Introduction. Writing these lines early in my 73rd year, I realise how time has changed my perception of things past. Memories have faded, perspectives have altered, and many of my values and beliefs have been cut adrift from their once secure moorings, changing forever my inner landscape. As my life evolves, I see my past through different eyes, making things seem not as they are but as I am. And if my past was not as I see it now, that is something I must accept as I talk about it in the following pages.
The first four chapters will deal with: 1) my first eight years at home in Saharanpur, a railway junction in the plains below the Himalaya Mountains in India, 2) the next two in Oak Grove Junior School some 60 miles north-east in the Himalayas, 3) the next seven in Boys’ School, and 4) the next two in Chelmsford Training College, Murree, over 400 miles north-west in another part of the Himalayas. The following years will be recounted in imagined letters to a very dear friend, Mrs Phyllis Losasso (‘Sasso’). I met Sasso in my 20th year when I was teaching at Allen Memorial School, Mussoorie, and she in her 43rd year was matron of the sister-school Wynberg, across the hill from Allen. The letters will deal with my one year at Allen, and four in the navy. In Western Australia they’ll cover my six years at Scotch College, two in my wrought-iron business, ten at Guildford Grammar, and three at Governor Stirling High, all in the Perth area. In Alberta, they’ll cover my sixteen years at Cardston High, followed by my years of retirement. The letters, dated at the start of the year, will deal with the year gone by, till I'm up to date.Presenting the past through letters has certain advantages over the usual way of journal keeping. Chief among these are their more relaxed tone and, for me, the vicarious experience of writing to someone who, so dear to me, I in fact wrote to only a couple of times. These letters are my long overdue dedication to her, the ‘Sasso’ of my youth.About sixteen years ago I began a journal, some sixty pages in long hand. I seem to have lost the inclination to stay with it, and kept putting off writing, making all manner of excuses for my inaction. ‘One day,’ I promised myself, ‘when I get a computer I'll start again, relieved of the sweat of editing the old-fashioned way.’ I knew only too well I was procrastinating, for it goes without saying that writers the world over and from time immemorial have done without such aids. Colleen McCullough, a few years ago on TV, talking about her novel The Thorn Birds, was quite insistent that, since her spelling was good she had no use for a computer. Was she missing the point, or could it be she was making one of her own: that professionals don’t need to edit their work the way the rest of us do? For that reason alone I think a computer is worth having if one has it in mind to write.
When I’m up to date with my journal I would like to rewrite it in a way that my family and friends will want to read it. For their sakes I will call it, quite simply, ‘Growing up in India’.M.E.B.February 1996.Mesa, Arizona.
Chapter One: The First Eight Years. (1923 -1931).Apart from my nine years of boarding school, with three-month Christmas holidays at home, I lived with my family in railway quarters in Saharanpur, about a quarter mile from the railway station. Our home was rented from the North Western Railway, which employed my father as a guard. We had a flower garden in front and guava and lemon trees in the back of our compound. An unruly hedge ran down one side, and a five-foot high brick wall separated us from our neighbours on the other. A high wall at the bottom of the compound hid from view the servants' quarters. Occasionally, I would make my way there to watch our cook's wife make their simple food of curry, dall (lentils) and chapatties (pancake-like, unleavened bread). The sweeper and his wife-cum-helpmate lived in a single room next door. It seems our servants were always at our beck and call for all manner of things to be done, leaving us endless hours to be spent, often in sheer idleness and the constant harangues visited upon those poor individuals.
One summer afternoon, when I was about five, our cook Ram Prasad was giving me a tub-bath. My parents were out, and there was a knock on the door. Ram Prasad had been soaping me, but stopped to let in Champia, the wife of our sweeper Banwari. Suddenly, before my eyes, he leapt upon her, throwing her to the brick floor, amid the clatter of bathroom ware, and had intercourse with her. After it was over, he resumed his bathing of me, noticing I'm sure that I had been aroused by what I'd seen. Their meeting must have been planned, and they supposed I was too young to realize what was going on, so had no reason to restrain themselves in my presence. Memories like these I find impossible to erase, but neither am I troubled by the nature of them.
Social life in the town centred on the railway institute in the evenings, when the bar and billiard room would open, and out-door badminton, table tennis, and the reading room were available. The occasional dance brought a number of the railway families out to the Institute, especially the Christmas and New Year's dances. My father liked the bar and the dances, occasionally getting drunk and quarrelling with my mother when we got home, thus spoiling what would otherwise have been happy experiences.
In spite of everything, I believe my father loved and admired my mother more than she did him. It was a marriage that was doomed from the start, if only because my Granny Keess talked her out of marrying the man she loved. He was a dedicated churchman, whereas my dad had no interest in such things. My mother noted this in her journal, which I have in my safekeeping.
My Brayley grandparents and their nine children lived much closer to the station in a bungalow-style home larger than ours. My grandfather was an office clerk on the railway. I saw very little of him, as he seemed to spend all his time in his room smoking cigars. About the same age as Winston Churchill, he resembled him in looks as well as a fondness for cigars. He was a quiet and enigmatic man, so I have no memory of him speaking with what must have been a Somerset accent. My Granny made up for his reserve with a warm chattiness that endeared her to her family and us grandchildren. She supplemented the family income by working as a lady T.C (ticket collector), while also raising her nine children, the eldest of whom was my father. She called her kids by names formed by adding an 'ee' sound: Frankie, Rosie, Charley, Jimmy, whilst others she nicknamed Chappy (Albert), Poothy (Edith), Fussy (Kathleen). Exceptions, of course,were Mabel and John. She herself was Livie (Livinia) to her sisters, one of whom we knew as Aggie (Agnes) D’Souza. She called my grandfather 'Old Man' in a way that could never be mistaken for anything but affection. He, according to my dad, treated her with a deference greater than was her due, for when, as his work required, he wrote official letters, he would let her read them, inviting her comments, knowing full well that she was ill-equipped to help. When she took it upon herself to offer improvements, he would accept them graciously, knowing how flattered she would feel. My mother recalls in her journal how, when she first married my father, she felt very much at home with her new in-laws. There was a warmth and closeness that I too felt when in later years I would pay them flying visits now and then. Fond as I'm sure she was of me, my Granny never called me by any name other than my own. She had a down-to-earth naivete that let her say things like, ‘Maurice is a good-looking boy’, and in the next breath, ‘He looks a lot like me’, without in the least being aware of their amusing implications. My grandfather was, I'm sure, the savvy one of the family, which was one likely reason he kept his own company.
Surviving photos show my Granny and Grandpa Brayley posing with concertina's, suggesting that they were keen on music. My father played the mouth organ pretty well but rarely, and my mother learnt piano and would play pieces such as Aloha Ye (Farewell to Thee) and Maidens Prayer -- her favourite -- during which she would cross over hands, as my sister Flo and I watched in admiration. For years, however, we poked fun at my mother for this obvious piece of showing off, which she nevertheless took in good grace, always joining us in our amusement. This was the extent of musical talent around me in my early days.
My Keess grandparents (Arthur and Louisa) also lived nearby in what was known as the Jella Hotel. When she was home from boarding school, my aunt Lorna stayed with them. Apart from my mother, whom they adopted, Lorna, twelve years younger, was their only child. My Granny was a bit of a character, with a tart but amusing manner, and Lorna was like her with an added touch of style and self-assuredness that could well have been mistaken for airs. My Granny referred to my Grandpa as 'the old dog', and he in his good-natured way took it for the endearing, if unflattering sound of it. His noisy but affectionate way with me, and his incessant drollery, made for a warmth between us that I can only recall with nostalgia. He was closer to me than my own father ever was. In mid 1944, after I'd been commissioned in the navy, it was to him, in the Jella Hotel, that I made a beeline, so that he could see me in my brand new uniform. He shared my pride of accomplishment, but not without his usual, affectionate twitting of me. My Granny had died 19 months earlier, and I'm sure he was lost without her, for all her barbed wit and no-nonsense ways.
My aunt Lorna (18) and Enid Williams (20), who lived next door to us, would take evening strolls around the town, sometimes letting me tag along. When they had something confidential to say, they would spell out the words, using a code. In time, I caught onto it, much to their surprise and chagrin, and soon became pretty adept at it. Later, in boarding school, I tried teaching it to my classmates who, unable to grasp it, resorted to nick naming me ‘Molday’, which could be an approximation to how my first name sounded to them in its coded spelling. Enid taught me at the local railway school, and Lorna went on to St Bede's, Simla, to prepare for a teaching career. Interesting that one day I too would take up teaching. The Williams family next door, across the small maidan where we played gully dunda (tip cat), consisted of Mrs Alice Williams, widowed, and her children, Evelyn (ev-lin), a muscular man, about my mother's age, who worked in the ‘loco’ (locomotive) department, and could well have had a romantic interest in my mother. Next was Clary, more volatile than Evelyn, who was also on the railway. Then Enid, who in out-of-school hours I'd see vigorously practising her short hand. I was about seven when one day she put her arm around me as I stood beside her, and gently squeezed me to her, evoking in me what was perhaps my first flush of sensuality with a woman. Her younger brother, Dicky, was about nineteen and seemed a rather simple chap. One day he confided to me about having nearly seduced an equally simple girl in her mid-teens. Without an adequate social life in the town, the few young fellows around, judging from their talk, seemed preoccupied with sex. A young fellow, Colin Swaries, boarding with the Williamses next door, once made a sexual advance towards me. Embarrassed and revolted, I got clear of him. Later, my father came to hear about it, but instead of showing any outrage over the incident, he humiliated me further by making a crude joke of it. I was sure Evelyn Williams would have reacted with more sensitivity, being a more cultivated man than my father. My mother must also have seen Evelyn in this light. She has always liked people of refinement, and my own preferences have, I believe, over the years been shaped by hers.
Beyond that, I seem not to have been influenced very much by my parents or other adults, mainly I think because they themselves had no noticeably strong beliefs, prejudices or persuasions of their own. Theirs was a cavalier indifference towards religion, politics, current affairs -- anything that lay beyond their immediate personal well being. Mine was a quiet and un-demanding world with no enticements beyond it luring me to places of greater excitement. So I grew up, blissfully undisturbed, a nurseling of mypoor but hospitable surroundings, ever free from the demands society generally imposes on its individual members through its elders in general, and its churches, schools, families, courts-of-law, and other agencies in particular. In retrospect, I regard this early environment of mine as one of the greatest blessings of my life, made possible by my parents, who without realising it, left me to my own devices so that one day I would find myself earnestly thanking them for it.
My father joined the North Western Railway while his family was in Saharanpur. He lied about his age, so that at sixteen he was taken on as a guard. In 1947, when he was nearly 49, he took early retirement, having made very little progress in his career. I remember him always being very particular in the appearance of his guard's uniform, as he was with all his clothes. He seemed to enjoy his reputation as a good dresser, especially when his workmates often called him “Swank”, the name rhyming easily with “Frank”. He smoked for most of his life and drank sometimes, on which occasions he might flare up into an argument with my mother, sometimes ending up with striking her. I must confess, however, to never having seen him be violent. My mother, who always had to have the last word, succeeded only in adding fuel to fire. Apart from the first few years of their marriage, my parents never had a truly loving relationship, despite the tender pet names they continued to call each other for as long as I can remember. It was no surprise to me when in 1948, a year after they had settled in Western Australia, their marriage ended, according to my mother's diary, with some hard feelings.Flo was a year younger than I, and Nigel was seven years younger than Flo. We had a brother Douglas, a year older than I, who died of enteric fever in his fifth year. I have no recollection of him, except what was generated in me through accounts of him by my mother. Although we grew up together, Flo and I had little to do with each other. I remember mainly those times when in our petty clashes, she would complain about me to my parents, who would take her side more often than not. My father favoured her over me without question, maybe because she was a girl, and this too I'm sure widened the gap between my father and myself. While we were not particularly friendly, Flo and I were civil towards each other. Neither of us, in those years, had close friends, but nor did I notice friendships among the other youngsters in the town. Even in the local railway school, where kids of the same age found themselves lumped together, the dozen or so that attended seemed to keep to themselves. It was here that a rumour went around that a girl of my age, Helen Harrison, was being linked with me. Embarrassed, I was relieved when the rumour petered out. I did, however, have a soft spot for Maude O'Neil, who lived a few doors down from us. After having a circumcision operation, much later in life than is customary with boys, I was believed to have invited Maude to see my 'operation'. For the very shy fellow that I was, this was indeed an act of unusual daring, prompted by the innocence of a six-year-old left alone with a sweet girl his own age. It nevertheless took me a long time to live down the memory of that 'scandal', about which I supposed the whole town was in the know. [Maude was to die, in Melbourne, Australia, at twenty-five, of a brain tumour, a few years after her marriage to Gerry Coelho in Saharanpur]. I remember very little about my railway school days. Miss Dickens was the headmistress -- a fair, slight, and energetic spinster whose class I was never in. Miss Wince was the pianist, and Enid Williams taught me the 3 R's. Her teaching must have been sound enough, even without benefit of teacher training, for I had no problems with the basics when I got to Oak Grove, and started my long years of boarding school, the early part of which saw me invariably near the bottom of the class.
