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    Portraits in the Sand: A Nice Dallas Girl Escapes Unhappiness and Finds Life in 1960s Iraq
    Portraits in the Sand: A Nice Dallas Girl Escapes Unhappiness and Finds Life in 1960s Iraq
    Portraits in the Sand: A Nice Dallas Girl Escapes Unhappiness and Finds Life in 1960s Iraq
    Ebook126 pages1 hour

    Portraits in the Sand: A Nice Dallas Girl Escapes Unhappiness and Finds Life in 1960s Iraq

    By Patricia Hopkinson

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    About this ebook

    A BOAC night flight from London sets down one midnight in Baghdad, Iraq; the doors are flung open, and before passengers can alight, reality wafts in. Thus opens the next chapter in the young author’s breathlessly lived escape to womanhood.
    The year is 1962, the author is a twenty-something Texas gal, an artist and a young mum, swept away from Dallas to live in Post-war England with her dashing Scottish husband, a petroleum engineer, just passing through the Lone Star State. After a couple of years in the dysfunctional society of a war-weary Britain, they move on. The book comprises an eighteen-chapter collection of anecdotes, vignettes, and ripping good stories. The voice is terse, minimalist. But the richness of time and place engage the reader immediately.
    The sounds, smells, humor, ironies of culture, and the implied love of the author for this unlovely desert throwback to the seventh century is uncanny. Portraits in the Sand records an adventure of nearly a decade. The author and her “Englises” compadres are drawn colorfully in honest detail, as are the cameos of many dearly remembered “locals,” Achmid, George, Fahid’s grocery-used-car-lot-and-auto-repair shop, Sammy, Ibrahim-the-carpet-merchant, Hratch, Ali, and a cast of many faces-in-the-crowd who drift in and out of the narrative.
    Readers come away informed, moved, and wanting more.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPatricia Hopkinson
    Release dateOct 19, 2018
    ISBN9781943027309
    Portraits in the Sand: A Nice Dallas Girl Escapes Unhappiness and Finds Life in 1960s Iraq
    Author

    Patricia Hopkinson

    Patricia Knowles was born in a New York taxi cab in March 1938. By her third year, the bewildered child found herself plunged into a dysfunctional household dominated by a self-absorbed, demon-driven father. William was cerebral and volatile, an inventor – one week a bankrupt, the next a millionaire. Little Patricia was sent to live with Grandma Knowles in Fort Worth. At nine, she was joined by Daddy and his new wife. Pat became the default target for the man’s rages. The bullied daughter soon retreated into a world of her own design: drawing and painting. By 1956, her portraiture portfolio earned Patricia an art scholarship to Southern Methodist University. Hired as an illustrator by a Dallas advertising agency, “Miss Pat” was introduced one day to a handsome petroleum engineer from Scotland, in Texas on business. John Hopkinson’s exotic brogue and charming manner dazzled the lass, and they married two weeks later. The couple left for Britain on December 1, 1958. Three years and two sons later, the Hopkinson family fled the ruinous taxation policies of England for a lucrative posting in the oil fields of Iraq. The next amazing decade transformed Patricia Hopkinson from a naïve li’l Texas gal into a leading player in the region’s expatriate community. Miss Pat’s nine-year journey comprises her memoir, Portraits in the Sand.

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      Book preview

      Portraits in the Sand - Patricia Hopkinson

      Copyright ©2018 by Patricia Hopkinson

      ©2018 Published by Electric Moon Publishing, LLC

      Portraits in the Sand: An American Girl Escapes Unhappiness and Finds Life in 1960s Iraq / Patricia Hopkinson

      ISBN: 978-1-943027-29-3

      Electric Moon Publishing, LLC

      P.O. Box 466 Stromsburg, NE 68666

      info@emoonpublishing.com

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author or publisher.

      Edited by L.E. Taylor

      Cover Design by Jon Reese

      Interior Design by Lyn Rayn / Electric Moon Publishing Creative Services

      Published by Electric Moon Publishing, LLC at Smashwords

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      www.emoonpublishing.com

      Dedicated to

      Mike and Lee, the stars of my story… And to their children ~ Alex, Andrew, Luke, and Lia ~ who can never know this ancient land, now destroyed, where our story played out.

