EPISODE 8
July 7, 2021
In the early ’70s, Diana left Chicago, relocating permanently to London, where she graduated from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African studies. Her postgraduate research focused on Islamic studies. Following university positions, she was appointed Director of Education at the British Council in Hong Kong. She lectured at various educational institutions throughout China and East Asia, and during this time developed an interest in the history of the Silk Road. Today, Diana has more than 40 years of experience studying and exploring Ancient Near and Middle East history, languages, religion, and culture. Her research now covers the history, art and archaeology, cultures, and religions covering over 5,000 miles of road and 3000 years of history from Rome, Italy to Xi’an, China and down through the Indian sub-continent.
TRANSCRIPT
Louise: Hello, welcome to Women Who Walk. I’m Louise Ross writer and author of Women Who Walk the book, the inspiration for this podcast. And just as I did for the book here, I’ll be interviewing and unpacking the journeys of impressive, intrepid women, who’ve made multiple international moves for work, for adventure, for love, for freedom. You can find show notes to each episode and my books on my website, LouiseRoss.com.
[00:00:46] Hello listeners. Welcome to Episode 8 of Women Who Walk. My guest today is Diana Driscoll.
[00:00:54] Diana is originally from the US. She grew up in 1950s Chicago where her Irish grandmother frequently called upon Diana to be her travel company. At 14, on a grand tour of Europe with a stopover in London, apparently Diana’s Granny Barr sat in a deck chair, looking at Buckingham palace and announced that she was not going back to Chicago until she saw the Queen. Fortunately, the Queen peeked from behind a curtain and looked right at her. Granny Barr, and this trip, were very influential in Diana deciding that she would study at the University of London and continue to travel.
[00:01:36] In the early ’70s, Diana relocated permanently to the UK, where she graduated from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African studies. Her postgraduate research focused on Islamic studies. She was awarded a distinction for her dissertation on the philosophical writings of al-Farabi, the 9th century, Islamic philosopher from Central Asia and Maimonides the 12th century Judaic philosopher.
[00:02:07] She continued studying and traveling throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and India during her career as a higher education administrator at Britain’s leading universities. Following positions at the University of Bath, and within the University of London, she was appointed Director of Education at the British Council in Hong Kong. She lectured at various educational institutions throughout China and East Asia, and during this time developed an interest in the history of the Silk Road.
[00:02:40] Today, Diana has more than 40 years of experience studying and exploring Ancient Near and Middle East history, languages, religion, and culture. Her research now covers the history, art and archaeology, cultures, and religions covering over 5,000 miles of road and 3000 years of history from Rome, Italy to Xi’an, China and down through the Indian sub-continent.
[00:03:08] I feel very fortunate to have met Diana in 2015, when I took her Arts and Culture tour of Morocco, a six-day immersion experience in the history, architecture, geographic beauty of Arab and Berber Islamic Morocco. Several months later, Diana was giving a lecture at the British Museum in London. She invited me to attend her lecture and stay for the weekend. It was a very successful visit. So much so, Diana subsequently offered me the opportunity to housesit for her two-to-three times a year – pre COVID, that is – as she frequently travels lecturing for Cox and Kings Art and Culture tours to Uzbekistan and Iran and for Steppes Travel Silk Road Tour: Kyrgyzstan and China.
[00:03:57] I’m thrilled to have Diana as a guest on the podcast today, as she truly is a storehouse of wisdom on the various histories of the Silk Road.
[00:04:07]
[00:04:18] Welcome Diana, it’s great to talk with you. We haven’t spoken since before the pandemic, so it’s lovely to catch up even if it’s just online.
[00:04:27] Diana: Yes, I absolutely agree. I feel like I’ve been sort of in an alternative universe for the last 18 months.
[00:04:33] Louise: Yeah. So Diana, generally I have my podcast guests who are dotted around the world, start by setting the scene and describing where they are. So maybe tell us where you are, perhaps give listeners a sense of your neighborhood. Maybe describe what you see out your windows.
[00:04:50] Diana: I live in north London and I’ve been living in north London, well, I’ve been living in London for the last 40 years, plus. And looking out the window, I see a great tree and it’s a cherry tree. And over the last six weeks, I had all these flipping pigeons all over the cherry tree, but the cherries are gone and so are the pigeons. So now I can really look at the neighborhood again, and it’s wonderful living in London because from my window, I can see the museums, the art galleries.
[00:05:18] I can see the diverse amount of people who are here. Something like 60% of London are people who are not, as it were, British. So it’s a very diverse place. From north London, I can walk up to fields and to cemeteries and see the tomb of Karl Marx. I can walk down the Holloway Road and I see people from Somalia, from Russia, Poland, Turkey, America, and south America. My cleaner is from south America. It’s just extraordinary all the different people are here and the diverse amount of languages in London.