There were times when I was lonely, particularly after I had just been scolded or punished by being sent to bed. On one such occasion, squatting on our back verandah steps, in my desolation I prayed with all my heart for a younger brother. Soon after, when I had turned eight, my brother Nigel was born. I was taken into my parents' bedroom to see him, where he lay in my mother's arms, barely a day old, scarcely discernible in the warm, humid, and dimly lit room. I was happy he'd come, but didn't at the time connect him with my prayer. I cuddled and enjoyed him for the next two months, before it was time for boarding school at Oak Grove. I was sad to leave him, as I was with all the things of home, to go to school for the next nine months without a break. The eight years difference in our ages gave me a paternal feeling for my brother, whom I called 'son' for many years, till the name became inappropriate and I dropped it.
My father had pet names for each of us in our family, much as my Granny had in hers. They were all strange names, but they grew out of my father's oddly affectionate nature. My mother was 'Kortheel', I was 'Chee Chee' (‘Chee Chee Peelyah’ to my Uncle Charlie), Flo was 'Fee Thoo', and Nigel was 'Pull Marn', all sounded in his special way. (I find myself doing the same with Jean and our six children, and others as well to whom I become specially attached). My wife ‘Jeannie’ I call, with love ‘Fatty’ (for fat she certainly is not), and our children ‘Gin Gin’, ‘Choff’, ‘Sue Pooh’, ‘Russ Fuss’, ‘Inga Baba’, and ‘Pen Pen’ -- all sweet, loving names.
These first years in Saharanpur were leisurely, if uneventful ones, in keeping with the unhurried and easy way of life in those days. What we lacked in the busy and more stimulating life of bigger cities, we made up for in the quiet and more relaxed life of a small town. What I did during the day was entirely up to me, so long as I was on time for meals. After I learnt to ride a bike, I was seldom around the house. My world was a patch of ground barely eighty acres, with three roads forming a triangle, one side of which, where we lived in 'traffic' quarters, extended over a bridge that spanned numerous railway tracks, shiny with use. The road then switched back to pass by the railway institute, then the school behind a neglected hedge, and finally through the railway colony where on either side were the homes of mainly 'loco' employees (drivers and firemen). Riding leisurely along these roads, stopping wherever I fancied, filled my early years with the same satisfactions I now get, 65 years later, as I walk my sixty minutes every morning, enjoying an interior monologue that touches on things unexpectedly stimulating. Simple pleasures such as these have helped shape the gentle contours of my mind.
Cars in those days were a luxury only a few could afford. Apart from the station master, none of the railway people, like my father, ever learnt to drive a car, let alone own one. The pleasures of cycling, however, more than compensated for our lack of a car. My father's income left us very little to get by with, especially when in 1930, when I was seven, my mother told me that my father's income would be cut by 10%, because of the Great Depression. Under my mother's expert management there was never a day we had to go without. We had three full-time servants: a khansama (cook), a mathur (sweeper), and an ayah (nanny) who looked after us when we were little. We had also a mali (gardener), and a dhobi (washerman) who worked for other families as well. These servants worked faithfully for so little pay, some for seven days a week, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Over the years, we became very attached to our servants. Since none of them spoke English, we got by with speaking Hindustani (the lingua franca), many of us quite fluently. It also helped at this time that my mother, an accomplished dressmaker, wholly self-taught, made most of our clothes, calling in a tailor only when the sewing load became unmanageable. I'd spend many an hour, wrapped in admiration, watching my mother turn out clothes worthy of a professional.
For a few years I didn't have a bike of my own, so I rode my mother's. I rode it only when there was nothing else around, preferring a man's bike. Across from us, the cycle shop owner, Maseetha, who called me Phoody seah (something vulgar, I suspect), rented bikes at an anna an hour. Since I couldn't afford this, I arranged with him that in return for fixing his bikes, I could have one of his for an hour. In this way I had my fill of cycling till I got my own bike which I rode to my heart's content.
Although my mother at eighteen started training to become a missionary with a little-known group called the Faith Mission, none of my family attended church when I was growing up; nor were we pressed into going. I have recollections of attending, with my mother and Flo, a Sunday evening service or two in the spacious drawing room of an elderly American lady, Miss Heron. She conducted a service of hymn singing, prayer, and a sermon delivered by her with an evangelical fire that left me quite stirred up. She was a most devout lady, and I fancied her a saint. She was fostering four Indian children: Miriam, who accompanied the Sunday hymns on a small organ, Duleep, Ranjit, and Esther, children of a shoemaker named Das, whom we never saw. I was fascinated by their American accents, acquired from Miss Heron, whom they called 'Auntie', and from their school, Woodstock (in Mussoorie), run by American Methodists for children of Americans resident in India. I visited the Das boys sometimes, and became friends with Ranjit who was my age. Together we’d ride our bikes around the place. I enjoyed his American accent and novel slang. Duleep, a few years older than Ranjit, was an electronics enthusiast, his room in their large home filled with electrical stuff of bewildering assortment.
[Twelve years later we'd meet up again, Duleep a flight lieutenant in the air force, Ranjit and I lieutenants in the regular navy. Fourteen years later, having moved to Australia, I would hear from Duleep, stationed in England, that Ranjit had been killed in a motorcycle accident in Portsmouth while doing advanced training with the Royal Navy. Ranjit and I had palled up again when we ran into each other in Bombay during our naval days. Our fellow officers had nicknamed him 'Yank', for he never lost his American accent].
My own accent was influenced by the Hindustani I spoke as I was growing up. It bore little resemblance to the English spoken by British-born people in India, and about this I became increasingly self-conscious the older I got. English was spoken three different ways: 1) the ‘posh’ English of southern English people who have been educated at the public (independent) schools, 2) the English we heard constantly in the speech of Indians around us (Babu English, as we ungraciously called it), and 3) the English we spoke influenced as it was by our constant use of Hindustani. It is difficult to describe the English we spoke, without resorting to elaborate phonetic symbols. One difference was with the diphthongs of English. There were no diphthongs in our speech, just vowels. For example, the word 'coat' in phonetic script is 'kout' ('ou' being the diphthong). We said 'kot' ('o' being a vowel, the first part only of the diphthong). Another difference was with some consonants. For example, the word 'teeth' in phonetic script is 'ti:0'. We said 'ti:th’, the 'th' being a sound not heard in British English. We stressed different syllables in certain words, hence ‘big in’ for ‘begin’, and ‘electra city’ for ‘electricity’. Pronunciations were sometimes different: ‘cigrits’ for ‘cigarettes’, ‘ony’ for ‘only’. In their kinder moments the English said we sounded Welsh because of our sing-song lilt. But it was the speed and rhythm that made for the most noticeable differences and earned for us the searing nickname of ‘Chee Chee’. Essentially, though, our language itself was scarcely distinguishable from educated English in the matter of correct usage. Saharanpur brings to mind the constant sound of railway trains going past our house, along with the clang and clatter of railway wagons being shunted, during the first sixteen years of my life. There was always the smell of smoke and coal dust from the steam engines. My father's uniform, black in winter, white in summer brought the flavour of trains into our home. It could be called a ‘railway’ smell that permeated everything around us, until we got so used to it that we became unaware of it.
Our staple food, also our favourite, was curry and rice and dall, which our khunsama cooked to perfection. At times, however, my father, who fancied himself a connoisseur, found fault with the food. Either the curry wasn't red enough, or it lacked the ‘right’ consistency. Whatever it was, his criticisms showed little regard for the feelings of our cook, who also served at the table as ‘bearer’ for a mere sixteen rupees (about five dollars) a month.
With no retirement pensions, leaves of absence, or fringe benefits, this, on its own tells a story of shameless exploitation.
We had no electricity, running water or sewage system in those days in our home. Kerosene lanterns gave us lighting. Punkhas (cloth-covered frames suspended from the ceiling) pulled by coolies, and khus khus tatties (fibred screens kept wet for cooling) hanging in verandahs cooled us on very hot days. Water for drinking, washing, and gardening, was delivered by a bhisti (water carrier) who carried it in a mussak (pear-shaped leather bag), slung around his neck. From this he filled our sarais (earthenware vessels to keep the water cool), and metal containers for bathing and washing. Water for baths was heated in canisters over coal fires by which our food was also cooked. Kitchenware was cleaned with a paste of ashes and mud rinsed to magical brilliance by our cook.
We had two guslkhanas (bathrooms), but used only one. It was a small, square room with a hole in the outer wall to let out used water and about the right size to let in snakes. One corner, around that outlet was fenced in by a low parapet the height of a brick. In this enclosure sat an oval zinc tub. Ranged along the inner wall was a table holding an enamel basin, a soap dish and a jug; a chamber pot, a packet of Bromo paper, and a wooden ‘commode’. This contraption had a cutout in the middle of the seat, and a hinged lid. Under the hole was an enamel pot.
The guslkhana was the responsibility of the mathur --- one of India’s ‘Untouchables’. After the toilet had been used we’d yell for the mathur who, till that moment had been squatting on his haunches enjoying a biri (cheap locally made cigarette). He’d remove the pot, carry it to the backyard, empty it into a large container lined with coal tar, swab the pot with phenyl and return it to its place. From the backyard the contents were collected by a bullock-drawn tanker, which we called the Midnight Mail because of the time of night it made its rounds. The effluence was dumped a couple of miles away into the Dhumola River, where I once went with Oswald Houghton, a neighbour about my age. I have a memory, as incredible as it was revolting, of wading in that river as turds floated by. It says something about our immune system in those days. Other than seeing itas we went over it by train, I have never set eyes on that river again, except in memory.Garbage posed no problems, as disposable stuff, except for newsprint, seemed not to accumulate. Instead of Bromo paper, we often used, with no noticeable ill effects, newspaper cut to size.
To more salubrious matters: the half-dozen stores around the 'triangle' were stocked with all our necessities, whilst our cook shopped for provisions in the bazaar. These were stored under lock and key in a tall cupboard in the dining room, where I would often sneak in when the door was unlocked and help myself to a hurried two tablespoons of white sugar, invariably, it seemed, just before my mother would catch me in the act. 'Been at the sugar, Maurice?' she would ask, superfluously, to which I would reply, naturally, 'No, mummy.' 'All right,' she would say, with a mother’s understanding, 'but wipe that sugar from your mouth'. This would be followed, not with a lecture on truthfulness, but a warning about the dangers of diabetes from too much sugar. The very sound of 'die' in 'diabetes' was enough to scare the daylights out of me, long enough at least until the cupboard was next left open. There were times when my dishonesty brought me sweet results, as when for instance a travelling ice-cream wallah brought round his rare delights, and which I paid for from some small change I stole from my mother's dressing-table drawer. I was never asked about shortages there, which taught me a useful moral -- never steal enough for it to be noticed.
