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This Yemeni dagger, a Jambiya, was donated to the museum by Daoud Salaman, and tells the love story of his parents Ali and Olive Salaman. A Yemeni dagger is an important and traditional part of Yemeni men’s dress.  Boys over the age of 14 and men wear it as an accessory and as a status symbol.  The more decorative the handle, the greater the wealth of the owner. 

“My father Ali was from Yemen. As a young man he worked in Yemen's major port of Aden, looking after camels for the British army. From here he got passage to Cardiff”.  “He became a cook in Butetown, and was so successful, he was later able to open his own café – the famous Cairo Hotel at 235/6 Bute St.  He met and married my mother, Olive, a Welsh girl from the Valleys”.  

“The Cairo Hotel was one of the first cafes in Cardiff to sell non-English food, and it was very popular because Butetown had such a culturally diverse population."

Ali and Olive met at the Cairo Hotel in 1937. Olive remembers: “It was love at first sight. It was tough at the beginning. Ali was Yemeni. His friends didn’t want him to marry in this country and my family were very big Methodists and didn’t want to know. The priest told my mother I was marrying a heathen. But once we had a child it brought everything into perspective. People began to accept us”. Olive and Ali married 3 weeks after meeting and went on to have 10 children.