[00:05:57] I’m a bicyclist so I get my bicycle and from my house I can cycle to the British Museum. I can cycle to the Victoria and Albert Museum. I can cycle to the Thames. And it’s a marvelous place to be.
[00:06:10] Louise: And you’re and you just need a Hampstead Heath too. And there’s a wonderful view of the city from the top of the Heath. And it features in so many British films doesn’t it.
[00:06:18] Diana: It does indeed. And they use the cemeteries for the hammer horror films also, because the cemeteries are so overgrown with weeds and vines. So it’s, it’s a very interesting cinematography place here in London.
[00:06:34] Louise: Thank you for sharing that. I think we have a really good sense of the setting. Now in the introduction, I mentioned that you’re originally from the US, and I think listeners would have already gathered that by, by your accent, and that you were your grandmother’s travel companion. And at the age of 14, on a trip through Europe with your granny, you decided you wanted to study in London and then travel the world. What was it about that trip that made such an impact?
[00:06:59] Diana: I was 14 years old. I had finished my first year in high school. I loved the course on world history taught by this fantastic nun. I grew up in a girl’s school with Franciscan nuns, and they were extraordinary women and they traveled all over the world. And this nun taught world history. And then my grandmother took me to Europe for the first and only time. And I thought I’m going to come back here. I want to live here.
[00:07:28] It was so wonderful to see everything. And I loved history. And we left London and the hotel we stayed in was just across from the School of Oriental and African Studies. And I said to my grandmother, I’m going to study there someday. I did 12 years later, I pitched up at the University of London and said, I’m here.
[00:07:48] Louise: What drew you to Oriental and African studies?
[00:07:52] Diana: I’ve always wanted to be an archaeologist.
[00:07:55] Louise: Ahhh.
[00:07:56] Diana: That’d be in conservation. I started as a social worker in Chicago. And I always did courses at the University of Chicago in the evening. And I, I just found myself in these courses and I talked to the lecturer there. He said, well, the only place to do a degree in archaeology and conservation is either University of Chicago or the Institute of Archaeology in London. Now I couldn’t afford the University of Chicago; it’s outrageous fees. So I had a friend in London, I went to visit her and I went to the Institute and they said, no, no, no, you really should go to the School of Oriental and African studies. And basically, it was all by chance.
[00:08:34] Louise: And then you followed those studies with post-graduate research focusing on Islamic studies. Now was that straight after you’d finished your undergraduate work, or was there a few years in between?
[00:08:46] Diana: When I finished my undergraduate work, I ended up working in administration at the university. I got a job back at the School of Oriental and African Studies as deputy registrar. And that’s taking care of all the student matters, exams and courses they’re doing, and letters, and all this kind of stuff. All student matters. But for my lunch hours, I would just go and do courses.
[00:09:08] And so the lecturers knew me, because it’s a very small institution. And what was interesting is that at the School of Oriental and African Studies, they teach everything from, basically from Morocco to Fiji, but no Russia and none of the Americas. So I would take courses and then I would speak to people about traveling to different countries. It was almost as if the lecturers and the professors just took me under their wing. And I would go off to these countries: Syria, Jordan, Burma, Indonesia, China, and they would tell me where to go and what buses to take and how to get around. I did a couple of language courses, so I just took off for my holiday.
[00:09:52] Louise: So it wasn’t like, like study abroad with your program. You just took off to these countries to explore them because you had been studying them.
[00:10:02] Diana: Yeah.
[00:10:02] Louise: Did you do this on your own? Or did you do it with a group?
[00:10:07 ] Diana: Sometimes I did on my own, and sometimes I did it with, um, another friend. So it was a combination. But I felt pretty comfortable doing it. Mainly because of the contacts. I was very lucky working at the university because wherever I went, I had contacts. I went to Burma and I met people in Burma, other professors. And I went to these countries and met people and went off on my own and did things. But it was that sort of way of getting to learn the country through colleagues.
[00:10:38] Louise: And then at some point you started to lecture at various Institutions throughout Asia.
[00:10:45] Diana: There was a position that came up at the British Council for an administrator. And that’s when I was about 42. So I quit. I just quit. Everyone said you can’t quit. You’re on a career ladder. I said, I’m getting off the ladder.