Christmas morning was the loveliest day of the year for me. I'd open my eyes to the sight of brilliant red, green, and yellow streamers above my bed, and lucky stockings saturated with colour, while outside a brass band of natives played Christmas tunes with amazing skill. In due course they would get their baksheesh (tip), and move on to pick up some more nearby. Later in the morning, my Keess grandparents with my aunt Lorna, and a few neighbours would call by and my mother would serve Christmas cake laced with brandy and overlaid with almond and royal icing. I was allowed to have a glass of port-and-lemon, while my father, Grandpa Keess, and Lawrence Braganza and his sister Lily from the Jella Hotel had Scotch and soda, and smoked Gold Flake cigarettes offered round in silver cigarette cases that were quite the fashion. We gave our servants a small cash bonus, for which they would touch their foreheads in humble appreciation. In the evening, Father Christmas would make his grand entry at the railway institute, where we'd have a tea party in the dance hall, decked out with tables of sweets, oranges and bonbons. Father Christmas would then give us youngsters our gifts previously labelled by our mothers. Christmas day rang with the scratchy sounds of Bye-bye Blackbird and Springtime in the Rockies coming from our wind-up H.M.V. gramophone with petunia-shaped horn and steel needles in sound boxes. Christmas for me was the heavenly taste of cake and port-and-lemon, an ill-disguised Father Christmas, and the sound of carols in the air. And somewhere throughout that joyous day was the vaguely sensed reason for all this -- the wondrous event of a child born, we were told, in a manger in far away Bethlehem a long, long time ago.
The years of my childhood went by with a carefree ease, unhurried and unspoilt by events shaping the national scene or the world beyond the shores of India. Nor did my parents or grandparents feel the impact of current events, except when, as I've noted earlier, it meant cuts to their pay during the Depression. It wasn't apathy, because that would mean they knew but didn't care. It was more a kind of blissful ignorance that shielded them from what might otherwise have caused them pain and anxiety. We lived in times when the groundswell of Indian nationalism was expressing itself in angry crowds that surged past our house, wearing defiant ‘Gandhi’ (Congress) caps, and shouting their frightening Hindustan zindabad! (Long live India!). Although we had no cause for alarm, the resentment being directed towards British rule, we were afraid and took to preparing ourselves against dangers that were more imaginary than real. My mother's journal entries concerning those days tell of our fears, and the plans we made for our safety. In the unlikely event that we should be attacked, our plans to assemble at a place called the 'armoury' made little practical sense. Fortunately, nothing happened that made us fearful, and we lived in perfect safety throughout those turbulent years of India's struggle for independence that began around 1892 (earlier, if we count the Mutiny of 1857), when my grandpa Albert Brayley at twenty came out from England with the East Surrey Regiment to India.
A more understandable fear was that of break and entry into our home during the night. It started with my mother, who once happened to see a native man enter our place while we were asleep. It wasn't long before she was describing him as 'cross-eyed' and 'evil looking', and that he made off with a blanket (later recovered). Not much in itself, it nonetheless gave her a dread of intruders, for she always made sure our doors and windows were secure before we turned in for the night. Her fears were, naturally, transmitted to me, and to this day I have dreams of native men sneaking into our Saharanpur home at night and behaving as if they had every right to be there. In those dreams, I find myself checking our doors only to find they are unlocked. Sometimes, even though locked, they yield to little or no pressure. [To this day, no matter where I'm spending the night, I find myself checking all doors before turning in].
I should note in passing that by 'Indian' we meant, in those days, any native of India. We tended to think, however, of the angry crowds as Hindu. Our servants, Hindu and Muslim alike, took no part in the demonstrations. They seemed as unaware as we were of the social and political realities around us, and their going about their jobs as if nothing were amiss gave us some comfort. We were to realise, in time, that those relatively peaceful days were numbered, for in less than fifteen years a period of Indian history would end in partition of the country, communal riots, and bloodshed. The India we once knew would become unrecognisable with its horrendous crowds, its squalor, and its festering corruption.
Saharanpur was essentially a railway town, the District beyond having a native population of 1 million, now about 5 million. The bazaar, crowded and unsanitary, was a place into which we seldom ventured, except to get something that the shops in town didn't have, or maybe sometimes just to satisfy a perverse desire to be immersed in the disgusting squalor of a native bazaar. The town shops were adequately stocked and pleasant, and the Indian owners (Karam Chand and Sons, and Mohan Lal), reasonably fluent in English, served us well. Two doctors were on call, one from the railway hospital, the other, a Dr Dalton from the Civil lines, who made house calls. A chemist's, Kitchener & Son, had a well-stocked and attractive store at the northern apex of the 'triangle'. A mochi (shoemaker), a men's tailor, Kala Khan, and a draper and milliner, Kewal Ram supplied our needs at their shops, situated along the two other sides of the 'triangle'. A number of native shops, selling delicacies, catered to the native population. We were warned against buying because of their un-hygienic preparation. Despite the myriad flies that settled on and swarmed around them, the mouth-watering jelabies, peras, gulab jamuns, 'hot gram' and 'pollies' dirt' were irresistible. We'd watch with fascination the freshly boiled milk being cooled by being poured from one lotah (vessel) into another and back again in a long, continuous flow, with never a drop spilt.
Tongas, bullock carts, and cyclists shared the crudely paved roads with pedestrians and the occasional car. Dogs, mostly pariahs (‘parry-ers’), roamed the town, mating sometimes before our embarrassed but eager gaze. Our dog Judy was one of these, but it hurt us to think of her as a pariah. A chubby, dun coloured, lovable thing, my sister Flo and I, too heavy by far, would ride her till we fell off in gales of laughter.Among the more common birds around, I remember the scavenging crows best. Our next-door neighbours, the D'Souzas, had a mynah, which the rather odd woman of the house fed by mouth from the gram she munched. Her son Eric, a dark-skinned young chap, was credited with the amusing retort to someone's calling him "midnight" by saying, "You can't talk, m’n, you're ony ten o’clock yourself!” (I can still hear the sound of our unpolished, warm and comfortable ‘chee-chee’ talk).
Nothing scared us so much during the hot summers as lurking snakes. Occasionally, we'd find ourselves transfixed as we'd watch a snake charmer start up on his bean, its wails drawing forth a cobra, rearing itself slowly from a small basket, hood spread in diabolical splendour as it rose full height before our riveted gaze. After a brief choreography, swaying to the tuneless wail, the serpent would be returned to its basket, after which the snake charmer would motion for his rewards from those of us who had gathered round. I could never see this as entertainment, so I never gave a single cowrie for something that filled me with dread and loathing.The elite of Saharanpur lived away from the railway section. All of them English, they were the Collector, an I.C.S man (Indian Civil Service), a few executives of the W.D & H.O Wills cigarette factory, and cavalry officers who lived in style in the Remount Depot. These people belonged in a world of their own, separate and distinct from us and, indeed, from one another. The I.C.S officer, in particular, enjoyed a rank and exclusiveness that Britain reserved for her top administrators in India. It was generally believed that the I.C.S represented the cream of the intelligentsia of Britain and India, entry into which was by open competitive exam pitched at graduate level. With few exceptions, the I.C.S was British.[It would be some twelve years later that I would find myself mingling with fellow naval officers comparable to the elite of Saharanpur (I.C.S excepted), many of them recently out of prestigious English schools and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Here it was that I first began taking a liking to them, a far cry from how I was brought up to regard them in my Saharanpur days. Sad how it takes something as dreadful as a war to create warmth and kinship among people].
We had our share of small-town gossip in those days, some of which trickled down to us smaller fry, and assumed a significance often unwarranted by the facts. Nearly always they had to do with illicit goings-on, one, as it happened, in my grandparents' family. Recalling two of them could well expose me to the risk of being seen as exulting in scandal. My reasons for mentioning them, however, are my deep interest in the behaviour of people acting out of their all too human drives and, equally, my sorrow over their plight for having done so.
An aunt of mine had no less than three children by her sister's husband. She continued, nevertheless, to be accepted by the family, for they all got on well together, reserving their condemnation for the philandering father of those children. This says something for the family feeling that held them all together.
There was a woman whose husband was a guard on the railway and lived a few doors down from us. It was rumoured that she had a son by her native servant. The story went that one hot summer afternoon, while her husband was at work, she had the servant wash her feet in a basin, during which she seduced him and became pregnant. The child born of this union, a good looking boy, was my brother Nigel's age and the two became good chums when they were about seven. His dark skin lent credibility to the story, as both the woman and her husband were very fair skinned. Yet, the presence of this child in their home seemed to cause no problem. I'd see the couple occasionally on my bike rides -- ordinary, decent people. There was nothing, it seemed, to get worked up about. One hot afternoon I happened upon a rough-and-tumble session between the husband of a woman and her younger sister, a friend of my sister Flo. They were on a bed in the girl’s home a few doors down from us. The horseplay got out of hand and she became pregnant, but the matter was hushed up and we heard no more about it. Of those matters that somehow escape public notice, though little was known, much was conjectured. Now and then, from the room next to mine, I would overhear my parents’ whispers about this or that child being conceived out of wedlock, as their sly calculations confirmed discrepancies between the child’s arrival and its parents' wedding day. Among the townsfolk, despite their predilection for minding other people's business, judgements were often withheld. There seemed to be some reluctance to jumping to conclusions, suggesting perhaps that people were, after all, mindful of the scriptural admonition about ‘casting the first stone’.
In retrospect, there isn't any thing in my boyhood days I would have exchanged for anything else, no matter how grand. Only when it came time for boarding school did I have regrets, for the next nine months deprived me of things that had made me happy: the closeness of my mother and my brother Nigel; my cycle that was my constant joy by day, and my navar-laced bed with coir mattress that was my comfort at night. Gone for ever, it seemed, were the homely sight of rickety tongas and labouring bullock carts that plied our rough-hewn roads; gone the familiar sound of engines thrusting past our home; gone the paradise of home-cooked food, of curry and rice at noon, and jelabee pudding at night. No more, for all those months, would there be our dutiful servants: our cook Ram Prasad, our sweeper Banwari and his ‘errant’ wife Champia, and young Pindi who looked after Nigel. How much they suffered our thoughtless dominion over them with a loyalty that far exceeded anything we deserved.
We treated them fondly, but without much trust. Their presence, though constantly around, was barely noticeable. The khansama, the dhobi, the mathur, and the mali were tolerated and abused as a matter of course. We knew nothing about their lives, their character or their beliefs, their hopes or their fears. We were concerned only about their loyalty and efficiency, to the extent that if either came into question it meant instant dismissal. They obviously knew more about our goings-on than we about theirs, but we blithely assumed we were beyond their condemnation. What became of our servants after we left India, heaven only knows. They were the ‘Untouchables’, Mahatma Gandhi’s beloved harijans, but in India’s caste-ridden society they’ve probably fared no better than with us. I cannot think of Indians without remembering those servants, Hindu and Muslim alike, and I find myself to this day feeling for them a tenderness and affection I never thought I possessed.
Chapter Two: Oak Grove Junior School (1932 -- 1933)
From the start of 1932, preparations began for my going to boarding school at Oak Grove Junior School. Oak Grove was owned and administered by the East Indian Railway (E.I.R) and admitted pupils whose parents were on the E.I.R as well as those, far fewer in number, on the North Western Railway (N.W.R). A part of our identity while in school was being either E.I.R or, as with me, N.W.R.
My mother had already arranged with the school for my entry into Standard 2 (Class 4), and in a tin trunk neatly packed everything I needed for my nine months of school. My mother made a list of the trunk's contents, and in early March I left home with a heavy heart, apprehensive of what was in store for me as a boarder, separated from the things of home and, so recently, from my brother Nigel, born on January 28.
