Writer recalls family visit to Jeddah while father worked in Saudi Arabia

A family photo taken in Jeddah during the 1980s captures the writer at six, when he caught mumps and suffered diarrhoea during a visit to see his father, who was working in Saudi Arabia. In the 1980s a recession in the British construction industry pushed many workers to Saudi Arabia, which needed labour for major building projects.

His father, recently out of work, was among those who went; the family travelled to see him twice, once to Riyadh and once to Jeddah. Riyadh was objectively better, with a worker's compound that had a pool, a restaurant and space to run; in Jeddah the father shared a tiny flat on Palestine Street.

The writer recalls being struck by the scale and noise of the city: shiny, large buildings, roads dotted with modern art, a giant fountain that changed colour at night, and the call to prayer sounding across Jeddah. He remembers the Middle East Shopping Centre, with glass-walled lifts, tutti frutti ice cream and a checkout clerk who let him beep through the shopping; he later looked the centre up online and found it a notch or two below Lakeside.

The photo is his favourite because it reminds him of a time when the whole family was together: his mother, who had essentially raised him alone for the previous couple of years, shared the load and his father was giddy about showing them around. They swam in the Red Sea, went to the desert where his father let him steer the car, and played on an Atari 2600.

Key Topics

Culture, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, British Construction Industry, Palestine Street, Red Sea