[00:11:02] Career ladders! I want to do something really different. I want to see if I can live in the country. Well, the position came up only in Hong Kong. So for three years I lived in Hong Kong, working for the British Council as their education advisor. And basically it was to recruit students to study in the UK. I went into China about eight different times. I joined various societies like Royal Hong Kong, Royal Asiatic Society; they had lots of lectures and things. I went on trips with people. Universities would call me and ask me to come and give lectures on British education, and other things. I ran education fairs in Hong Kong. We’d have like 600 people come from 200 different institutions, run a four-day education fair, that would almost give you a nervous breakdown, putting it together. And I had this education fair in China! Fifty institutions into Guangdong, China, their first education fair.
[00:12:04] Louise: And so while you were in China, is this the time then that you developed your interest in the history of the Silk Road?
[00:12:12] Diana: Yeah, it was then that I read a lot about China history and I thought, what is this thing called the Silk Road? Never heard about it before. I started doing a lot more reading about it, realized that it was one of the major highways of trade that was basically connecting Istanbul all the way to, well, Xian was the early, early Han Dynasty that we had ambassadors going there. And, I just thought, this is fascinating. I never knew about this. And then I realized all the different dynasties in China and all the history of China was connected to the steppes in the north, the Mongolian Plains, and how important all these places were. And the fact that all these different dynasties were not absolutely Chinese. And I just loved it. I thought it was fascinating.
[00:13:04] I went back to the University of London at the end of my three years with the British Council, I thought that was enough. I needed to go back. I was in my mid-40s, I thought I can’t be peripatetic all my life. And I went back to university administration, which was okay. But then I was offered early retirement. Friend of mine said, Diana, you’re in the wrong business. Forget this administration. You’re good at talking to people. She asked me to do one or two lectures at the university. So I took early retirement. And just before I retired, I had a phone call from Cox & Kings, one of the tour agencies saying, would you be the lecturer to come on our tour to Uzbekistan? And I said, of course!
[00:13:47] Louise: Cox & Kings really does wonderful tours. And you specifically do their Arts and Culture tours, don’t you?
[00:13:56] Diana: And I’ve been doing them for 12 years. Then I was called by Steppes Travel. So I do Uzbekistan, which is part of the Silk Road cities in central Asia. I’ve been doing that for about eight, nine years. And I keep going back. I know so many people there now. It’s like friends, I’ve got friends and I learn something new every time I go.
[00:14:17] From Kyrgyzstan to Xi’an, I’ve done groups to Morocco with you, and I’ve done groups to India, and I hope that next year I can do Pakistan.
Diana & Market Woman, Kyrgyzstan
[00:14:29] Louise: Could you, could you tell listeners a little about the, the two ‘Stan’ countries that you mentioned? I don’t think a lot of people think of Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan as places that they could easily visit. Could you tell us a little about those countries and your experiences there?
[00:14:48] Diana: Well, what’s interesting about what they call the ‘Stans’, which are almost the center of the silk road. If you drew a line from, Istanbul to China, straight to Xi’an in China, almost in the center is Central Asia. People didn’t know about Central Asia until 1991, because it was occupied by the Russians. The Russians occupied it from about the 1850s onward. They use it as their buffer state against the British Empire in India.
[00:15:21] And then in 1991, when the Soviet union was breaking up, they had a phone call saying, would you like to be independent? And they said, yes. So they basically divided into five countries. And the word ‘Stan’ means ‘a land of’. So Uzbeks are Uzbek speakers, Uzbeki-stan. Tajik means those who speak Tajik.
[00:15:46] Basically it was an ethnographic map that was divided up by t h e Russians in the 1890s. And after the countries broke up, when the Soviets took over, the Bolsheviks took over, they took out this ethnographic map and they made five countries that were never five countries because people in central Asia they’re traders. They’ve always been traders, since from, let’s say the time of Alexander the Great.
[00:16:10] And when I go to these central Asian countries, I’m amazed because when I bring my groups, we go visit various places and these traders can flip languages within seconds. They can speak English to us. A Frenchman comes in, it’s French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, you name it.
[00:16:31] Because it was so rich with trade, basically from the 15th century on, there were great rulers that came through there and built monumental buildings. Beautiful buildings, and using Persian architects. And because it’s a sandy country, the one thing they can decorate their buildings with, their mud brick buildings, is tiles. So they put these fabulous tiles all over their buildings. And that’s why it’s such a wonderful country to look at. It’s not just the monumental buildings, but it’s who created these buildings and what happened inside these buildings. And that’s my job as a lecturer. They can look at the buildings, but I’m going to put the people, and the history, and the smells, and the cooking that happened in the last 500 years, at least.
[00:17:18] Louise: Ooh. Tell us a little about the cooking. I don’t really know much about Central Asian food.