A bus took me out of Saharanpur, through the Mohand Pass in the Siwalik Hills, and on to the city of Dehra Dun, some 50 miles away. Here, another bus took a group of us for Oak Grove (O.G.) to the small foothills town of Rajpur, seven miles on. The coolies noisily competed with one another for the job of carrying us in their dandies (palanquins) up the rugged slopes to O.G, about three miles on. The sound of their hassling I can still remember as they sought our patronage that would bring them a pittance for their toil, as the four of them would keep up their sing-song pahari (hills dialect). Finally, at Junior School we assembled, a little dazed, awaiting the arrival of our trunks that were carried up, often four at a time on the backs of coolies, the strain being taken by bands on their heads. These human beasts of burden were to come to mind in later years with the words of Edwin Markham's poem, The Man with a Hoe. Here indeed was a personification of the poet's words:
‘Dead to rapture and despair, a thing that grieves not and that never hopes,Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox.’
Oak Grove was three schools under one administration headed by the Principal (Mr H.P.Watts, 1918 -1946): 1) the junior school for boys and girls under ten, 2) the boys' school for boys from ten to school-leaving age, and 3) the girls' school for girls in the same age group. Each of these schools had its own head teacher, as well as teaching staff and domestic servants. The Principal and head teachers of each school lived in their own homes, the best and largest being the Principal's. The teachers in each of the schools lived in rooms set aside for them and their families, their meals being prepared in the school kitchens. The school hospital served the whole community, and the Valley, our centrepiece, was used by all three schools for Sunday worship, as well as sports and other social occasions.
Oak Grove, founded 1 June, 1888, was set in the picturesque foothills of the Himalayas in the village of Jharipani, the Hindi word for spring water. The junior and boys' schools stood near each other, while the girls' school nestled on another hill the other side of the Valley. Built of granite mined in the neighbourhood around 1880, the buildings had a solid, indestructible look that impressed one more for their ruggedness than their aesthetic appeal. The oak trees after which the school was named gave the place an added sense of sturdiness and endurance. At 5,300 feet, the air was as invigorating as it was clean, but for all its virtues I would gladly have exchanged it for my home in Saharanpur.
Children though we were, we seemed never to marvel how, despite the forbidding terrain, the estate came into being, complete with walls and embankments, playgrounds, roads, and an infrastructure for year round essential services. Neither the periodic blasts from hill-sides being mined, nor the sight of Afghan workmen (‘Ghanies’) busying themselves on the estate suffered us to contemplate how it might have been in those far off days when the granite-embedded earth first yielded to the tough dreams of our founding fathers to shape the reality around us. Strange too was the fact that no one responsible for our education thought it important enough to enlighten us on the school’s beginnings, nor indeed on where our electric and water supply came from, or where the sewage went.
Our daily fare, aside from the 3 R's, consisted of local geography, nature study, and some history, very little of which stuck during my two years there. Miss MacLean was my teacher in Std 2, a swarthy, buxom spinster with a noticeable squint. A pleasant woman, in her twenties, she was, nevertheless, a disciplinarian. I spent many an hour in her class with spelling, arithmetic, and multiplication tables (including the ‘16 times’, for back then Re1 was 16 annas; 1 seer -- about 2lb -- was 16 chattaks). Words like maunds, lakhs, crores, pies and pice are part of my buried vocabulary.
The ‘brain’ of the class seemed to be Elizabeth Winstanley, about my age, but there was also Neville Gilbert who, though not an orphan, had come from an orphanage in Kalimpong. He spoke sometimes about his mother, and I assumed she was a single parent. He was more than Elizabeth’s equal, being more precocious than she. He had a lively humour, and gave us graphic descriptions of school life in Kalimpong -- how they walked round barefoot on harsh surfaces, their tough life making them self-reliant. He had a way with words, and for his age his vocabulary was little short of staggering. We were to go through school together, he being always at the top of the class, while Elizabeth topped hers in Girls' School.
Keith Gantzer, Maurice (‘Fritz’) LaZelle, Bill Derry, Noel (‘Tuttoo’) Atkinson, Ralph Scott, and Max Arber, all about my age, were among those in my class whom I remember. Most of us went through school together to Std 10. My sister Flo started school a year later and was in the class below mine. The only name among the girls that I remember, other than Elizabeth's, was Blanche Buckle, a biggish girl for her age, but pretty.
We referred among ourselves to the teachers as ‘Ma'am’. The headmistress was Ma'am Walkie (Miss Walkhem). She came in 1914, taught the kindergarten children, and would address the whole school, some ninety pupils, on occasions, and also conduct the mass-dancing classes. From her energetic demonstrations we learnt to do a group dance while chanting, ‘If all the world were paper, and all the seas were ink... what would we have to drink?’ Flo and I would perform this routine before our parents for years after, rollicking in the laughter we created. There was also the time when Ma'am Walkie gave us a demonstration on how to conserve toilet paper by folding the sheets in half, then simulating the rest of the motions, leaving little to the imagination. This too Flo and I would enact before our parents, with rather explicit and exaggerated movements for comic effect.
Ma'am Sheppie (Miss Shepherd) was a slightly built, fair little lady, probably the best liked among that group of ladies whose exteriors surely belied a measure of inner tenderness. Yet she too was strict and brooked no nonsense. A matron and her husband were in charge of the boys' dormitory and infirmary. Mornings we'd have to stand before them naked, one at a time, facing them with arms outstretched, then turning around, as they looked for rashes or other skin disorders. Little though they could have seen, even if they had been attentive, the routine nevertheless continued all my days in Junior School.Bed-wetting was punishable by having the offender stand in public, his sheet draped over him as the boys filed past him, knowing all too well who the poor little bugger was. I was punished once this way. Thereafter, when on the odd occasion I wet my bed, I was able to avoid detection by some rather crafty means.
Understandably, there was a certain sameness about our meals, making some of them a little unappetising. Grace was always said in chorus by us both before and after meals, the monotonous repetition making it a meaningless chant. Occasionally, our spirits would lift when Mrs Hayhow, the housekeeper, a kindly, gentle blonde in her forties would come quietly up to one of us to say there was a ‘small’ parcel from home which we could pick up later in the kitchen. Mine was tampered with once but I seemed not to care. It was enough that something nice had come from home. Like the rest of us I was always so submissive that it never entered my head to complain, even when a complaint was amply justified.
We lined up for everything, under the eye of school prefects who supervised us with unquestioned authority. One of these, Hector Brocklehurst, some 3 years my senior, had quite an authoritative air about him as he swaggered back and forth while we waited in our lines before parading off to some place or other.Junior school days were generally uneventful, our free time being spent mostly in small groups on the playground, girls away from boys, under the eye of the teacher on duty. Typically, the girls sat around and talked among themselves; the boys, more boisterous and competitive, played games to determine who was the best, whether it was piggyback fighting, or walking on one's hands. I took part in all these, even though I cared little for competition, for there was little else I could have done without being seen as unfriendly. I learnt to walk stairs on my hands, a few steps down and then back to the top. It was feats like this that earned us the respect of others, more than did any achievement in class. So, in spite of my lack of assertiveness, I was fairly well regarded by my schoolmates. Later, in Boys' School, it was average all-round ability, but boxing particularly, that would give me my standing in school.
Mostly, in our free time, we'd lean on the low wall that surrounded the playground on two sides, gazing at the boys' school, wondering how things were there. Sunday mornings we'd see a handful of prefects of Boys' School (‘hefts’ -- slang for ‘hefties’) taking their privileged stroll down the gravel road below us. They were a lordly bunch those prefects, with authority only slightly less than the masters. They were aware of their standing in our eyes, for most of them had once been onlookers like us.
Nothing was ever to be the same once I started boarding school. In a perpetual daydream, I paid little or no attention to what went on in classrooms, with the result that I was regarded as one of the dunces of the class -- not that it bothered me much. In one of my reports sent home, my teacher made the crack: ‘Maurice must think he is up here for his health’. Ordinarily, a remark like that would have caused my mother some concern, but she seemed to be more tickled by its amusing sarcasm than hurt by its swipe at me. I don't remember ever being much concerned about my poor results, deriving instead some satisfaction from my skill in the basics: reading (aloud, generally), writing (spelling, mostly), and arithmetic (adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing – both short and long division). Although my teachers only occasionally complimented me in these areas, my own repeated successes seemed to reinforce my efforts. The final payoff each year for class work was a prize, usually a book, awarded on Prize Day towards the end of November. By then, the school song had been rehearsed to death, but nothing mattered so much to me as the joyous prospect of going home for three whole months, during which time our hills covered themselves in snow. I was not to be numbered among the prize winners until I had spent six more years at Oak Grove.
Directly in front of us was Boys’ School. To the right were the quarters of the married masters: Weldon, Pilcher, Lubeck, Smith and Niblett. A path curved down to the house of the Headmaster, Mr H. H. Gibbs (‘Gibboo’). His pipe-smoker’s cough heard miles away served to alert us in good time. To the right were a couple of cement tennis courts, one for boys, the other at evenings for staff and wives. A seldom used badminton court lay to the right of the tennis courts. Among the staff who played I remember ‘Cam’ Smith and his gentle, motherly wife; ‘Doody’ Pilcher and his florid, perky wife with an unmerciful underarm serve, and ‘Thofe’ Niblett and his trim, handsome wife. As we watched them we’d swap among ourselves an assortment of indecent remarks that tickled the hell out of us kids.
The highlight of the tennis year was the Principal's Tournament (‘Princy's Torny’) in Boys' School. We saw only the finals of the singles, preliminaries having been completed earlier. The Principal, Mr H.P.Watts (‘Horsepower’), presented the trophy to the winner, who at the end of the match, did his customary hurdle over the net to shake his opponent’s hand. The champion was probably the only boy in Oak Grove's fifty years who had his hand shaken by Mr Watts, an honour comparable to that vouchsafed to Moses on Mt Sinai.
We attended Boys' School’s inter house swimming sports in their small pool with a 6-foot diving tower and spring board at the deep end. Our appetites sated with so much swimming in a single evening, we found ourselves back in Junior School ‘swimming’ vigorously against one another on the playground. I remember winning a few of those races, and conceded defeat once only in the back stroke when a wall from behind knocked me nearly senseless just as I was within reach of another victory. None of us could really swim, but with flailing arms, writhing torsos and a touch of imagination we became leviathans of the deep.
Of football, hockey, cricket and boxing in Boys' School we saw nothing. Our life in Junior School seemed like one long wait for the things of Senior School. News reached us one day that Mr Smith of Boys’ School had shot a leopard on the slopes leading to the Doon Valley. In the absence of eye witnesses, the incident soon acquired epic proportions, and Mr Smith, the humblest of men, became a hero overnight. Miss MacLean had us write a description of the event. Basil Haye, I think it was who ventured the sentence ‘Mr Smith discharged[?] / dispatched[?] the leopard with his rifle’, and we tried discussing which was the better word. So meek were we, nobody dared suggest that neither alternative was any damn good.
On my last day of Junior School, a Std 10 girl Beryl Brewster fell to her death over a precipice while waving good bye to friends heading down to Rajpur. Mr Mahoney, the boys' school P.T. master carried her broken body back to the road, a feat of heroism made more dramatic by his having a marvellous physique, wavy golden hair, and rugged good looks. So great a tragedy, we were too stunned for words. Our imagination conjured up the dreadful fall, the grand feat of Mr Mahoney, the pathos of a life cut short in tender bloom, and the image of a lovely girl we'd never seen but believed we had. And, after all the heartbreak and the tears, the simple but unanswerable question, ‘Why her?’ For a whole generation of Oak Grovians the place where she fell was known as ‘Brewster's Rock’. We all believed we knew the rock off which she fell. Such being the bewitchment of our minds by what we had chosen to believe, it didn't matter that we never in fact saw the fatal rock.
Living for the first time among railway children from places along the Ganges plain, I picked up a number of slang and improper words, some of which came from the native tongue, Hindustani. Our language gave us a kind of homogeneity, thus making us readily intelligible to one another, but just as unintelligible to outsiders, unless we took care to avoid using words of our special coinage. After two years in Junior School, the next seven were to see my increasing grasp of a language that could only be called O.G slang, huge chunks of which to this day I recall with enormous satisfaction. Even though the speech of many of us would change with the decades, within minutes of our being reunited, an old conviviality and kinship would be restored, binding the scattered years of our 'diaspora' in the warm embrace of a shared language. Names like Rawal Pindi, Calcutta, Moradabad, Dehra Dun, Mussoorie, (truncated by us to ‘Pindi’, ‘Cal’, ‘Morad’, ‘Dehra’, ‘Mus’), are part of the melange of sounds lodged deep within me. These and cries of paan, beeri, cigrit…chaa gurrum chaa from vendors above the din and pandemonium of railway stations, heard dimly from sleepy bunks in the small hours, recall a past forever locked in treasured memory.
P.S I realize the distortions that have grown out of imperfectly remembered years. So, if my past is not now as I once knew it, that is something I must accept as I add these closing lines.As I walked around Junior School in October, 1984, with the principal, Mr Kichlu, and Mrs Raj Parti, one of the mistresses, I sensed a kindliness I never felt when I was there. There was a warmth and nurturance I could sense that was so vital for a place where young children live away from home for long periods.
I can hardly believe that I grew up in India without benefit of real exposure to Indians. Such were the times that though we lived in India, we seemed not to belong there, and the school perpetuated this isolation.
The Oak Grove of my time, shackled to a dying colonialism on the one hand and in the stranglehold of a world-wide depression on the other would scarcely compare favourably with the Oak Grove I was now seeing, rid at last of such perplexities. Nor that it was just the times that were unpropitious; it was quite simply that Oak Grove, along with every other institution in the land, had had enough of the British presence and, motivated by the implacable fires of desperation, was bound and determined that her own sons and daughters should take over.
Chapter Three: Oak Grove Boys’ School (1934—1940)Although 1934 meant a new start in Boys' School, the onset of March found me with a heavy heart at the prospect of leaving home again for nine unrelieved months of school.Approaching the school by the road that wound its way up from Rajpur, it became evident that Boys' school, like the junior and girls' schools, had no facade to captivate the newcomer. Instead, granite buildings, arranged around playing fields, slowly came into view. And it was not till one worked one's way round to the back pitch, our main playing field, that a more satisfying panorama of the school presented itself. A two-storey block housed dormitories on the upper floor with bathrooms at each end, a dining hall with classrooms and the headmaster's office on the ground floor, with lavatories at each end. To the left of this block, a corner of the masters' quarters could be seen, then a row of servants' quarters, behind which we'd feast our eyes on the Doon valley below, truly a sight to be remembered. Farther left, and barely visible, were the dhoby's (washerman's) quarters, and, separated by a path that led down to the swimming pool, were the physics laboratory and the reservoir. Farther left still were partly hidden servants' quarters and then a bakery below, from which we'd all too infrequently make off with freshly-baked bread whose heavenly delights left us no room for moral scruples.
The boys' school, Standards 4 to 10, housed some 150 boys, ages eleven to seventeen, each class having its own master. Mine in Std 4 was ‘Cam’ Smith, quite the most kindly of them all. Besides teaching us nearly all our subjects, he handled our pocket money, read our weekly letters home, correcting them in our presence, and mailing them home. He was also my house master (Wellington), the other houses being Roberts, Kitchener, and Haig (all men of the sword, and English) each with its distinguishing colour: mauve, blue, green, and yellow respectively. Our munshi, Mr Sulaiman, the only native teacher on the staff taught Urdu throughout the school. The senior classes, with smaller numbers, had masters teaching subjects in which they specialized. Despite their lack of academic qualifications, the masters in the junior classes taught us well, but without much inspiration. A few boys left in middle school to enter the big railway workshops in Jamalpur for a career with the East Indian Railway. Those of us who stayed on had the benefit of graduate teachers. There was always the temptation for us to take subordinate jobs on the railway for the immediate satisfaction of pay. In my fifteenth year, my father half-seriously suggested that I join the railway in our hometown, Saharanpur, as an engine cleaner at Rs 15 a month. I was overjoyed, but my mother would have none of it. So back to school I went, by and by to forget the enticements of being my own master at fifteen, cleaning locomotives for a living.
Although Boys' School appeared to be modelled on the English public school with its boarders, house system, prefects, and other trappings, there was little that Oak Grove had in common with those prestigious schools in England. To begin with, boys who went to Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby entered with scholarships or because they were from the upper classes in Britain and overseas. The boys of O.G were from ordinary railway families like mine, and needed no special academic standing for admission. Moreover, while the occasional public school boy aspired to the mantle of viceroy of India, most of us would have been quite satisfied with upper subordinate jobs, while a few would aim at professions, provided they were ready to go on to university.
Religious services for the whole school, weather permitting, were held in the Valley, and conducted by the Principal, H.P.Watts dressed in his M.A. (Cantab) gown and hood. Hymns were accompanied on an organ, carried to and from the Valley by coolies. A reluctant choir of trebles
was 'shanghaied' from Stds. 4 and 5 of Boys' School; I was collared a few times. Without benefit of sound systems, much of the service was barely audible, a defect that was aggravated by our inattention to what was going on. When the monsoons drenched us during the season, mid June to mid August, services were held in our separate schools, conducted by their Heads. After the service, boys in Senior School who had brothers or sisters in the other schools were required to visit them for about an hour. In this way I visited Flo in Girls' school for what seemed to last forever, neither of us getting any satisfaction from my visits.
The school year ended with Prize Day, when we presented the school song that we'd been practising for the past week under the baton of a Girls' School music teacher. During practice she would stop us at the same places year after year, till we got to make the same ‘mistakes’ to try her patience. She reproved our slovenly enunciation: ‘O'grove’, ‘We leave the plains and 'eat our homes and friends’, and ‘fa'gem of empire's crown’, but, faced with our indifferent singing, there was nothing she could do. Were it not for the sweet contribution of Girls' School on Prize Day, our singing would have caused some unease among the guests (all English), chief of whom were the General Manager of the E.I.R and his wife.
The words of two of the verses below (5 and 6) reflect the concern at the time (circa 1918) on the part of the railway authorities to shore up the dying imperialism of the new century. These verses disappeared, of course, after Independence, and changes, not always easy on the ear, were made elsewhere in the song. Further changes were made during Shri A.K.Bhaduri’s principalship (1956—1958) to the school motto, Studiis et rebus honestis (by honourable pursuits and studies), along with the cross and the lion on the school crest to more fitting symbols of Indian nationhood and values: the lotus (emblem of piety and intellect) replacing the cross and the lion (symbols of militant Christianity and British might).
Oak Grovians young and old, Though far from Britain’s shore,Come join in cheerful song; We’re British children true.The honour of our school uphold We’ll serve our God whom we adore,With voices clear and strong. Our king and empire too.We leave the plains and heat, This land wherein we live, Our homes and friends below, Fair gem of empire’s crown,And on these rugged mountains meet, Claims earnest work which we can give, Life’s purposes to know. Regardless of renown.In classroom and in field And when we leave Oak Grove,Oak Grove has made her name. Embarking on life’s sea, We’ll strive and hope our time will yield We’ll ne’er forget the school we love, New glories, wider fame. And loyal to her be.Our glorious valley green, In future years we prayWith wooded hills around; God’s blessings she may see;As games we play with vigour keen, And that her sons and daughters may Doth oft with shouts resound. In all things faithful be.
On the whole the masters were very strict, the kindlier among them behaving as impersonally as they could, afraid perhaps that their warmth might be mistaken for weakness. The P.T instructor, ‘Horsey’ Mahoney, was something of an idol in our eyes for his part in the Beryl Brewster tragedy. Yet he too kept his distance from us despite the more informal and pastoral nature of his position. He was around to wake us in the morning, supervise our bedtimes, and generally keep an eye on us in the more relaxed settings of our dorms.
Mr Sulaiman had no disciplinary powers over us, and we took outrageous advantage of him, and because he was Indian, we treated him most shabbily, barely ever giving him the respect of being attentive in his class. In my last two years, however, I became his most assiduous pupil, taking as my reward the Urdu prize for those years. Mr Sulaiman was in fact the highest qualified teacher on the staff, and I owed him a debt of gratitude I'm afraid I was never to repay, unless this long overdue tribute to him might in some way count as gratitude. (Thank you, Mr Sulaiman. In Arabic script, that would read: ). The physics master, Mr Lubeck, was the strictest master on the staff, and no one dared risk any sign of inattention in his classes. Caning on the backside was a time-honoured form of corporal punishment, and Lubeck caned often and hard enough for it to border on cruelty. We learnt well in his class, both out of fear of his cane and because of his great skill as a teacher. In my middle-school years I was often late to the physics lab. I was duly caned for this each time, but then Lubeck began insisting not only on my being on time, but on being first into the lab. My classmates helped me out by waiting till I was ready before running to the lab with me in the lead. In fairness to Mr Lubeck, I have to say that his teaching instilled in me the need for precision in language, objectivity in the writing up experiments, and orderliness of presentation, very little of which I learnt from my English masters. From Mr Lubeck I gained a grasp of physics that held me in good stead when I took it at university in '41, and passed, needing very little additional preparation for the exam.
My English masters somehow failed to kindle in me a liking for this most valuable of subjects. It could be they themselves lacked writing skills or an appreciation for literature. It could also have been that non-specialists were assigned to the teaching of English in the egregiously mistaken belief that anyone who spoke the language could teach it. My compositions in middle-school, I admit, were no better than average, for which I can justifiably blame the banal topics we were given. My essays were uninspiring and no doubt made for tiresome reading. The remarks in red that spattered my written work were as unhelpful as they were unkind, leaving me discouraged and often angry. [It's interesting that I would spend 36 years of my life teaching English in senior school].Literature -- a novel, a Shakespearean play, and an anthology of verse -- was handled in a hum-drum fashion. It was not till Std 6, when, coming under the influence of a friend Stan Holmes (‘Sherlock’), that I took to reading material from the school's little library. I was at last coming alive to the felicities of language as I found them in my reading, which in those days included the Ring magazine, devoted to boxing at international level. I enjoyed the racy style of those American sports writers, as much as I did following the rise to pugilistic fame of Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunny, and my other idols of the boxing world.
At the end of Std 8 we sat for the Junior Cambridge Exams. Mr G.W. McMurray, our English master, who had been there since 1918, took us through A Midsummer Night's Dream and gave me my first experience of a line-by-line understanding of a Shakespearean play. Although his approach took little account of the play's dramatic and lyrical elements, we got a good grasp of the substance of the play, and found it encouraging to be able to answer exam questions about the play. We were fortunate to see a film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream earlier in the year (1938) on one of our ‘last Saturday’ outings in Mussoorie. I was taken with the camera work, which portrayed certain scenes in the play that would have looked contrived or clumsy on stage.My mathematics teachers were generally good. Standards 4 and 5 were outright failures for me, but something happened that set me on a road upon which I would never again look back. There was no subject called ‘mathematics’ as such, it being treated separately as arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and in Std 10, for Neville Gilbert and myself, calculus, co-ordinate geometry and applied maths. It was in '35 and our exam papers in geometry were being returned to us after being marked by ‘Sarjee’ Reid. I must have done some preparation for this exam, for he commented as he returned me my paper that I had ‘surpassed’ myself by getting 70%. I was very pleasantly surprised, and wondered if by continued effort in this and other subjects I might make similar improvements. Sure enough, that's what happened in all my subjects, except English, success in which was to come a while later. I found trigonometry, beginning in Std 6, easy and interesting, and I made giant strides in arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. I spent many a satisfying hour on ‘trig’ identities, ‘geom’ riders, and ‘arith’ problems, and was soon getting excellent marks in all these subjects, so much so that in my last year, along with Neville Gilbert, I was chosen to work under Mr Massyk, B.A, London, in additional mathematics for the Cambridge School Certificate Exam. We managed a bare pass in this subject, as it turned out, because of Massyk's resigning to take a commission in the army when we were only partly through the course, leaving us to manage under Mr Peterson whose speciality we were to learn was not mathematics. Peterson undertook a formidable task at short notice, and our passes in the finals are largely the result of his yeoman service that included also his taking over the teaching of English and history (from Niblett, who also left for a commission), and scripture (from Massyk).
