© 2008 Martin Lovegrove

I worked in Riyadh from September 1964 until July 1966 as an Assistant Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the College of Engineering, Riyadh.  The first year was as a volunteer under the auspices of Voluntary Service Overseas; the second year was as a full-time member of staff at the UNESCO-staffed college.  My specialist subjects were Engineering Drawing and Workshop Technology.

During my first year, an approach was made by an American company, through the Ministry of Education, to the College for a draughtsman to assist drawing town and village plans from aerial photographs.  This provided me with work on two evenings a week at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry until my final departure in July 1966.  These plans were to be used to plan the installation of electricity throughout the Kingdom.

During my time in the Kingdom, I took many photographs, although because of the understandable traditional attitude of many of the residents towards cameras, not as many as I would have liked; local feelings had to be respected.  Unfortunately I became separated from the bulk of my collection many years ago and all that remain are duplicates and the casual snapshot of nothing in particular.  As it happens, these may be of more interest than the formal photographs of buildings etc.

I am currently cleaning and scanning these slides and producing digital images.  I hope that the images here will show a little about life in Riyadh all those years ago.

The reason these pages appear at all is a result of a Google search.  I had been looking at images of Riyadh using Google Earth with the intention of finding the places I could remember from my stay in the city.  I has trouble with what I knew as King Saud’s palace at Nasiriyah; I just could not recognise the area.  The Google search directed me to a magnificent site produced by Keith Wheeler who had worked in the capital a few years earlier.  Keith’s efforts inspired me to scan my slides and his site lead to contact with the director of Al-Turath, a non-profit making organisation dedicated to preserving the Kingdom’s heritage.

The index page for these photographs contains thumbnail images that link to pages with a larger image and description.  The image description may contain the reason for taking the photo; for many, the reason remains a mystery, but I’m glad I did!  There may be some errors (only minor I hope) in descriptions; all this was a long time ago and memory plays tricks over time.

Site last updated 24 July 2007