[West Ender]

In Saudi Arabia, where the women's veils don't even have slits for the eyes (they are fine muslin so they can see, even if it's rather a dark view on life), you would often see a woman lift her veil so she could look at something in, say, a shop. If there was a man, alone, around she wouldn't do it but I often saw women lift their veils, discreetly, near my husband when he was with me.

Our Arab friend Munsha, who considered himself very Westernised as he owned a pair of jeans and a pair of cowboy boots, hated the fact that his mother and sisters had to be veiled to go out. We met one of his sisters at the petrol station/garage his family owned on the road to Jeddah. She came out of the office veiled but, when she saw there was no one else around, she threw the veil off and giggled while Munsha told us he had taught her to drive, off-road in the desert where no one could see. Saudi women are forbidden to drive.

She didn't speak any English and my Arabic was confined to Salaam Aleikum and Inshallah but we got on "like a house on fire", with Munsha translating. She said she wanted to visit England and no way would she wear a veil when she did. Was she right? As far as I'm concerned she was dead right.