nasirya Palace memsahib,’ he said, reversing the dented red Datsun in between gleaming black limousines.

Racing up the palace steps, I nodded at the Bedouin guards. Did they think I was an advance on the ladies-in-waiting? Without asking, they waved me inside a vast foyer lit with chandeliers the size of flying saucers.

It took courage to stand there surrounded by many princes of the estimated 7,000 members of the House of Saud: tall, erect men all wearing the bisht edged with gold, the mark of nobility. My eyes roamed over onyx tables and huge vases of flowers, but my flashlight sparked a buzz of conversation and feeling vulnerable, I wound my long black scarf around my face like one of their own women.

When a Rolls Royce drew up at the palace steps, attention shifted from me to the Queen. Trained not to flinch, Her Majesty passed me with only a brief look of surprise. Had I gone completely native? Trailing behind her, the Duchess and Lady Susan looked perturbed. Could Buckingham Palace have erred? Should they too be veiled. Dresses brushing the marble floor, they swept towards the majlis and before anyone could enquire why I didn’t follow them, I scampered back to the taxi.

‘It's the most exciting day of my life!’ said the old Indian. ‘Finally something to write home about from this god-forsaken country.'

Back at the Riyadh Inter-Continental, my luck was in when a helpful MEA pilot offered to take my films to London. My editor, Ita Buttrose, had been insistent we beat rival Woman's Day to press. Leaving Riyadh at midnight, the films were collected next morning from the Kensington Hilton in London and were Sydney-bound that afternoon.

A week later my article - CARRY ON DOWN THE GULF MA'AM - THE SHEIKHS LOVE YOU! captured attention 'Down Under’.

Image: Her Majesty is welcomed by King Khalid at Riyadh International Airport.

FROM MUM IN THE GARDEN TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN

People often ask how I started out taking pictures. Well, it was with a Kodak Box Brownie at the age of eight when I took a photo of my mother and the family spaniel - captioned 'Mum and Betsy in the Garden.’

From this inauspicious start, I became keen on photography spending hours developing pictures in the blacked-out kitchen and while ultimately my most enthusiastic supporter, there were occasions when Mum grew cross.

‘You never clean up properly Chris,’ was a frequent comment.

My first picture of Djibouti - sold with a story to the Sydney Morning Herald in 1965 -started my career as a travel writer and photographer specialising in the Muslim world.

The Queen received a copy of my first book - The Gulf States and Oman as background reading on the royal visit to Arabia in 1979.

I was also the only woman photographer on the 3 week tour which was action packed - just as Concorde carrying Her Majesty approached Kuwait, my driver went off with my cameras in his car. Fortunately I retrieved them in time, but ever since I’ve never let them out of my sight, turning down many courteous offers to carry my heavy camera bag.

I’ve always specialised in developing countries - mostly in Africa, South Asia and the Arab Gulf where I hope my record of traditional life may have value for future generations.

Gauging your subject's sensitivity is essential to getting a good picture and to protect your equipment. A slight hand movement, or someone carefully putting down their load of melons often means a quick decision on whether to shoot. Or not.

Fortunately there have been few occasions on my travels when someone has become really angry. But occasionally it was touch and go.

Commissioned to photograph a tribal migration in Baluchistan, I stood my ground as the leader walked over waving his rifle. As he got near I grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously but when he uttered, it was not abuse: he wanted a cigarette (I gave him the packet).

One means of acquiring a subject is to give away small items to earn goodwill, or to distract attention. I always carry coins, sweets and balloons which I blow up for nuisance children. Recently I gave one to a youth in Zanzibar who taking it and looking me straight in the eye, asked in fluent English, was it a condom?

I`ve had many different cameras since the original Brownie. Several ‘old mates’ have bitten the dust - a pair of Pentaxes stolen from my hotel room in Palm Springs, another taken at knife point in The Gambia, a Canon smashed when I fell in Fujairah.

Although I endeavour to work unobtrusively, being tall and fair and feminine has not always helped. Frustrated with a crowd of curious men in Jacobabad in Pakistan, I devised the idea of drawing a line in the dust and telling them to stand behind it which they obediently did!

But one of the strangest encounters occurred on top of the National Museum in Sana’a.

I’d climbed up to take the view when a Yemeni holding a Polaroid asked could he take my picture and I noticed his hands were shaking so he couldn't hold it steady.

‘He is an escaped political prisoner and this is his only way of earning a little money. Would you pose for him?’ said my guide.

And as one who has taken thousands of pictures, I naturally agreed.

The Queen with Sheikh Isa in Bahrain, 1979.

Powindah migration through the Bolan Pass, 1981

A market in Tangiers, 1964

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MAHARAJA EXHIBITION EXPLORES A GLITTERING LIFESTYLE

Maharaja - The Splendour of India`s Royal Courts - at the V&A Museum in London, is one of the most exciting exhibitions ever mounted in UK. The word `maharaja` literally Great King, sums up the magnificence of the display which runs until 17th January 2010.

Covering the period from the collapse of the Mughal Empire in 18th century to the end of British rule in 1947, the exhibition examines the changing role of the maharajas in an historic and social context, and looks at how their patronage of the arts resulted in splendid commissions, designed to enhance their status.

Among priceless items are three thrones, a silver gilt howdah, gem-encrusted weapons, court paintings, turban jewellery and textiles from collections in the former princely states of Udaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Gwalior, Baroda, Mysore, Patiala, Bahawalpur and others.

The Queen has also loaned dazzling gifts such as the gold sword and scabbard encrusted with emeralds and diamonds, presented to the Prince of Wales by the Maharaja of Kashmir, in 1864. A gold durbar set, for offering paan, a gift from the state of Mysore in 1875, is also on loan courtesy of Her Majesty.

The exhibition unfolds with a simulated royal procession of a life-size elephant adorned with jewellery and surmounted with a silver howdah. An early movie, whose soundtrack features drumming and the screams of the processing elephants, indicates the pomp and ceremony of such an event.

The initial displays explore the role of the maharaja as military and political ruler and artistic patron. Symbols of kingship include a gaddi (throne) from Udaipur, elaborate turban jewels, ceremonial swords and a gold ankus (elephant goad) set with diamonds.

There is a palanquin from the court of Jodhpur used to carry the Maharaja’s wife and women`s dumbells, inlaid with ivory, indicate the activities of the zenana. A chaupar set with enamel dice, inlaid with diamonds and played on a cloth sewn with emeralds, rubies and pearls, is evidence of how leisure hours were spent.

Other dazzling items are the golden throne of Ranjit Singh,`The Lion of Punjab` crowned Maharaja in 1801, and his belt, studded with pearls, diamonds and emeralds the size of Ferrer Rocher chocolates.

The exhibition ultimately looks at the period of the Raj, explored through large-scale paintings such as the Imperial Assemblage - 7.2 metres in length - and rare archival film footage of the royal durbars, including the Coronation Durbar of 1911, attended by George V and Queen Mary.

The final section, explores European influence on the Maharajas where the bejewelled elephant, carrying a dancing girl on its tusks, is usurped by a Rolls Royce Phantom commissioned in 1927 by the flamboyant Maharana Bhopal Singh of Mewar.

www.vam.ac.uk/maharaja