Michael D.Heath-Caldwell M.Arch.

1920

General Frederick Heath-Caldwell CB aged 61/62.

Constance M.H. Heath-Caldwell aged 50/52

Cuthbert Eden Heath OBE aged 60/61

Sarah Heath aged 60/61

Admiral Sir Herbert Heath KCB, MVO, etc aged 58/59

General Sir Gerard M. Heath KCMG, 56/57

Lt Cmdr Cuthert H. Heath-Caldwell DSO aged 30/31

Viotet M. Heath-Caldwell

Patricia Constance Mary Heath-Caldwell aged 0 

Leopold C. Heath (Griggs) aged 25/26

Genesta Farquhar (ne Heath) – aged 20/21

Madeline Marion de Salis (ne Heath) aged 26/27

Rosamond Heath (Posy) aged 25/26

Heather Eva Genesse Bullen (ne Farquhar) aged 0

Diary of Genesta Farquhar (ne Heath - newly married)

Wednesday 7th January 1920

We got a boat this afternoon after a lot of hard talking and crossed to the islands. She is a good little boat, a racing boat, all sail. We saw the wreck of an Italian ship which was carrying timber when she was driven ashore on rocks.

Monday 12th January 1920

In a charabanc to the Gorges du Loup. It is amazing country, immense hills, bare and high with these wonderful roads winding up, all in perfect condition. The Saut du Loup is where the stream springs out from the rock so that one can walk behind it. We reached a village called Gourdon, about a thousand feet up onthe top of a rock with a view over the sea to the Corsican mountains.

Wednesday 4th February 1920

We went to Monaco and over the palace which is very beautiful, though quite small. This place is a gem of a town; small, immensely rich and perfectly kept.

Sunday 8th February 1920

On donkeys to St. Agnes, an old Saracen town in the mountains, hidden away behind a cleft in the rock. We climbed on foot to the old castle, perched on the topmost crag, andon the way I got into a panic for no reason at all and hung where I was until helped by Tom. It is a wonderful old town, at least a thousand years old, with low-roofed houses where the donkeys lived underground. I suppose the houses were built so low because these coast villages were constantly raided by Saracen slavers, and the villagers hoped they would not see the houses.

Saturday 28th February 1920

Boarded the Marechal Bugeaud for Algiers.

Sunday 29th February 1920

This is a terrible boat - she rolled even in harbour, and the sea is now quite rough. There is a party of Foreign Legion recruits on board. They must be miserable - this is the first of their many tough times to come.

Monday 1st March 1920

Landed at last, and went to the St.George Hotel on the hill. The Arabs are interesting to me, though Tom saw more than enough of them in the war.This hotel is beautiful. The garden is full of flowers, beds of stocks and freesias, with purple and scarlet bougainvillaea and wistaria climbing all over the house. It used to be an old Turkish palace - the Turks owned the country before the French took it. Strange that the people who had created such beauty could then live in such abject discomfort and filth. The hotel has been modernised up to a point, and is full of old carvings and quaint window sills. Outside is a wide, shady marble terrace.

Tuesday 2nd March 1920

Went to the town and were promptly picked up outside the mosque by an Arab soldier who took us inside. We took off our shoes and wandered around. It did not seem very impressive;it is dark and quiet with several rough, round pillars, and hung with coloured rugs and cloths. Near the door there is a large basin for the Arab's ablutions - feet, hands and face - before and after praying. It sounds as if they ought to be a clean race, but oh, the flies!

Then the soldier took us through the Arab quarter. We wandered about trying not to tread on the beggars and not to look, even, at some of them. Finally reached a place where he said there were dancing girls. We went up some rickety satirs, round a gallery over the courtyard and into a small room with a huge brass bed enclosed with curtains. There was a lamp burning on the floor; the whole place looked dark and nasty. Our guide said that four girls would dance for forty francs, or one for twenty;so we said no thank you, quite politely, and left. We ended up in the French cathedral, another converted mosque, which would have been gorgeous except for two noisy children's school groups, both going round it at the same time.

Wednesday 24th March 1920

Left today for Biskra in a sleeper.

