1964

q8istuff.blogspot.com Violet Penelope Lucas-Calcraft was born in Gautby, Lincolnshire, England. Her father was Neville Lucas-Calcraft, a land agent. The 1900 census shows the family were living in Moat House, Gautby: the house was owned by Robert Charles de Gray Vyner, for whom Violet's father worked. She met her husband Harold Dickson (1881 -- 1959) in Marseilles, France, shortly after the end of World War I, where she was working in a bank. She travelled out to meet him in India, where he was stationed and where they were married. Shortly afterwards he was posted to Iraq. Harold Dickson served as British Political Agent in Bahrain from 1919-1920.He also served in Persia (present-day Iran). In 1929 he was appointed British Political Agent to Kuwait, and served in this role until 1936. He briefly held this role again in 1941. Violet accompanied him on all these postings, and soon became fluent in Arabic. After his retirement from political service, Harold Dickson worked for the Kuwait Oil Company. Violet Dickson was a keen botanist and published a book on the flora of Bahrain and Kuwait in 1955. She regularly sent wild flower collections to the botanic gardens at Kew Gardens in London, and the desert plant that she introduced to science, Horwoodia dicksoniae (known as khuzama in Arabic), was named in her honour. She wrote her autobiography, Forty Years in Kuwait, at the urging of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series of books. He had travelled to Kuwait in 1960 to <b>...</b>