00:00As a child growing up in England back in time, how was it for you personally? How did you cultivate the love of reading as a child?
00:12So I didn't...
00:13Which part of England were you born in?
00:14Cambridge, Cambridge, the United Kingdom. So it's an ancient university city with lots of libraries and lots of bookshops, then and now.
00:25So when I was born...
00:28Which is in?
00:291950.
00:33We didn't have television and there were none of the distractions that children have today.
00:40So both my parents were avid readers and we were read to by my mother during the day and my father would always read us bedtime stories.
00:53And by the time I was three, I could read, not because I was bright or intelligent, but because of the exposure that I had to books from a very early age.
01:05And what I realized looking back is how much books formed my character.
01:15They formed my imagination.
01:17They helped develop critical analysis.
01:21So I knew from a very early age that stories were not true, that they were fiction.
01:27And there were books that were true.
01:30So these are things that you gain along the way.
01:34I obviously had, because of my exposure to books, I had a good understanding, a good vocabulary, and I was a confident child.
01:43And I think much of this was down to, God rest their soul, my parents.
01:48So they cultivated my love of reading and my passion for books.
01:55I mean, to be honest, I'm addicted to books and reading.
01:59It's the one thing I cannot do without.
02:02I have always been able to escape into a book.
02:05So as a child, my mother would say to me, Isabel, can you pop upstairs and get, she wanted something she'd left upstairs.
02:12And so I would start to go upstairs, but on the way up the stairs, I would imagine I was a princess and I'd been kidnapped.
02:21And I was playing this game.
02:22So half an hour later, she'd call up, Isabel, where are you?
02:26And I was just playing this game in my imagination from the amount of books I'd read.
02:32And that was my, I can dream, I can still dream, and I can still be a child.
02:38And I think those characteristics have stood me in very good stead for whatever I've done in life.
02:45But also living outdoors.
02:47As children, even in the UK, where the weather can be changeable, we spent so much time outdoors.
02:55We'd go exploring.
02:56In those days, you could.
02:58My brother and I would wander off into the, and look for ponies in fields because I was fascinated.
03:04I really wanted to ride, which I did eventually.
03:07I mean, I did ride as a child, but not very much.
03:09But then when I came back to Dubai, when I came to Dubai, I was able to take it up seriously.
03:15So, you know, we, every weekend, my father would take me on long, long walks.
03:21We'd go on the old Roman road in Cambridge and just be out, outside every weekend.
03:29We would sometimes go to the seaside, sometimes go to different places of interest, visit family.
03:35So my mother's family were living in Wales.
03:39So we'd go and visit them.
03:41And, you know, just lots of time there is a poem that is to stand and stare.
03:49You need, as a child, you sometimes just need to not do anything, but just to be in the moment.
03:57Hopefully outside, I'd say.
04:01Now what brought you, so you did your English literature itself in Cambridge?
04:08I came here, I was, what I did was, after I'd finished school, I did a post, a post A-level course in business, business skills,
04:23including, you know, learning to touch type, learning to shorthand, learning how to write business letters, et cetera, et cetera.
04:30An A-level course in business?
04:32No, this was after I'd finished my A-levels.
04:34My A-levels were English, English literature, history and French.
04:41So, yes, but I then did this year course because I had a place at university to study sociology.
04:59And by then I had met my future husband who was studying English.
05:05He was studying in Cambridge, studying the English language, along with a group of boys from Dubai.
05:14You know, boys, they were young men.
05:16This was 1967.
05:19So I decided, he came back to the Dubai and joined Dubai police and I decided to follow him.
05:30So I came out first to meet his family and then came back and we got engaged and then got married.
05:38And so I've been here ever since.
05:41I got off the plane, I walked down the steps and there was sand beneath my feet.
05:47And I'd left, it was December, I'd left London, Heathrow, and it was cold, wet and grey.
05:55And here I was with exotic balmy air, you know, that smelt different.
06:01The scents in the air were completely different to what I'd ever experienced.
06:07And I felt in a really strange way that I'd arrived home.
06:13And I had read, the one book that I'd read that one of my mother's friends had given me before I came was Arabian Sands by Wilfrid Fessiger.
06:24And that gave me so much insight into this part of the world.
06:32I think one of the things that was a complete unknown to me, I'd never seen anything like it, was the gold souk.
