Aden

I found the digital copies of many old photos today, covering our family's life in Aden, Mukalla and Teheran.  I uploaded them to SmugMug and then spent an hour or so going through them with my mother, by Facetime as she's in Portugal.  She remembered many of the places and faces, including our old ayah, a lady called Rahma, in Mukalla.  Yet when I tried to talk her through replacing the batteries in her Apple mouse she couldn't remember what I had said from one minute to the next.  Very sad.

But here is my father astride a polo pony at the polo ground near RAF Khormaksar near Aden (now Aden International Airport) in around 1963.  The rusty circular structure in the background is a polo practice pen with a wooden horse in its centre which enables a rider to practice whacking the ball without hurting people or horses. 

The aircraft visible in the background include Argosies and DC-3s.  There were Hunters based at that airfield, and you could hear them starting every so often, a sort of high wheezing gasp from the starter systems before the engine took over, groaning as it lit up and got to idle.

The peninsula of Aden is visible in the Extra, a photo taken by a recce Hunter, the FR10, which I found on this website http://www.radfanhunters.co.uk

Clearly this photo wasn't taken today, or by me, but it has significance for today as my mother and I reminisced successfully using the whole collection.