Both history and scripture were taught indifferently, Niblett never inspiring in us a feel for British-Indian history. Massyk, an avowed agnostic, treated the Gospels with cavalier disdain, having us take turns reading aloud, page after page, from the text books: Life of Christ and Acts of the Apostles. He’d interject now and then with remarks like ‘rubbish!’ when he fancied the supernatural event in question too much for him to swallow. Since none of us had any religious feelings, Massyk's sacrilegious outbursts caused us great amusement. Unfortunately, these diversions were no help to us in our preparation for the scripture exam staring us in the face barely two months away. It was Peterson's methodical note making and our learning his notes that helped us pass our exams in history and scripture.
In my last two years I took the Urdu prize and a prize for general merit, Neville Gilbert still holding on to first place. In my last year of school, I entered the School Essay contest. The one topic set was not one I felt comfortable with, but having read an article the day before in a National Geographic, I decided to use from memory some of its catchy phrases and ideas to liven up my essay. The Principal, Mr Watts, judged the entries, and soon the rumour spread that he was deliberating on three finalists: ‘Sherlock’ Holmes, Neville Gilbert, and myself. I was surprised and elated beyond words, more so when it was rumoured, I'm sure at Sherlock's mischievous instigation, that I was the winner. It turned out that Sherlock himself won and took the coveted award on Prize Day. I never did learn whether Neville or I was runner-up, but I didn’t care. I was thrilled enough to have finished among the top three. A light had come on in my brain that would never be extinguished. Rather, it would flame into incandescence over the years, making my school and college English seem colourless and unchallenging.
Most of the masters had minimal qualifications. Only Reid, Niblett, Lubeck, Massyk, and Peterson had bachelor's degrees, while our munshi had an M.A in Persian. The subjects taught were the usual academic ones, excepting European or classical languages. Strangely enough, no chemistry or biology that were routinely offered in most schools. Nor were vocational subjects taught at O.G. I would gladly have seen certain of my subjects replaced by others from among chemistry, biology, and even Latin to enable those of us who were so inclined to seek careers in medicine or law.
Towards the middle of my last year at O.G my mother had been arranging for me to attend Chelmsford Training College, Murree, to become a teacher. The Headmaster, Mr Chunn, knowing this, began taking an interest in me. He it was who arranged for Neville and me to take additional mathematics for the School Certificate.
What, in retrospect, I found profoundly wrong with O.G was its exclusion of Indians, with the exception of the munshi (obviously) and the schools’ doctor, whose son was the only Indian ever to be admitted to O.G. A quiet, well-mannered boy my age, he was with us barely a month -- friendless, shunned, even ridiculed, I never understood why. We ‘Oak Grovians, young and old’, to quote the opening line of our school song, sometimes behaved rather thoughtlessly.
Like most secondary boarding schools of our kind the world over, a great deal of time at Oak Grove was given to organized sport, academic pursuits falling way behind in our scale of values. The great public schools of England had long been our model, reinforced by the Duke of Wellington’s celebrated remark that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Perhaps true of those days at the start of the 19th century, when physical courage and tenacity mattered so much, it would hardly be true of warfare these days, for in our time bloodless, remote-control technologies have produced the likes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, dwarfing the bloodshed of Waterloo.
The lack of a strong tradition at Oak Grove stemmed, I believe, from the absence of an active alumni association. Few of the renowned public schools of England or India would have acquired their status without some such body. It mattered little that O.G had the occasional alumnus who had made a name for himself in the outside world, or that it was modelled on English public schools, with its own colours (red and white), school song, and Latin motto on its school crest. An Old Oak Grovians' association would have given us a sense of belonging in a much larger fraternity, and of sharing a healthy pride in belonging to Oak Grove. [ It was not until 1984, 44 years after I left the school that at the invitation of the principal, Mr Kichlu, I became a life member of the Old Oak Grovians' Association].
At school I was reasonably good at all games but exceptional in none. Boxing was the sport I liked least of all but at the same time desired most at which to excel. It seemed a skill worth acquiring. I realized, after years of sparring in P.T classes (how I loathed them!), that I could hold my own in the ring. So, I was nearly always being chosen for inter-house and inter-school boxing teams. I owe it, however, to my reasonable skill at boxing that I was never bullied. With all that testosterone around, it was as well to be able to hold one’s own when violence shook the air.
The Cambridge School Certificate Exams were starting in early December, and I began preparing for them in real earnest. Cold as it was becoming, and with nearly everyone gone, it felt good having the school to ourselves. With the rules relaxed considerably, and those masters staying on seeming at last so pleasant, this so-called ‘Cambridge Week’ was to become the nicest time of my entire school days.
In those last days I got a sense of impending loss, a world that was slipping away, never to return. It all began to feel so short, my nine years at Oak Grove. The war which had begun just fifteen months earlier was tightening its icy grip on our lives, forcing us to reflect on its implications for us. One of these was that we had to write our Cambridge exams in duplicate, the original to be sent by sea to England for marking, the copy retained in India should the originals be lost at sea. A few of our masters had taken wartime commissions in the armed forces and left without substitutes. Some Old Oak Grovians whom I knew had joined the armed forces, and life at school was beginning to lose some of the stability that it had possessed for as long as I could remember. In the summer of my last year, 1940, when the Battle of Britain was at its peak, our morning assemblies, conducted by the headmaster Mr Chunn, were filled with news of British planes lost in action, along with allied bombings of Germany. Although we were half a world away from the war in Western Europe, our hearts went out to people like Mr Chunn and his family whose connections with wartime Britain were understandably deeper than ours. I liked Mr Chunn, and I believe he was as devoted to Oak Grove as would have been any of us whose roots were in India.
My classmates seemed unsure about what they would do after leaving school. I was going to Chelmsford Training College, and I had a feeling they would join up. Anyway, in a few days we'd be going our separate ways into a future that at the best of times would have been uncertain, but in a world being savaged by war was beginning to look a little unnerving for us youngsters. On my last day of school, December 6, '40, I turned seventeen. After all those years in Saharanpur, I'd now be going home instead to Lahore for my holidays, after which I'd start at Chelmsford Training College for teacher training concurrently with undergraduate study (externally) from the University of Punjab at Lahore.
P.S. In October ’84, I revisited Oak Grove after 44 years. Some profound changes had occurred in that time, not the least being the complete Indianization of O.G. A period of Indian history had passed and with it some of the excrescences of the old order. While a guest of the principal Mr Kichlu and his wife, I was reminded of a time when Mr and Mrs H.P. Watts lived there, and we children felt as we passed by the place that some awful deity resided there. By 1984 so much had changed as I found myself enjoying for a few days the home and hospitality of Mr and Mrs Kichlu.
The boys I met in 1984 were more highly motivated and a good deal more industrious than those of my time. Indeed, in those days we took pride in affecting an indifference towards school work, for anyone found being attentive to it ran the risk of being scorned.The teaching staff in all three schools seemed much kinder people than those of my time. Furthermore, in 1984, of the school's 25 teachers, 21 had masters' degrees, 4 held baccalaureates. Although these figures need to be treated with caution when comparing teachers, it is nevertheless true that Oak Grove, quite literally, has an extremely well-qualified staff.
Oak Grove's current curriculum puts ours to shame. In my time, oddly enough, there was no chemistry, biology, political science, economics, music or art. In extramurals we had none of the many clubs and activities that Oak Grove now has: debating, dramatics, declamation, yearbook, to mention only a few. It was good that yoga and calisthenics had replaced boxing, the latter having too much of the gladiatorial element aimed at spectator appeal.
Total enrolments were significantly higher than in my time. The Principal's report of 1984 noted 414, with 194 in Boys' School (some 45 more than in my time). With the same seven classrooms, presumably there were more boys per room than in my day. My two-day visit to Oak Grove was obviously too short, but it was all the time I could spare from a schedule I'd planned months ahead and which required me to be at a College reunion in London, visits with friends in England and Dehra Dun, an invitation to Camden Hall School, Dehra Dun, a day's stop over in my old Saharanpur, and a day's visit to Wynberg-Allen where I had taught in 1943. I need at least a week for Oak Grove alone to savour all its changes, and bask in the memories of a place I spent nine of the most impressionable years of my life. Most of all I'd like to wander around, unheeded as possible, among the boys at work or play, or simply enjoying a ‘loaf’. I'd love to spend a whole day in Boys’ School, have meals with the boys, sleep a night in their dorm. (Would they, being Hindu, eat with their fingers; use the lavatory differently? Just how ‘Indianized’ would my old school have become?) I’d love to teach a class or two in senior English (but only on invitation), if only to give the kids and their teachers a novel break. I’d have my video camera going full blast.
There are so many things I want to do in the sunset of my life, but none more dearly than one last visit to Oak Grove. I have no great achievements that would make my visit a special occasion for the school, other than the dubious distinction of being an incurably sentimental old goat.
Be that as it may, after thirty-six years of teaching on three continents (in India, Australia, and Canada), sixteen of them in boarding schools in Australia, I ask myself why this pull towards Oak Grove? The answer could well be that, apart from my three years in Saharanpur’s little railway school as a tot, my entire schooling has been at Oak Grove, all nine years as a boarder. There are places in Junior School, and even more in Boys' School, where I could spend many a rewarding hour in quiet recollection that would give me the nearest thing I know to a spiritual experience. For this alone, I imagine, I’d give almost anything to be there one last time.
PPS. And so it happened, but not till 2005, when I found myself at Oak Grove that ‘one last time’. I spent almost a week there from March 5, and was housed at the visitors’ lodge, down by the front pitch. I took my meals with the staff, and because I’m a life-member of the Oak Grovians’ Association, my board and lodging were free. I was greeted on arrival by a young and cheerful Brahmin staff member named Shobhit Pathak who introduced himself to me as ‘coordinator of alumni’, and from that moment on till I left the school he remained my constant host, guide and friend. A number of the meals were vegetable curry, dall and chapattis which I enjoyed as much for their taste as for their sentimental value.
I met a few times with the young Indian principal, Peter Gabriel, and found him extremely likable -- I couldn’t resist giving him an unmerciful hug before I left. I spent hours in his office poring over and making notes from the diary of A.C.Chapman, the school’s first headmaster, 1888 – 1912. Somebody had once been reading it and done a brief outline of the school’s early days. I have a copy of one such outline.Oak Grove is, in many ways, a very different school today. Someone with a mind to writing a book, could put together a fascinating and informative piece about Oak Grove’s transformation. I’d be disingenuous if I pretended that I wasn’t myself interested in giving it a go.
The staff and kids can’t wait to hear you tell them about the old days. What struck me from the start was the extraordinary courtesy of everyone, so much so that I found it hard to resist fancying myself a fellow of some importance. In Junior School I signed autographs for its clamouring little girls, until Mr Anupam Singh, who was relieving Shobhit, came to my rescue and spirited me off on some pretext. The senior boys, more reserved, were nevertheless eager to hear about the Oak Grove of my day. I must have seemed an odd relic from the past -- sixty-five years having gone by since I was there as a boy.
I had just the one meal in Senior School. I did so much want to ask them questions of my own, but as it happened they got in first with theirs. Their food was entirely vegetarian, and they ate the way we do, not with their hands. I noticed that their meals were the same as the staff’s. In my day, our food was not nearly as nice as the staff’s, but occasionally our prefects would get delicious left-overs from their table.
I was curious to see the lavatories, aware that Hindu custom is so different from our own. The old toilets that were flushed automatically had long since been replaced by Indian-style latrines with overhead cisterns for individual flushing. There were mugs in place under taps for washing the Hindu way. This was so at all three schools. If one doesn’t jump to easy conclusions, their way could well be a more hygienic alternative to our own. The old showers had been replaced, oddly enough, by taps for bathing – the so-called Hindu baths. The visitors’ lodge, fortunately, had the usual old toilet in the bathroom, but, believe it or not, no toilet paper. Nobody around thought that the least bit strange, but eventually a roll did show up, thanks to Shobhit, who must have seen to it that one be obtained from Mussoorie a few miles up the road.
I noticed a few senior boys standing reverently before a brightly-coloured statue of Lord Siva in a secluded spot near the lodge. They touched the ground at their feet, then their lips, and paused as if in prayer before quietly moving off. It took my breath away to see these public gestures of piety. The truth is that I was witnessing at first hand the new ethos of Oak Grove. When I mentioned this to Shobhit, he being a high Brahmin, no doubt wondered why something so commonplace as public worship had caught my attention, particularly as it happened to be during the Board exams, when divine help would most specially be sought after. I thought back to our own ‘Cambridge Week’ of exams, but couldn’t, for the love of me, recall praying in private, let alone in public for help from on high. From way back then I must have been the unregenerate skeptic that I would eventually become.
There being no Sunday worship as we knew it, the kids mooched around much like the way we did. I noticed the occasional senior boy engrossed in study. Such studiousness was something we dared not show in my day.
Judging from their magazine articles, the kids of Oak Grove are pretty serious about their school and everything it stands for -- so different from the devil-may-care attitude of my time. They are always in uniform – maroon pullovers, grey trousers (girls too, on occasion), and tidily dressed, shoes polished -- anything less would in their eyes be disrespectful. The medium of instruction is English, but whether they chatted among themselves in English was something I was most keen to find out. So I had Shobhit arrange for me to spend a night in the boys’ dorm. A doozer of a cold, unfortunately, put the kibosh on that. But hearing the staff speak to one another at meals and other times, I took it that the kids too spoke Hindi amongst themselves. Their speech, cut off from British English for so many years has led to a kind of language inbreeding, with the result that they seem to outsiders to be less and less easy to understand.
I gave an English lesson to a senior class of 35(!) boys and, anxious that I be understood by them, I took particular care with how I spoke -- so much so, in fact, that I could well have sounded a bit strange to the boys as well as their master, Mr Anand Kumar, an MA in English, who sat at the back of the room during my lesson. I dealt with the subject of ‘Dictionary Definitions’, having given a similar lesson to classes at Cardston High shortly before I retired, now twenty-one years ago. Mr Kumar seemed every bit as attentive as the boys, judging from the video taping I saw later.
Earlier on, I sat in on a senior physics class in the lab, over by the back pitch, but as I am getting hard of hearing I had difficulty following the teacher, Mr Krishna Kumar, an MSc in physics. The kids, I’m sure, understood him well, in spite of the way he barrelled along. Having done university physics myself, I would say the lesson, which was on ‘Sound’, was around first-year university level. There were 14 boys and 11 girls there – a far cry from my day when girls among us would have been altogether too much for us fellows to take in anything of the lesson. I found myself conjuring up visions of our Mr Lubeck at the blackboard, with us Std 10 blokes sitting in that very room, our attention riveted on the strictest man on earth. On those same benches I was ‘seeing’ my old classmates Ralph Scott, Neville Gilbert, Keith Gantzer, ‘Sherlock’ Holmes, ‘Baldy’ Kearns, Ted Bonner, Bill Derry, Dud Venner, Maurice Killoway, Max Arber, and ‘Fritz’ La Zelle. Aside from Ralph, Keith, and Bill, I don’t know what has come of the rest of them.
These are a few of the changes I noticed. Unable to make a similar visit to the girls’ school, I could only assume from their cheerful and often movingly sincere entries in the Oak Grovian that the girls felt the same way as the boys towards their school. One last comment: unlike church-run schools the world over, Oak Grove gave us kids a secular environment – one blessedly free from religious indoctrination. As all too often happens, many religions, instead of bringing together the peoples of the earth, have succeeded mainly in ripping them apart; Christianity is one example, Islam another -- both of them global religions. In light of this, what is one to make of Oak Grove’s new religiosity? One encouraging view is that Hinduism, like Buddhism, is grounded in the principle of nonviolence – ahimsa, which Gandhi extended into the political sphere as satyagraha, nonviolent resistance to a specific evil. There can be no question of the value of nonviolence as an educational ideal. Furthermore, instead of perceiving human life as an irreconcilable conflict between good and evil, as Christians do, Hinduism views it instead as a necessary combination of both. The Hindu god Siva, worshiped at Oak Grove, is a unique blend of these contradictory elements. One of Lord Shiva’s consorts is, in fact, none other than the evil and destructive goddess Kali. Thus, Hinduism possesses, in unique measure the philosophic basis for tolerance among people, despite the appalling ambiguities to be found in their makeup. There is good reason, I think, to be optimistic about Oak Grove’s religious orientations.
Chapter Four: College (1941 – 1942)March, '41 had none of the heaviness of heart that accompanied the preceding nine years, for this time I was going to Chelmsford Training College to prepare for a teaching career. My mother and I visited Rev. Cotton, Principal of the Lawrence College, Ghora Gali, who was spending the winter vacation in Lahore. I found him a pleasant person as he welcomed me in advance to the college which would be my home for the usual nine-months' spell. I had been granted a government stipend of Rs 50 a month, but as it was not enough for my expenses my mother sent me a monthly allowance of Rs 25. We were treated as adults and enjoyed a status just below that of the teachers, many of whom frequented the Staff Club of which we were guest members. They treated us with a courtesy I’d not expected, addressing us first as ‘Mister’ and then later by our first names. The Club's facilities had areas for cards, billiards, and tennis. We juniors were also students at the Inter College, so we found ourselves hobnobbing at the club with some of our own lecturers. I don't recall feeling awkward about this, thanks to the friendliness and good manners of those men and their wives. In time, we were to hear whispered innuendoes concerning some of the men, which whether true or not, gave us enough to elaborate mischievously on what little we heard.
We nine juniors had a cubicle each to ourselves, Vic Walters, the Deputy Senior Commoner, occupying one of them as the senior-in-charge. He was about thirty, short, dark-skinned, and slightly built. A former hockey star, with a gift of the gab, and a chain smoker, he punctuated his reminiscences with periodic drags on his cigarette. I liked his company, and spent many hours listening to him. He would confide to me his crush on a rather large, fair and pleasant looking teacher in the girls' school who was a former Oak Grove girl, numbered among the prize winners, and whom I was aware of at school although she was four years my senior. She was as big and ingenuous as Vic was small and worldly. His weakness for big women probably had a Freudian explanation, but for me the incongruity was interesting enough. He was a good student and an accomplished debater, and must have been regarded highly enough to have been chosen as Deputy Senior Commoner.
Our Senior Commoner was a forty-year-old man, Fred Webster, who had been teaching for many years before deciding to take his teacher training. He was well liked for his blend of maturity and good humour. He was nicknamed ‘Skull’ by his colleagues, who were insensitive enough to draw attention to his bony face and cavernous looks. We juniors, most of whom were young enough to have had him for a father, enjoyed an excellent rapport with Fred who wore his mantle of leadership with a naturalness we liked. He too had a crush on a young teacher in the girls' school, a sweet-looking blonde about whom he would openly dramatise his fantasies, having her respond with suitable modesty to his suggestive advances: "O, Freddie, please do-o-o-n't, Freddie. O-o-o-o!" We youngsters enjoyed the vicarious satisfaction of being in Fred's shoes during these imagined interludes.
In our first week in the C.T.C the seniors put us Juniors through an initiation ceremony of good-natured hazing. Cloaked in bed sheets, late at night, and carrying lit candles, we did the rounds of the college under the direction of a senior who, chanting a mock-liturgy, part pagan part nonsense, subjected us to some minor embarrassments along the way. The proceedings ended with our stepping blind-folded into a tub of ice-cold water. This was followed by our having to give impromptu speeches on risqué topics drawn from a hat. During this we'd be interrupted throughout our embarrassed delivery with fatuous questioning by the seniors. The ordeal over, we were congratulated warmly and officially welcomed into the Chelmsford Training College
Juniors had twin courses undertaken concurrently: 1) first-year university courses in the Science or Arts faculty from the University of the Punjab at Lahore. (I took English, mathematics, geography, and Urdu, with physics as a supplementary, in the Arts faculty), and 2) courses on teaching, none of which had much academic content. The university courses, on the other hand, were at a much higher level than were those at school, and it was hard keeping up with the maths course especially, despite my exposure to some of it in my additional maths at O.G. The lecturer, Mr Edwards, (‘Tosh’) moved with relentless speed over new ground, and I believe my classmates Weskin, Hopkins-Husson, and the rest, not having done additional maths before, were more lost than I was.
The English course, mainly literature, under Mr Thurley, B.A. London, was more inspiring than informative. Thurley was a poseur with a fine speaking voice and a penchant for sensual poetry. He seemed to get great pleasure from quoting stuff of a suggestive nature, such as Keats's, ‘pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breasts, to feel its rise and fall for ever...’ or revelling in the lurid aspects of writers like Oscar Wilde, and D.H Lawrence. Habitually in fawn corduroys, he looked the typical English aesthete. But he was a likeable fellow, and in my superficial view at the time seemed the quintessential Oxford don, lacking only the scholarship of such men.
My Urdu classes under Mr Abdul Hamid gave me my first taste of Urdu poetry. I was captivated by the sound of those Persian cadences read with such skill and evident relish by Hamid. Their meaning, however, was something I had to work on by myself to prepare for exams. I had heard about his indignation at being taken for a munshi. He was supposed to have said, ‘I am not a munshi. I am a lecturer!’ He was a vain man, whose walk was a swagger. While reading he would pace back and forth delivering those enchanting lines, supremely conscious of his fine performance. Although his spoken English was inevitably that of an Indian, he carried himself with such confidence and bonhomie that his English colleagues at the college came to accept him as their social equal to the extent, that is, that such equality was possible in those days of British India.Mr H.R Smith (‘Snodger’), a brother of ‘Cam’ Smith at Oak Grove, took us in geography and later psychology when I was a senior. He was not much of a lecturer and seemed content to dictate notes every day. He had a B.A in geography from a local university, but none of us would have guessed it from the way he taught his classes. He avoided in-class discussion, preferring instead to dictate notes, thereby driving us to the conclusion that anyone could have done his job without in the least being an expert. Passing exams became solely a matter of regurgitating his notes, most of which, inevitably, we consigned to oblivion. Practice of Teaching was more stressful than difficult in that it meant preparation and delivery of lessons to classes from the boys’ school. We called them 'crit' lessons because our colleagues and the lecturer, Mr Collier (‘Pip’), critically evaluated us. The criteria, derived from Herbart (1776-1841) were, presumably, adapted by Collier himself who saw to it that they be regarded as pedagogical imperatives, even though contemporary educators -- B.F.Skinner and John Dewey in the U.S had long since replaced Herbart. Our lesson plans were rigidly structured on Herbartian principles: Aim, Previous knowledge, Presentation, and Application, and we stuck to these because Collier was not given to having his dictates questioned. Worse still, we used these antiquated ideas to bludgeon one another in ‘crit’ lessons at the least sign they were being transgressed. Collier, of course, supported such criticisms, adding his own measure of searing invective.My ‘crit’ lesson was a disaster, despite the punishing hours of preparation I'd put into it. Nothing in my past had prepared me for the ordeal that was now at hand. It was a history lesson, my worst subject at school, so much of it requiring narration, a skill I did not possess. A maths lesson would have suited me much better, requiring as it does explanation rather than exposition. Why Collier assigned me a history lesson I'll never know. He knew that maths was my chosen speciality.
When at last the day arrived, I was a nervous wreck. A class of twenty boys marched into the room, stood quietly at their desks awaiting my call to be seated. My ‘crit’ lesson had begun. It was on Rufus the Red (William II of England). Meanwhile, at the back of the room my colleagues were ranged, ready to make the opening thrusts of their criticism, Collier similarly at the ready.
