With National Day coming up, I decided I’d share these photos from Verity Cridland’s archive taken in June 1962, when Kuwait celebrated its first National Day.
National Day used to be celebrated on June 19, but due to the summer heat an Amiri decree merged National Day with the accession anniversary of the late Amir Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, officially moving the celebration to February 25.
Verity was 12 years old when her father moved to Kuwait from Baghdad in 1958 as an assistant chief engineer, mainly responsible for roads and roundabouts. He lived here for five years before returning to England. Verity, her mother, brother and sister only visited Kuwait three times during that period, and most of the photos she later scanned and uploaded to Flickr were taken by her mother, with only a few by her father.
I’ll link to the Verity Cridland archive in a second, but first, I’ve put together all the National Day photos in a single post and shared them on my Instagram. The photos here are from two different celebrations and you can see them by clicking here.
Alternatively, if you want to go through her full archive, click here.