Thursday 25th March 1920

Changed our train for a perfect horror at El Guerra and bumped on through miles of dreary country, poorly cultivated since the soil is hard and stony. There were herds of goats and sheep with little Arab boys guarding them; and a Bedouin camp with squat, dark tents. The women wear bright, full, coloured dresses. Stopped at Batna for lunch and again at El Kantara, which is called the Gate to the Desert. Here there is a wide, palm-bordered river with immense red rocks, the 'gates,' towering up on each side of the line. The are terrific. Beyond the 'gates' is the same stony desert. El Kantara is an oasis,where it snows in winter. At last we reached Biskra and ended up at the Sahara Hotel, which has nothing wrong with it excpet the baths. 

Friday 26th March 1920

This is a lovely place, with clear, dry air. Our room looks onto the gardens where several old Arabs sit spitting and talking in their explosive language all day long. There is a nice guide boy her, Bel Kassim. He took us over the market this morning and through the bazaar -  a marvellous sight. Biskra is one of the marketing centres of the Sahara. Everywhere there are hundreds of Arabs, squatting on the ground, wandering about, playing games under the arches of the buildings, sitting in their shops, all dressed in white burnouses. They are all of the same type, tall men, averaging over six feet, with pale brown skins, well-cut features and magnificent black eyes. Camels, donkeys, sheep, goats, jostling and braying at each other. Some of the men are negroes from the south - big men, very black, with squat noses and beady eyes. We wandered about the whole morning, fascinated.

After lunch we walked to the Garden of Allah and roamed around it. It is a big place with sandy, well-kept paths and immense trees, many palms and hundreds of others making a dark green, scented shade. There are very few flowers - Kassim picked me some. After leaving the garden we went to call on the Agah who was working in his bureau. We were taken into a large room hung with rugs, saddles, veils, ornaments, birdles, photographs, swords and a large painting of the Agah.

Saturday 27th March 1920 - Biskra, Algeria

Went off on camels at eight this morning for the sand dunes. It is the first time I've been within biting distance of one, and I used to hate them. They look so absurd. Tom's camel roared the whole time, weaving his ridiculous neck about and loathing us all. He frequently lay down, then got up and wandered off on his own. At last we got under way and suddenly I loved it; so swinging and easy. My old beast seemed resigned to everything, and never made a fuss. Kassim rode a tiny donkey, his toes touching the ground on each side. We went to the dunes and then turned through a real plague of sand flies. At the oasis we  had lunch and slept in the shade. We saw an Arab fertilizing dates by hand, a most delicate operation.

Started home when it was cooler, and got in very stiff and happy. Tonight we went to a cafe to see the Ouled Nails dancing. They seem to be a tribe of dancing women; they are all fat and danced the 'danse du ventre,' jerking their tummies up and down, round and round. Two of them danced the 'danse de mains' which was prettier than the other dances but not so interesting. The music is unmelodious: a big drum, a little drum, a violin with two strings (three if it's lucky), a banjo and a pipe that drowns everything else. Once a horrid sight came in - a Sudanese negro dressed in a kilt of jackal skins covered with mirrors, and a high head-dress. He carried a tom-tom and had face like a monkey. He jumped about, sang, beat the tom-tom and fluttered his tongue at people for money. When given any he jumped at it and licked it up.

Monday 28th March 1920 - Biskra, Algeria

Kassim had a carriage waiting for us, so we drove through Vieux Biskra. One book I have read says it is wrong to call it that, as there was once a warrior named Ould-Biskra;the town was called after him and 'old' may be a corruption of 'ould.' It is very quaint and pretty with mud walls each side of the town, palm trees leaning over the tops of them, children dressed in mixtures of bright colours, and unveiled women with enormous silver ear-rings that touched their shoulders. These are negro women - one very rarely sees true Arab women out of doors. Water runs down the sides of most of the tracks and often you see an Arab washing bits of himself in the streams. And yet they are covered with fleas who live in their clothes. We took home at least a couple every time we went out.

Tuesday 29th March 1920 - Sidi Okba, Algeira

At seven this morning we started off for Sidi Okba on horses - of sorts. There was a really good, well-fed, well-bred chestnut belonging to a friend of Kassim's - he stuck his fine little nose in the air and tried to run away with me when I wanted to canter. Then a starved and overworked black with subdued manners and a head like a mule; and a pathetic white creature, all ribs and bones. These two came from a stable and I'd like to kick the owner out, then rest and feed these poor horses. Some of the desert we crossed is firm, baked sand, good for galloping; but further on there are small hummocks with green stuff growing out of them. The horizon line is always that mysterious, wonderful purple, promising everything - but which no one ever reaches. Tom wandered about bird-hunting and it took five hours to do the fourteen kilometres to the village. We passed herds of grazing camels, guarded by cheerful brown men with pleasant faces and white teeth; long carbines were slung over their shoulders. The camels looked at us as only camels can look, snaky neck slightly twisted, head half sideways and very stiff, supercilious, half-shut eyes.