      I hope I’ve painted my picture well enough that you may travel back with me.

      Acknowledgments

      Without the advice and support of these talented and loyal souls, there would be no Portraits in the Sand, only vague memories in my head. Thanks to these individuals, my stories have been liberated from the past, and now live in print to be shared with you.

      L. E. (Larry) Taylor, narrative editor, book creative director, and my storytelling coach. Accomplished writer, inspiring teacher, and author of his own memoir/novel, Elgan and Grace—A Twentieth Century Saga.

      Jonathan Reese, master graphic designer – book cover, page design and typographic layout. Responsive, generous, talented.

      Laree Lindburg, CEO, Electric Moon Publishing. Literary professional who believed in this project and helped make it into a book.

      Katherine Ponder, my one-shot portrait photographer, and friend.

      Ron Wright, photographer, antique Persian rug; friend and neighbor.

      Connie Mlack, indispensable computer advisor/assistant, friend, neighbor.

      Gaitha Castleman, personal sales coordinator, friend, neighbor.

      Catherine Coffey, fellow memoir writer, friend, colleague, neighbor.

      Stage for our play . . .

      Contents

      Cover

      Title

      Copyrights

      Dedication

      Foreword

      1. An American Girl in Baghdad, 1963

      2. Achmid and George

      3. The Al Wiyah Country Club, Baghdad

      4. The Expat Blues

      5. Driving Test at the Racetrack

      6. Problems for Englises

      7. Charities? Don’t Ask.

      8. Pat’s Pets

      9. Baghdad Street Music and Crafts

      10. On The Throne

      11. Learning Among the Tels

      12. Leaving Baghdad

      13. Home Away From Home...

      14. Gordon’s Toe

      15. Party Girl

      16. Abu Dhabi Excursions, Last Days

      17. Lee’s Ordeal in Qatar

      18. Gushers and Drifts

      After Words

      Miss Pat’s Portraits

      Foreword

      My friend is known simply as Miss Pat. Cheerful, chirpy, and bright as a North Texas spring morning, she showed up one day at a storytelling class that I led. As the days became months, and, to our surprise, a couple of years, her remembrances of a decade spent as a young wife in the Middle East came alive. Her story was colorful, poetic, funny, and melancholy. We were transported into an unlikely Arabian Nights adventure, long ago and far away. But it was no fairy tale; it was the true coming of age experiences of Miss Pat.

      L.E. Taylor

      Dallas, Texas

      2018

      Preface

      In order to make any sense, my Iraq saga needs a wee introduction. My father was an inventor. One week a bankrupt, the next a millionaire, he was self-absorbed, cerebral, and demon-driven. His volatile personality mystified me, and he set the stage for a dysfunctional, unstable household. It was a rough ride for his family. They were especially turbulent years for me. I was the primary victim of his demons. He and my stepmother had the good sense to buy a house in the Park Cities of Dallas. Valuable real estate because of a fine school system and their own law enforcement. It still is. My sister and I received a good education. For recognition of my portfolio of portraiture, I won a two-year Art scholarship to Southern Methodist University.

      Upon graduation, I was offered a job as staff graphic artist with a local advertising agency. On the advice of my paternal grandmother, I left my father’s house as fast as I could pack. My small employer was located in the Meadows Building. Through the initiative of an interoffice secretary, I met a young petroleum engineer from Scotland who was in Texas doing research for Iraq Petroleum Company. His name was John Hopkinson. Wooed by John’s exotic brogue and charming manner, I married him two weeks later. We left Texas for Britain on December 1, 1958.

      Through years of life’s lessons as an expatriate, and more drama than I could ever have imagined in a land even farther off from Dallas than Britain, I’ve never regretted my decision.

      The post-war era was only into its second decade when we arrived in England. Heathrow Airport was nothing but prefabricated Nissen huts and London was still badly scarred by the war. To the puzzled chagrin of an innocent North Texas lass, the locals were vociferously contemptuous of Americans. I was spat on and told in rough, vulgar terms to go home. It was a horrific introduction. I still carry the bruises.

      But human nature is what it is: 1959

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