It was so exciting to be boarding an aeroplane to Dubai. My husband had already gone ahead, I had dressed the five children in their best clothes because we were going on an adventure. We flew over Baghdad and we all peered down whilst I told tales from the Arabian Nights.

The heat hit us as we descended from the plane and the air was filled with the exotic aroma of a foreign land.

Our new home was a bungalow set in the desert with marble floors and en-suite bathrooms. We were not used to such luxury. Camels wandered passed.

When I was a small child, I envied the boys that were allowed to have a Jeep pedal car. I longed to have a Jeep and now my longing was assuaged in the purchase of a Diahtsu jeep. It was such fun, We would drive through the Souk with Beethoven’s 5th symphony blaring, the five children in the back and across the desert to the sea.

We saved up to buy a small dinghy. There is invariably an offshore wind on the coast so we sailed out quite happily but how to return to the beach? I would jump out of the boat into the water and push the boat back! The children all learnt to sail by trial and error. I did not.

I never tired of walking across the desert with the children to the sea in the early mornings to cook eggs and bacon on the beach. I thought it was perfect Enid Blyton.

The two foster girls did not really appreciate this.

‘What we are going again to the beach to eat eggs and bacon? That’s boring.’

On our walk to the beach, we met the Water Tanky man. He was a Bhutan from the Khyber Pass. He lived in a palm-built house with his wife and children and was the guardian of a water tank. He became our friend and would always give us bread and tea as we passed even in Ramadan. He could not read or write but when we left Dubai, he would go to a scribe in the market, and send us letters.  He bought us a plastic Christmas tree inclusive of lights that he sent to us. This must have cost him many weeks wages on his meagre salary. I am forever humbled by the kindness of people who have so little. Our European wealth cannot repay them.

We would also spend weekends driving through the desert to Waddi Hatta, an oasis which I think is now a tourist resort, and then on to Rasal-Khaima, on the Oman border, where we would camp and swim.

Our time in Dubai was a good one. Of course, the other ex-patriates spent their time hotel surfing and shopping, yet there were still tribal people living in the desert, there were still mud built wind towers, a system of cooling where a breeze was channelled through a tower into the living space.

We found old Arabia in modern Dubai.