There were Bedouin camps with low, black tents, fires burning, animals tethered or hobbled, and big dogs barking and rushing at us. At Sidi Okba we had lunch in a pretty garden, while Kassim played his flute and a splendid-looking Arab sat on a bench, turning the other end into a drum. I bought some ear-rings, a knife and one or two ornaments, hideous and quaint.

We went over the mosque where Sidi Okba is buried. He was the Prophet's barber and came here from Arabia with a strong army, preaching Mohammedanism - 'believe or die,' He was extremely brave and fought many battles. He was killed fighting the defenders of Timgad and was buried in this mosque. Outside his tomb are heavly glass ornaments, cloths, coloured paper and pictures of Mecca. At the side of the mosque, facing Mecca hangs a large crystal ball.

Outside the mosque is a court with pillars, dazzling white in the sun. There is a fine Roman door made of carved wood with great wooden bars down it, all carved. We went up the minaret and the Arab guardian told me some interesting things about the history of the place. He said the Romans were the first rulers of all this land, and that he didn't know where the first Arabs came from. The Roman door was brought from a temple in a village halfway between Biskra and Touggourt, a negro village for freed slaves 200 kilometres south of Biskra.

We went through the village (catching some of Sidi Okba's special brand of fleas) and at last said good-bye to everyone, mounted and rode home. The camel-herders had caught a jerboa which I bought. It had soft grey fur, huge black eyes, tiny forelegs and long hind ones, and travelled in big hops; they live in the sand all day and come out at night. I carried him in front of me and he put his nose inside my coat. I let him be because I thought the sunlight might be worrying him, and just held the string his leg was tied to. The little beast  scrambled right up my coat and came scratching out at my neck. Halfway home I let him go; he would probably have died. He bit me hard and scratched with those claws of his, but we got him untied at last and he hopped away. 

After that we galloped, because there was a sandstorm coming up. It looked wonderful; a purple distance, a flaming red sky and a driving mass of low clouds that seemed like evil genii let loose, crowding up to whirl the sand. The mountains were covered with a wicked red haze, moving behind Biskra, and then seeming to turn and come back on it. We got in to the hotel and shut the windows. The real storm missed Biskra, but a lot of sand penetrated the rooms.

Thursday 31st March 1920 - Biskra, Algeria

Tonight we went to an Arab cafe to see the sword dance. Two men had swords - heavy, curved scimitars - and one knelt on the floor. The one who was standing whirled the sword round his head, round his neck, caught it in the other hand, played with it, whirling it all the time so quickly you could not see the blade. He slashed forty or fifty times at the man on the floor, who parried, then the first one whirled his sword again, quick as lightning. The 'music' came from a big war drum pounding away and a shrieking pipe. It was a splendid show.The other dancing was the same as usual; but one of the girls, a very lovely Ouled Nail, danced up and made eyes at Kassim. He looked virtuously at the floor. Then she asked him for a cigarette and got it. At last she leaned forward and said something to him, at which he shook his head and she went away. I said, 'What a lovely girl,' and he said that she had offered "Si cela fera plaisir a monsieur et madame, de danser toute nue!' I think he would have blushed if he had been fair enough.

Friday 1st April 1920 - Timgad, Algeria

At last we had to leave Biskra - it has been so interesting here - and came to Batna where we got a car and motored out to Timgad. The country is a green plain bordered with mountains. It was lit by a gorgeous sunset, crimson behind the hills, with the sky above like a clear green opal and the plain below the purest gold. An old camel looked fine for the first time in his life, standing on a hilltop, black against the sky. We passed Lambese, where there are many ruins practically untouched, and reached Timgad after a forty kilometre drive. The hotel here is absolutely bare, nothing but necessitie, but it is quite adequate, food passable and the people are charming.