[00:17:24] Diana: Well, the cuisine of Central Asia’s is spices from India, smells from China. Noodles come from China. And then you get meats. It’s basically a meat diet. Lots of bread, just like you’d find any Middle Eastern country, but it’s not a flat bread. Central Asian bread is more round and doughy. You can Google Bukhara bread and you find some fantastic recipes. And on the bread, you have potatoes and spices and things like that. If I bring people on tours who are vegetarian, they get very worried because you know, it’s not very good for your health, not to have meat. And these people will be very sick if they don’t eat meat. So 10 years ago, the first vegetarians were given, for meals, were getting piles of potatoes and carrots.
[00:18:15] Louise: What is the meat? I mean, is it goat or is it beef.
[00:18:20] Diana: Beef,
[00:18:21] Louise: And dairy, do they, do they milk their stock?
[00:18:24] Diana: Yogurt. It’s not a very dairy oriented diet. It’s what’s around at the time. So it’s a lot of noodle stuff and things stuffed with noodles. Lasagna, dumplings. They start with salads. Pomegranates and you name it, it’s all seasonal. And at the end of the meal, if you’re there in the autumn it’s melons and peaches!
[00:18:47] When these people, the 15th centuries, when they were kicked out, the ruling dynasties were kicked out, they went to India and they became the Mughals of India. They brought their architecture to India. They brought their cuisine to India and they brought their gardens to India. They were the dynasty in the 15th century destroyed by the Turks. They moved into Agra and Delhi. The Taj Mahal. It’s all based on the same architecture.
[00:19:16] Louise: Speaking of the architecture, one of the things that, I think I’ve seen it on your website, is a glorious photo, probably in Bukhara in Uzbekistan of one of the blue-tiled mosques. The color is absolutely exquisite and the backdrop of course is a desert, can you tell us a little about the importance of that blue in Central Asia?
Blue Tiled Dome in Samarkand, Uzbekistan
[00:19:39] Diana: Well, the very first tiles that were fired with color, they had to put a glaze on the tile. Now, most tiles in the early, 12th, 13th century, they learned to put a glaze on, but sometimes the colors ran until they learned to control the color. And then they put tiles usually on the interior. And then in about 12, 13th century, they found turquoise was easy, was a first glaze, and it was very easy to do because it was a combination of different stones and they could combine it together, ground it, and they could paint it and they put a glaze over it and it didn’t wear out.
[00:20:21] So the very first color was turquoise. Then they found they could also combine it with a white. And the other color they use was a cobalt, which is also another rock, and they can grind that up, and that was your blue. That was your beautiful, fantastic blue. So the very early tiles were turquoise, white, and this cobalt blue.
[00:20:45] And then they found out they could mould, rather than flat tiles, they could mould them with a terracotta and they could add other colors to that. And they had to learn how to contain the colors so they didn’t run together. So the early colors are this wonderful turquoise, that you see, and the cobalt blue.
[00:21:09] The one color you couldn’t put on a tile was lapis lazuli. So a lot of people look at this blue and they call it lapis, but it isn’t because lapis fires gray. So you use lapis for manuscripts. And you live in a desert and you want to make color because deserts are dull. So it’s a way to deal with the desert with tiles. You build with what you have. So in this part of the Islamic world, we have a lot of desert. We have not much granite to build with. Stone. We have no stone. So the buildings are built with bricks that are usually sun dried, and then you put the tile over it and it will preserve the building. So they learned to put tiles on the outside of the building.
[00:21:59] Louise: Inside as well?
[00:22:01] Diana: Oh yes, yes. If you go to Istanbul you won’t see a lot of external tiles, because there’s stone. But in this part of the world, it’s just beautiful, and in contrast with the blue sky, with all the colors, it’s magnificent.
[00:22:15] Louise: I wondered if it had something to do with an association with the sky or if it was just a pragmatic decision based on what materials they had available. And it sounds like the latter, that it had more to do with the minerals that were available to them that created those colors.
[00:22:34] Diana: Yes. So once they had the use of colors, then it went into painting manuscripts. Beautiful manuscripts, you know, and use of gold and tiles also. And then they found a way they could make a mosaic tiles, like a puzzle, and put them together.
[00:22:49] But what they had, what these early dynasties had in the 15th century is slave labor. You need a lot of people. Tamerlane was the first person we know about as the great nomadic dynasty and he, Tamerlane, built the city of Samarkand, and he used slave labor from Persia, Damascus, all the cities he conquered. And he just bought the slave labor and they transferred the tiles to manuscripts, to metal work, to textiles, look at the wonderful textiles they have of colors. And I think that’s the one thing the art of the Islamic world is this explosion of color.
