Sharjah Flats

Sharjah Flats
(Photograph taken in the 1960s at Sharjah in the Trucial States)
This apartment block (known at the time in British English as "the flats") was the only European-style rentable accomodation in Sharjah. As at that time Sharjah did not have an electricity supply and the flats were supplied by a private generator. This was essential considering the need for airconditioning, although the locals made do with traditional cooling towers, a shaft to the roof of the house with an opening facing the prevailing direction of the wind.

International Aeradio Ltd rented four of the flats for its employees, and while I was there one of them was unoccupied and sub-let to Ray, a representative of an American oil company that was attempting to obtain the oil rights to Sharjah.