Saturday 2nd April 1920 - Timgad, Algeria

Spent a fascinating day among the ruins. All this country was part of the Roman Empire. Lambese was a garrison town; Timgad was built for a marketing centre, to make friends, and trade with, the native Berbers, called by them Thamugadi, was founded by the III Legion of colonial troops, under the Emporer Trajan in about AD100. The tribes were always raiding, and the Romans didn't like the early Christians who lived there, either. At last, at the end of the seventh century, a Roman general arrived  one day to find the town in flames, pillaged and sacked, with the Berbers camped outside the walls.

After that it simply fell to pieces, earthquakes shook it down and the rains covered it with earth from the hills, so that no one in Europe knew it existed. The first man to find it was a Scotsman named Bruce (Bruce was a famous travellor;I believe it was he who discovered Petra. No French book mentions him - they want people to think they were the first to find Timgad, in 1745.) I dare say he was one of Prince Charlie's exiles. he mentioned the town in his memoirs, but couldn't say anything about it as only the Arc de Trajan and a part of the capitol was showing above ground. Then in 1880 a French group arrived and started excavating. In these forty years they have done wonders.

The town used to cover about sixty acres. There are two good roads crossing it, Cardo Maximus (from north to south) and Decamanus Maximus (east to west). Beneath these roads are drains which still work, with movable stones at each end so that they could be washed out. They are deep enough for a tall man to stand in, upright.

The Arc de Trajan, which stands over the road to Lambese, is magnificent and very strong. There is everything that every Roman town has - forum, theatre, capitol, even a library. So far the excavators have found thirteen public baths - besides baths in each of the big houses. There are marketplaces and some charming little temples, also Christian churches and monasteries, and a beautiful baptismal font, in perfect mosiac, some way outside the town. They have found fine statues, and one or two exquisite bronzes. It is fascinating to wander about among the ruins and think about those Romans here, two thousand years ago, and their courage as they fought off the Arabs. These usually left the Christians alone, but once they took five priests, carried them away to Lambese, and from there to the mountains where they were left for wild animals to kill.

During all the years that the Romans were there, Berber Arabs never ceased harassing them. Today we saw the Byzantine fort, where, I suppose, the last stand was made. It is a big strong place, and the walls are full of human bones. Little Arab boys chased us with Roman coins to buy, and we picked up one or two which we hoped were not fakes. When the Romans controlled this arid country they brought water many miles in a large aqueduct for the people, the cattle and the crops. No one brings water now; the aqueduct is ruined. Biskra has a few wells that suffice the handful of people living there.

Monday 4th April 1920 -Timgad, Algeria

Easter Day. Out just once more in the morning to say goodbye to Timgad, then we had to leave for Batna. Stopped at Lambese on the way and saw the museum there, with a splendid mosaic. Lambese was much bigger than Timgad, with ninety thousand inhabitants. It has hardly been excavated at all - one has only to buy some land and dig, to find almost anything. Nobody bothers about it! At Batna we had tea at the Hotel des Etrangers, which is run by a nice Englishman who was very interesting about the country and the Arabs. He has travelled a lot out here, and even made friends with the wild and fierce Tuaregs, who live a long way south of Ouragla.  They gave him a fine throwing spear.

Left for Constantine and got in very weary and dirty. Staying at the Cirta; it is the best hotel here, but no expensive.

Tuesday 5th April 1920 - Constantin, Algeria

This town is centuries old, built on the side of a deep gorge. The Romans had a strong garrison here. We went down the gorge, along a tiny track, and looked up at tremendous cliffs towering above us. They are completely disfigured by drainpipes, largely decaying, down the rocky sides, and trippers' names which are scratched everywhere on the rocks. There are hundreds of birds: vultures, ravens, pigeon and storks, who stand silent and motionless on every roof. We crawled along while Tom stopped perpetually to look at these boring things through his glasses - all in the boiling sun. I was profoundly thankful to get home at last. The gorge would be marvellous if it wasn't for mankind.

Looking out onto the big square in front of the hotel we see herds of pack-donkeys passing, almost hidden under enormous burdens - sacks of meal or loads of wood - plodding along on their tiny feet with their big ears drooping. Carts pass with six or eight or even eleven horses in them - miserable, starved Arab beasts, all bones and sores; four of them do not equal the strength of one European horse.Today we heard a monotonous chanting and saw about a hundred Arabs singing a funeral song and carrying two bodies to the mosque. They were not in coffins, but covered with green clothes embroidered in scarlet.