[00:23:29] Louise: You’re right. It’s absolutely gorgeous color. Now, the interesting thing to me is that the colors, the tiles, the trade must’ve extended way down into the north African Islamic world, because then somehow it finds its way to Portugal as well. Can you talk a little about that trade route?
[00:23:48] Diana: By the time all these different trade routes connected, Portugal is very wealthy, it’s 15th century, they’re getting their gold from south America. And that gold is flowing into Europe. They can afford things. So their traders, your Portuguese traders, are also learning to trade into the Indian ocean. So the trade routes were the land routes between China and Istanbul, then the ocean trade routes were going on simultaneously for centuries. And then there was a trade route that went across the Sahara. By about, 15th century, they’re all connecting. Because people were moving. People are always moving. Traders are moving. People are going out. It’s always been called trade.
[00:24:31] And when people think that the globalization is going to kill their economies, I’m sorry, it’s been happening for 3000 years. Three thousand years. And to connect them all together is fascinating. What animals did they bring? Camels? And languages, you had to speak. And a caravan or trader didn’t go very far. He traded along the way. And you found more things to trade. Look at your botanical gardens today. They brought seeds from different countries. Not just ideas and tiles. I want to go to Lisbon to see your tile museum. The color. It’s been there since Arab and Berber traders came up, bringing color.
[00:25:11] Louise: Yeah. And I’m also thinking of Granada. The Islamic influence in Granada is just astounding. You, you feel like you’re somewhere in Central Asia.
[00:25:19] Diana: The connections. Everything travels. You look at the double domes of Samarkand. You go to Florence, look at Brunelleschi’s double dome. Look at St. Paul’s. This double dome that goes on top of churches, went on top of the mosques. It’s the same. Ideas don’t have to take ages, within months ideas move. You don’t need to have social media for it either. Or you need is a trader passing it on.
[00:25:45] Louise: You also were taking groups to Iran at one point. Has the unrest in Iran caused the tours to stop?
[00:25:56] Diana: Yeah, we have no more tours because the Foreign Office and many countries are not permitting people to go into Iran. What’s interesting: It’s do you go to Iran? Do you go to China? Do you go where the Weigers are being suppressed? All my guides say to me, bring people, I want them to see my country and we need to have people with different ideas come through.
Jameh Mosque Minarets, Yazd, Iran
[00:26:16] If we’re not allowed to go to countries, then no one knows what’s happening. So we’ve got to be able to bring people in and give them an idea of what’s happening in different countries. And Iran’s the same way. They’re wonderful people. The government is suspect. So it’s fun to meet and I keep in contact with them and that’s what’s great.
[00:26:35] Louise: Fantastic. So of course, with the pandemic, I know that your travels have been curtailed now for 18 months. Are there any trips coming up? Does it feel like there’s some movement ahead?
[00:26:47] Diana: We’re planning on 2022 to Uzbekistan. My Silk Road tour will hopefully run and then God willing we’ll do Pakistan. And people say, oh, Pakistan, oh my God, you can’t go to Pakistan. People said, you can’t go to Iran it’s a terrorist country. This is ridiculous. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s the media that tells you that. You go to these countries and you see fantastic monuments and, and mountains and marvelous people. And it’s, it makes your life fuller and it makes your life fuller. And the people who go with me, on my tours; they’re all interested. Everyone’s interested, not just taking pictures. It’s different when you have a lecturer go with you.
[00:27:31] Louise: It is. It’s very different. It really is like a, sort of a mini study-abroad program that makes the experience so rich.
[00:27:39] Diana: With lots of handouts from me, as you know.
[00:27:42] Louise: I do know. I’ve learned so much from you, Diana. It’s been a wonderful friendship. Well, as we finish up, is there social media that you could share with listeners such as your website or a Facebook page, whatever you’re comfortable sharing?
[00:28:01] Diana: I do have a website that’s being put together at the moment and that gives dates of my tours and things. I’m not a Facebook type person, the website is there though.
[00:28:09] Louise: Okay. And the website is
[00:28:11] Diana: Dianalee.Driscoll.co.uk
[00:28:21] Louise: Terrific. And I’ll go ahead and put that in the show notes on my website, LouiseRoss.com and I’ll put a hyperlink so listeners can click through.
[00:28:31] Diana: Louise, you could also put my Gmail account <dianalee.driscoll@gmail.com> because people can always write.
[00:28:35] Louise: Okay, I’ll add that too, to the show notes. Thanks for your time, It’s been a wonderful conversation.
[00:28:42] Diana: You’re welcome.
[00:28:43] Louise: Thank you for listening today. And if you would like to read a transcript of this episode, you can find it in the show notes on my website, LouiseRoss.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review Women Who Walk on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser