“I wasn’t expected to have an opinion and certainly not to share it in public,” Jocelyn Henderson once said of her life as the wife of a senior British diplomat.
Yet hers was a life hardly lived in the shadows. Nor was she ever short of an opinion, as revealed in her memoir The Gulf Wife, a title perhaps more than slightly tongue in cheek.
Her death, this month, at the age of 100, deprives Abu Dhabi not just of a formidable grande dame, but also severs a connection to a world few can now recall.
The memories are still very fresh for me, but I’m afraid that I get very bored by them now. I prefer to look forwards
Jocelyn Henderson
In 1960 Jocelyn Nenk married Edward Henderson, a British diplomat who had joined the UK’s Foreign Office in 1956 after previously working for an oil company and military service that included evacuation from the beaches of Dunkirk.
Henderson had also fought with the Arab Legion in Jordan and Syria and, in what was to be a lifetime of association with the Middle East, continued as political agent for Abu Dhabi and later British ambassador to Qatar.
At the time of their marriage, Henderson had been in his post at Abu Dhabi for a year, although he was long familiar with the country and its culture, traditions and leaders, including the Founding Father, Sheikh Zayed.
For Jocelyn, then 36, the security of marriage also came with, in public at least, a loss of her own identity, after a career as an independent woman that included private secretary to Sarah Churchill, the actor and daughter of Sir Winston Churchill, and working for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, two of the giants of British film-making.
Dutiful in her support of Henderson, with whom she would have two daughters, she once described her existence in an interview with The National as “the perfect vision of an expatriate wife”.
“I never spoke out of turn, I always made small talk with a visiting dignitary and put all of my energy into entertaining his endless flow of visitors.”
Her husband she described as “the last Victorian gentleman” who presented his bride with a copy of Lady Troubridge’s The Book of Etiquette, to better understand her new duties.
It included such advice as: “A gentleman, on entering a lift where a lady is present, should in all circumstances take it upon himself to remove his hat.”
This was far removed from a world about to be swept aside by youth culture and the music of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Yet it was also serious stuff.
The wife of a diplomat was under as much scrutiny as her husband. The unspoken question was “is it OK to let her loose in public?” she said.
“‘Does she use her knife and fork properly? Does she know how to behave?’ And if the answer was negative, this spelt the death knell for her husband’s career.”
Living first in Bahrain, then effectively a British colony, she moved to London after the birth of their first child, and only knew Abu Dhabi as a visitor, when she accompanied her husband on his regular trips to visit the Ruler.
Three years later, the formation of the UAE in December 1971 ended Britain’s role in the region and also the post of political agent, with Henderson appointed ambassador to Qatar, a post he held until retirement in 1974.
Henderson found it difficult to settle in Britain, and was happy to return to Abu Dhabi in 1976, where he was invited by Sheikh Zayed to create the National Centre for Documentation and Research to be based at Qasr Al Hosn, the former Ruler’s palace. The city was to become their home for the rest of their lives.
The capital was undergoing rapid transformation, and with it a huge influx of foreign workers that swelled the expatriate community, of which Jocelyn was now a senior member.
St Andrew’s Anglican church, where she became a warden, was one area where she could contribute, while in 1978 she founded the Daly Library, one of the city’s first private libraries, staying involved until it was closed in 2014, a victim of Kindle and the internet marketplace.
By then Jocelyn was 92, and living in a villa in the Royal Stables. Henderson had died in 1995, and for a while his widow found herself bereft of purpose.
“It took me many years to find out what to do with my time and, in fact, to find my voice again,” she said. “In many ways, throughout my married life, I was very much the silent partner.”
The publication of her memoir in 2014 allowed her to make public many of her true feelings. Wilfred Thesiger, the British explorer and a close friend of her husband, she described as arrogant, saying: “I didn’t like him much, he hated women. He was afraid of them.”