The Arab women wear black from head to foot, with a white veil. There is a big Jewish quarter; the women are very good-looking, with white skins and large dark eyes. The wear gay colours: green and red, yellow and blue turbans, big gold and mother-of-pearl ear-rings, anklets, bracelets and necklaces. The put pretty little pointed caps on one side of their heads, and on top of the whole thing Paisley shawls! Heaven knows where they came from.

Wednesday 6th April 1920 - 

This afternoon we went out with Colonel and Mrs Sparrow, friends of Tom's, an Arab climber and two other Arabs on an egging expedition. We went to the gorge, down a steep hill under the the most appalling drain, a truly French drain, round a corner and came suddenly out on an astonishing sight. On our left was the gorge with a splendid cascade of water about sixty feet high, roaring donw the crevice. A few yards on was another one, sparkling and crashing into a pool, beyond which it spread away to the river, wide and quiet, full of rocks and stones, with lovely country each side of it. Above the cascade stood several hundred feet of sheer cliff.

Tom wanted some eggs. One of the nests was across the gorge; we sat and watched the three Arabs cross the water and climb a tall cliff oppoiste. One climber is a perfect monkey. Give him a tail and he would go anywhere! As it was he made good with rope. He went to the point, made fast the rope, tied himself up and swarmed down the rock, hanging on with toes and fingers, a drop of hundreds of feet below him sheer down to the river. After that display he went after two other nests in just the same way, creeping about on the face of the rock like a snake. He was slung down a crevice and tucked himself up and sang while another man fetched him a stick. He let down his turban to pull the nest up, hanging on by one hand. He said he has been climbing these rocks all his life, hunting pigeons - ' moi pas peur des rochers, moi enfant des rochers!'

Thursday 7th April 1920 - Constantin, Algeria

We saw the old Governor's Palace, where the Arab chief of the town once lived. It is a beautiful place with many courtyards leading one out of the other. Each one has a balcony running round a square, covered with red and purple bougainvillaea, wistaria, arum lillies and orange trees. It would be perfect if it wasn't full of podgy little men in European clothes scuttling about. We also saw the mosque of Salah Bey, the best we have seen here but not very fine; none of these mosques are. Tom says the Syrian mosques and the Egyptian ones are magnificent. These all look like failures!




Dundee Courier

Friday 7 May 1920

Investiture at Aberdeen

Prince Henry Bestows Many Honours.

Bright weather favoured the presence of Prince Henry in Aberdeen yesterday on the occasion of the investiture on behalf of the King. 

 - - - In attendance on His Royal HIghness were his equerry, Major R. Seymour, general staff; Vice-Admiral Sir Herbert Leopold Heath, Commander-in-Chief of the Scottish Coast; Lieut-General Sir Francis J. Davies,  - - -

Aberdeen Press and Journal

Wednesday 15 September 1920

In the presence of a distinguished gathering, which included the First Lord of the Admiralty (the Hon. Walter Long), and Admiral Sir Charles Madden Bt., the marriage of Madeleine Marion Cathering Heath, eldest daughter of Admiral Sir Herbert Heath K.C.B., M.V.O., Commander-in-Chief East Coast of Scotland, and Lady Heath, to  Lieutenant-Commaner Rudolf Henry Fane de Salis D.S.C., eldest son of Admiral William de Salis M.V.O., took place in the Naval Chapel of St.Margaret's at Rosyth yesterday.

The bride, who was given away by her father, was beautifully attired in white charmeuse,with veil of old lace. The bridesmaids were Miss Rosamund Heath and Miss Ursula de Salis, who wore frocks of apricot satin, with nigger brown tulle hats. The groomsmen were Lieutenant A.T. de Salis and Lieutenant Colin Campbell, Royal Navy.

West Sussex County Times.
Saturday 23 October 1920

An engagement is announced between Frederick Dunbar Heath, captain, Sussex Yeomanry, only surviving son of Mr and Mrs A.R. Heath of Kitlands, Holmwood, Surrey, and Dorothy Nairne, only daughter of Mr F.A. Spencer, late assistant secretary Government of Bombay, and Mrs Spencer, of 46 Woodbury Park Rd, Tunbridge Wells.