Beginnings

VIOLETTE WAS five years old when the British conquered the Turks and entered Baghdad in 1917.  When the Anglo-Indian forces arrived

        the Indian soldiers and theTommies
        — N’gléz we called them all —
       showered us local children with silver
       coins in a bid to make friends, and
       everyone celebrated. There were annas
       and rupees and chocolates and
       chewing gum — Wrigley’s best — and
       all kinds of novelties.  

She had been born in the heart of the old city, the
Jewish quarter of Hennouni, a rabbit-warren of alleyways displaying little of the romantic charm evoked by the Arabian Nights tales of Ali Baba, Aladdin and Sinbad.

        All the houses in the neighbourhood were designed to cope with the climate  
        and provide facilities for extended family life.  They were built in on themselves
        for security and protection,  away from prying eyes, the idea being that if you
        had no windows on the outside you would not have any break-ins, so from 
        the streets which were just wide enough for a cart to pass all you could see
        was brick walls. Far from being attractive, these lanes were quite squalid,  
        infested with rats and cockroaches and food for stray cats… 

• Baghdad, 1912: a German map made for their Turkish allies (updated in 1917)             • Hennouni, as it was to develop

 
The alleyways were always filthy, as street cleaners were unheard of, and they formed a labyrinth in which it was easy to get lost. They were lined with sellers and pedlars offering wares and services that were practical but not always hygienic. A barber would squeeze himself into a corner, for instance: he might have no shop but this did not stop him from offering a range of ministrations far beyond the basics of shaves and haircuts — pulling teeth, for example, and lancing boils in full public view.

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