06:41Which, the gold, gold souk in Dubai.
06:46So my family, to be, took me down to the gold souk.
06:50And I had, first of all, I had never seen so much gold.
06:53Shop after shop after shop.
06:56And I just was, I mean, I don't wear, actually, jewellery, but I was just transfixed by, it was like Aladdin's cave.
07:04So that was a very strong memory.
07:06And then, I think, going to the desert for the first time, and by then, by that time, the desert was Khawanij.
07:17There was no road beyond Dubai airport.
07:21You were into the desert very fast.
07:23And I'd never been to, you know, and then we sort of drove in four-wheel drives across the desert.
07:29It was just incredible.
07:30And one time we did it, we came across, just by chance, a camel race happening across the desert.
07:38You know, I mean, it was like a fairy story.
07:40You just don't expect these things to happen.
07:44I think it was a very small community in 1968.
07:48There were not many.
07:49In fact, if I drove on the roads of Dubai, which were very few, you'd be lucky if you saw three cars.
07:58It was a completely different place to the Dubai of today.
08:04And, I mean, there were obviously British families living here in various jobs and roles.
08:12But I was living in Faridja Murrah, which was where most of my family lived.
08:18Faridja Al Murrah.
08:20Which, if you go across the tunnel, you go under the tunnel, it's along there.
08:26But at that stage, they hadn't reclaimed the land.
08:34So I could see the sea from our windows.
08:40It was very close to us, the sea.
08:42So we lived very close to the shore.
08:44And, in fact, the first morning I woke up ever in Dubai, I was staying in the guest room for my future brother-in-law's house.
08:54And I pulled the curtains and looked out, and there was a donkey trotted past.
08:58Just a wild donkey.
08:59I mean, it was like, you know, it was just this incredible sort of, and in the distance I could see the sea and the shore.
09:09And just a very natural, I mean, the beaches I'd been to were all sort of, you know, English beaches.
09:15They were so different.
09:16How different?
09:17Well, this was just natural.
09:19Everything about it was natural.
09:21There was no buildings, there was nothing.
09:25You just had the shoreline and the sea.
09:28I hadn't come out here to be part of the British expat community.
09:33I'd come out here to start a new life.
09:37Do you think expats don't make enough of an effort to learn Arabic here?
09:48Well, I don't think you can generalise like that.
09:52I think they may not see the need for it.
09:55I had a need for it when I came.
09:57I learnt Arabic because I needed it.
10:00And I thank my lucky stars I did, because it's been incredibly useful.
10:05You know, my written Arabic is atrocious.
10:08I can't read very well in Arabic, but I can speak.
10:11And communication is what we speak.
10:13So if you ever meet an Arab and you can speak Arabic, they are so happy that you have taken the trouble.
10:26So it is like they will then ask you questions, they will want to know.
10:35So it opens up a conversation by being able to speak even a few words.
10:41And I think really everyone should, wherever you travel in the world, even if you go on holiday,
10:45I would always try and learn a few words.
10:48You know, please, thank you, at least, good morning, good evening.
10:53It doesn't take, it's no problem to learn a few words.
10:57But at least you made that effort.
11:00And it does make a difference.
11:02Legacy is my children and my grandchildren.
11:06How many grandkids?
11:07Eight.
11:11So nothing has given me more pleasure.
11:15Nothing has given me more joy.
11:18Nothing has fulfilled me in the way that being a mother has.
11:24Nothing can ever, ever be more than that.
11:30And I have the same feeling for my grandchildren.
11:33You know, it's, I am blessed with having very close, wonderful relationships with all of our children.
11:42And being, you know, being part of their lives too is really important for me.
11:52And professionally?
11:55I don't have a profession.
11:58I have a passion.
12:00Seriously, I don't.
12:03Everything I've ever done in life is because of passion, not because of a profession.
12:08If I don't have a passion for it, I will not do it.
12:13And I shouldn't do it.
12:15Because what's driven me all my life is that.
12:18It's that feeling that each one of us is put on this planet to do something good.
12:27And it doesn't matter how small it is, but you should leave this world a better place than when you came.
12:34Even if it's only one child who's caught the bug of reading, that's, you know, that's a good thing.
12:41We all have to, we all have to have a feeling that we owe our world a favor.
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