She celebrated her 100th birthday at her villa in August, with a visit from Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak, the Minister of Tolerance. Abu Dhabi, her home for 45 years, she described as a place where “you feel as if you are constantly moving, even if you are actually staying still".
Of her life, she said: “The memories are still very fresh for me, but I’m afraid that I get very bored by them now. I prefer to look forwards.”
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
SHADOWS%20AND%20LIGHT%3A%20THE%20EXTRAORDINARY%20LIFE%20OF%20JAMES%20MCBEY
%3Cp%3EAuthor%3A%20Alasdair%20Soussi%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EPages%3A%20300%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EPublisher%3A%20Scotland%20Street%20Press%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EAvailable%3A%20December%201%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Springtime in a Broken Mirror,
Mario Benedetti, Penguin Modern Classics
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
england euro squad
Goalkeepers: Dean Henderson (Man Utd), Sam Johnstone (West Brom), Jordan Pickford (Everton)
Defenders: John Stones (Man City), Luke Shaw (Man Utd), Harry Maguire (Man Utd), Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool), Kyle Walker (Man City), Tyrone Mings (Aston Villa), Reece James (Chelsea), Conor Coady (Wolves), Ben Chilwell (Chelsea), Kieran Trippier (Atletico Madrid)
Midfielders: Mason Mount (Chelsea), Declan Rice (West Ham), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund), Kalvin Phillips (Leeds)
Forwards: Harry Kane (Tottenham), Marcus Rashford (Man Utd), Raheem Sterling (Man City), Dominic Calvert-Lewin (Everton), Phil Foden (Man City), Jack Grealish (Aston Villa), Jadon Sancho (Borussia Dortmund), Bukayo Saka (Arsenal)
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre V8
Power: 503hp at 6,000rpm
Torque: 685Nm at 2,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Price: from Dh850,000
On sale: now
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
The Baghdad Clock
Shahad Al Rawi, Oneworld
The years Ramadan fell in May
Learn more about Qasr Al Hosn
In 2013, The National's History Project went beyond the walls to see what life was like living in Abu Dhabi's fabled fort:
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Cargoz%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EDate%20started%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20January%202022%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Premlal%20Pullisserry%20and%20Lijo%20Antony%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2030%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Seed%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203S%20Money%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202018%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20London%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Ivan%20Zhiznevsky%2C%20Eugene%20Dugaev%20and%20Andrei%20Dikouchine%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20FinTech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%245.6%20million%20raised%20in%20total%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
LIVERPOOL SQUAD
Alisson Becker, Virgil van Dijk, Georginio Wijnaldum, James Milner, Naby Keita, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah, Joe Gomez, Adrian, Jordan Henderson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Adam Lallana, Andy Lonergan, Xherdan Shaqiri, Andy Robertson, Divock Origi, Curtis Jones, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Neco Williams
On Instagram: @WithHopeUAE
Although social media can be harmful to our mental health, paradoxically, one of the antidotes comes with the many social-media accounts devoted to normalising mental-health struggles. With Hope UAE is one of them.
The group, which has about 3,600 followers, was started three years ago by five Emirati women to address the stigma surrounding the subject. Via Instagram, the group recently began featuring personal accounts by Emiratis. The posts are written under the hashtag #mymindmatters, along with a black-and-white photo of the subject holding the group’s signature red balloon.
“Depression is ugly,” says one of the users, Amani. “It paints everything around me and everything in me.”
Saaed, meanwhile, faces the daunting task of caring for four family members with psychological disorders. “I’ve had no support and no resources here to help me,” he says. “It has been, and still is, a one-man battle against the demons of fractured minds.”
In addition to With Hope UAE’s frank social-media presence, the group holds talks and workshops in Dubai. “Change takes time,” Reem Al Ali, vice chairman and a founding member of With Hope UAE, told The National earlier this year. “It won’t happen overnight, and it will take persistent and passionate people to bring about this change.”
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
