Originally Posted by
Ivan Cloherty
Because the authorities assumed that every religion was as strict as their own and that catholics had mass every morning and took wine with mass so would need a bigger allowance, the C of E only had a euchrist every Sunday and not every day, so a reduced allowance, the Presbs, didn't have a mass so no wine, but were given a token allowance as ex-pats. There was a nice catholic church in Dubai at that time. Sheik Mohamed was a very tolerant man and used to treat every nationality on their particular Saints Day, with food and liquor being flown in from that countr, virtually the only hotel in those daysy at his expense and held in the Intercontinental, as my wife was Irish we got to go to two national days, all four of the UK Saints were represented, we eventually got invited to all four. The only thing the Sheik asked of all ex-pats of whatever nationality is that they never drank in public during Ramadan or eat in the street or restaurant windows during the same period, it all appeared to work well (1970's) and I cannot recall anyone abusing it.
