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A witness to amazing growth of Abu Dhabi

ABU DHABI — Briton David Spearing first came to know about Abu Dhabi in 1959 while working with engineering consultancy Halcrow — still a major player in the UAE — in West Africa.

"I knew about Abu Dhabi because they were working on surveys at that time in Abu Dhabi for a possible new airport and a bridge," Spearing says.

By 1968, when he was located in Yorkshire in the North of England, his boss, a Mr Poulson, got some work in Abu Dhabi for which he hired a manager. An assistant was also needed, however.

"In Yorkshire getting an architect to come to London was difficult enough; to get one to consider going abroad was impossible. [Poulson] put pressure on me to take it. Eventually, I agreed on the basis of [going for] three months [but a] maximum of six, so that I would be back in the UK by Christmas 1968," he says.

The man in charge left and so Spearing, a civil engineer, took over the local operation. The rest, as they say, is history.

He vividly remembers every detail of his arrival in what was to become the UAE's capital. "It was quite an episode from the beginning. We landed and it was just one runway and a little hut which was the terminal building," says Spearing.

He waited to be picked up by a colleague but "no one turned up... The guys who were manning the airport came out [of the hut], switched off the lights and there we were in pitch black outside." He eventually found a small hotel and found out that his lift had gone off to Abu Dhabi with his family.

On reaching Abu Dhabi the next day, he went to The Club. "There was this old man sitting in the corner who was a famous man in Abu Dhabi. He said, 'You are new here are you?' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'You are not a member of The Club then. Get the forms, get the forms!' So I joined The Club within about half an hour of arriving in Abu Dhabi!"

Much of the entertainment then was homemade or revolved around The Club. Spearing can even claim to be the first disc jockey in the city.

"I had a reel-to-reel tape recorder and a record-player. I had written to HMV and got the top forty. I played them all night [one time] and that is how I claim to be the first DJ in Abu Dhabi."

After the company he was working for went bust in the UK, he returned home in 1971. But he was back in the UAE — this time in Dubai — four years later. He quickly moved to Abu Dhabi again and retired in 1999, carrying on some consultancy work since.

Talking about how Abu Dhabi has changed since the 60s and 70s, Spearing says: "People ask, 'Do you prefer it as it was or as it is now?' In a sense, I enjoyed it as it was. But, being a structural engineer, I would never have come if it was going to do what has happened. So I am a contradiction in terms really."

With fewer people and a smaller place, Spearing says it was easier to mix in with the local culture all those years ago.

"The locals I have become friendly with are genuinely superb people. They are so natural, so uninhibited and unpretentious. I had an interesting time because I was doing work for Shaikh Khalifa. I would be invited out to meet local friends and we would go for dinner in typical Arab style. And, of course, there were the camel races. One did a lot more camping out and was invited to weddings in Liwa. That type of thing is probably difficult to go to now," he recalls.