I remember nothing of the lesson I gave. I had worked loose a button off my blazer and became aware of it in my hand. Later the blackboard and easel collapsed to the floor scattering coloured chalk dust and staining my hands, face, and clothes. Somehow, the thirty minutes had gone by. I dismissed the class and took my place among my colleagues, Collier presiding. My lesson was lambasted by everyone. At seventeen I was receiving my baptism of fire and for days after I reeled from its trauma, wondering what on earth I had got myself into and what I should do next.
As it turned out, I not only survived but began finding my feet, thanks largely to the heart-warming experience of college life which in the following months helped build my self-confidence. At the end of the first year we spent a week in the boys' school, taking over from the masters, while they busied themselves marking final exam papers. But I never again gave a history lesson.
As juniors we were expected to participate in a number of cultural activities: the church choir, a choral group conducted by Mrs Cotton (the Principal's wife), debates, the performing arts, and be at evening lectures by the college staff on their specialities. We were required also to be scoutmasters in the boys' school, and join the A.F.I (Auxiliary Forces, India) under the command of Capt. Eric Munrowd, headmaster of the boys' school. I took part enthusiastically in these activities, and was one of the pirates in The Pirates of Penzance, directed by Mrs Cotton, which we staged in a Murree theatre for a week. This was a new experience for me, and even though mine was a small part, I memorised the tunes and lyrics for nearly every part in the show. Basil Haye, an O.G contemporary of mine, who finished up at Sherwood College, took the lead role of Frederick opposite Ruth, played by Mrs Cotton. This undoubtedly helped Basil's becoming Senior Commoner the following year.
After the genial Fred Webster, Basil appeared much less suited to his senior position among us, and went about his responsibilities as Senior Commoner with a seriousness and pomposity that didn't go down well with us. The Deputy Senior Commoner, Phillip Banham, on the other hand, in his mid-twenties, seemed a more mature fellow, socially and intellectually. He had a naturalness about him that would have got him the position Basil had, were it not for the latter's timely success with the Cottons for his lead role in the The Pirates.
Phillip had a cubicle in the juniors' section, where he spent his evenings smoking his pipe and studying philosophy on his own. He was passionate about poetry and he read a great deal of what seemed serious literature, both English and French. He had a style of speaking that appealed to me, and I found myself fashioning my speech after his, whether it was reciting poetry or, during my senior year, reading the scripture lesson in chapel. I enjoyed the freedom and privileges of my first year in the C.T.C. A few of the seniors, Max McAuliffe, Fred Hardaker (‘Puss’), and some women staff members (including the school nurse Clare), would go up to Murree for dances that I enjoyed as much for the dancing as for the adult company in which I found myself included. I remember my first shandy at Lintots in Murree after a game of hockey -- a far cry from my school days, barely three months earlier, when the mere thought of having a beer would have assured me I was going to the dogs. It was ‘Puss’ Hardaker, a fine all-round sportsman with good looks and personality to match, who arranged these outings through his association with Clare with whom he boasted he had gone some distance. A philanderer, Puss was expelled from College for having put a girl in the family way in Rawalpindi. He was commissioned soon after in the army, and returned for a day to College in the uniform of a 2nd lieutenant, looking even more attractive and virile than ever. It occurred to me then how much an officer's uniform dramatically enhanced one's appeal, especially for women caught up, as nearly all of us were by the excitements of war. It certainly made us civilians look and feel rather drab by comparison.
Small as the C.T.C was, about 20 of us, we held our own athletic competitions. I entered in many of the events: sprints, middle-distances, and the so-called ‘marathon’, about 5 miles, mostly downhill from St Denny's to the girls' school. I won places in these as well as in the hurdles and high jump, and was awarded certificates instead of medals because of the austerity measures during the war, then well into its third year.
We managed our own messing arrangements under the secretaryship of a senior appointed at the same time as were the Senior Commoner and the Deputy Senior Commoner. Three red-bearded Muslim bearers served in the dining room where we sat four to a table and enjoyed well-prepared meals paid for -- Rs 23 a month -- out of our stipends. We wore mess dress on a few special evenings, and that meant the additional expense of a white monkey jacket, bow tie and black dress trousers. A special meal was laid on, the expenses of which came out of our pockets. The evening ended with a concert put on by us juniors for staff members and their wives, the program consisting of recitations, songs, and a short and woefully under-rehearsed sketch or two of a humorous kind. (Mrs Cotton it was believed used these occasions to sniff out talent for her extra-curricular groups).
A. S Collier, B.A London, wasn't academically all that well qualified; one of the Seniors when I was a Junior had the same degree. But Collier seemed well suited for the two hats he wore, one being vice principal of the College under the Rev. W.H Cotton, M.A (Oxon.), the other being principal of the C.T.C, where he had a small office, and took us in practice of teaching, general methods of teaching, and special methods of teaching arithmetic and history. He was a lean and authoritative looking man with heavy glasses that gave him a forbidding look. An Englishman and an autocrat, he was regarded in awe by us, and nobody dared cross him. I don’t know what’s meant by having a ‘fear of God’, never having had a religious upbringing, but I knew only too well what it meant to have a fear of Collier. We behaved sycophantically towards him to be on his good side. When he condescended to join us at badminton of an evening, we were careful not to do anything that might offend him. When a shuttlecock fell to the ground we would pick it up and hand it to him.
In Chapel, Collier played the organ and was an accomplished performer of preludes and recessionals, including such favourites of mine as Elgar's Land of Hope and Glory. I was in the choir stall next to him as he accompanied the hymns on the pipe organ. There was something so impressive and elevating about those evensongs in Chapel. The staff wore academic dress, so I had my first eyeful of hoods being worn by Oxford, Cambridge, and other university graduates. The first scripture lesson was read by a staff member and the second by a senior from the C.T.C. Those days were good for me, my previous life lacking the opportunities for social growth. With Phillip Banham as a model, I found great satisfaction in reading, during my second year, the scripture lesson before some 400 pupils of the Lawrence College. In the congregation were Una and Bas Mott, and eleven of my cousins: Maureen Brayley (15), Pat McGrath (18), my McIntyre cousins Aileen (18), Phyllis (17), Joyce (15), Jim (14), Peter (12), and Don (10), and my Blagden cousins Ginger (13), Shelagh (11), and Lorena (9). An eager imitator, I became pretty good at reading after the style of Banham. Because of him, changes occurred also in my thinking, and it was about this time that I formed a lifelong aversion to political conservatism and began my espousal of socialism because of what I saw was its intrinsic fairness.
C.T.C holidays coincided with the Lawrence College’s, my first year ending a week before the Japanese struck Pearl Harbour on December 7th, 1941. With the war so far away, nothing mattered as much to me as my teacher training. The three months' holiday ahead needed to be spent preparing for my Intermediate exams in mid-February, 1942. But I was looking forward also to other and sweeter things during those holidays, so my studies would need to make room for them as well.
Christmas that year in Lahore seethed with excitement and expectation. I had just turned eighteen and never having been out with a girl, I looked forward to the experience. I was attracted to a few girls at the dances held two nights a week at the railway institute known as the Burt. A police band of native musicians under the direction of their English inspector, Mr Chapman, played dance pieces that sounded marvellous. The previous year I had learnt to dance foxtrots and waltzes and some novel routines such as The Lambeth Walk, Hands, Knees, and Boomps-a- Daisy! and The Conga. The air was filled with a wistfulness in the wartime songs of Vera Lynn: A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, Lily Marlene, and the heart-wrenching We'll Meet Again, and When the Lights Come on Again, to mention only a few of the songs that I still link with dances at the Burt and those lovely girls, Mary and Tiny Critchell, Deborah and Dawn Taylor, ‘Bobby’ Callaghan, and my favourite at the time, June Taylor. I had known these girls from the previous winter and enjoyed their company, particularly at the Burt.
At the New Year’s Ball that year I met Una Mott, who lived across the road from the Burt, and had only recently come to Lahore when her father, a station master had been transferred from Amritsar. I danced most of the night with Una. Her fresh and pink complexion, her cheery disposition and comfortable feel as we danced made my pulse race, and I was in love for the first time in my young life. I walked her home that night, gave her my first-ever kisses, and wandered home on a cloud. We became sweethearts that winter, she fifteen and I eighteen. We rode our bikes together around the town, danced almost exclusively with each other at the Burt, and spent long hours together at her home.At the end of '42 I sat for the Diploma Exams in English (including a phonetics test, and a recitation of poetry), Mathematics (arithmetic only), psychology, general methods of teaching, special methods of teaching, practise of teaching, and school management and hygiene. None of these courses in my senior year was at all challenging, nor could they have claimed to be a valid preparation for teaching. Phonetic script, taught by Mr Thurley, I found most useful, and I cottoned onto it in no time. With it I find to this day I can follow easily the pronunciation of words in the Oxford English Dictionary and Jones's English Pronouncing Dictionary.
The psychology we did, quite apart from the dull way it was presented, was a waste of time. We learnt a psychology that stemmed from the works of Nunn and others whose names don't rate a mention in the literature today. Yet our course was contemporaneous with valuable work being done in the U.S by B.F Skinner, a pioneer in the field of learning, the very crux of our concern as teachers. Our course made no mention of any of the behaviourists whose contribution to psychology centred on learning. I couldn't get interested in the course, consisting as it did of taking down notes dictated by ‘Snodger’ Smith. I'll always remember his asking the interesting question at the start of the course, ‘What is psychology?’ Without waiting for us to discuss the question, he said, ‘Take this down’, and from that moment on to the end he dictated from his notes. I was bored beyond endurance, and for diversion took to scribbling down my notes in phonetic script. Snodger probably sensed my boredom, and one day took me by surprise by warning me that I would fail the course if I didn't show some interest in it. As it happened, I passed in psychology but cannot with any honesty claim to have learnt anything of worth from the course. Teaching practice was the only course of real value. This is not to deny the incalculable value of my having been at the C.T.C for those two years, considering all the extra-curricular benefits I derived.
Towards the end of my senior year there was a school dance, but I had to be careful about my attentions towards Una. I longed for our holidays to begin so that we could be together without hindrance.
As things turned out, however, while January of that year had seen the birth of our romance and the following months its flowering, the end of the year was to see its sudden demise.
But I had a teaching job lined up at Allen Memorial School, Mussoorie, and was looking forward to my life as a schoolmaster. The pay was only Rs145/month, but with it went full board and lodging.
[The rest of this journal will be in the form of imagined letters to my dear friend Mrs Phyllis Losasso, ‘Sasso’ to her friends. See Introduction]
Letter #1: Allen Memorial School (1943) Dunlop Rd. Lahore 3Jan.’44Dear Sasso,A little over a month ago, when the school year ended and nearly everyone had gone home, I recall a small group, rather late at night, of teachers from Wynberg in a room off the dormitory that was yours as matron. How happy and how sad we were, being together for the last time. I knew then that in the years ahead I’d be writing to you about that farewell of ours with you as its hostess.
It wasn’t long before we were calling you ‘Sasso’ as a mark of affection for you. You had told us that one of the littlies in Wynberg couldn’t quite get her tongue around the name ‘Losasso’ and managed only to come up with ‘Missasso’. From that childlike attempt came our nickname for you, so ‘Sasso’ became enshrined in memory. We knew that you were there by yourself and that you had your five children in school with you:
Bobby
Peter
Peggy and Joan
and Mary
Cisco Kelly, who you’ll recall was with me a short time after he’d done his M.A. was as impressed as I had been with our little group of Wynbergers, with you as its centrepiece. He too began calling you Sasso as did the young teachers from Wynberg, Muriel Baker and Esme Hughes.
What did you think of the masters at Allen and their wives? Ken Mc Gowan, who taught senior English, seemed a pleasant fellow, and I thought his wife rather beautiful and very devoted to him. I found Matthews, who taught senior Maths, a little withdrawn. His wife was also very attractive. Up the hill where I lived was Miss Hay, short and wide, a schoolmarm to type. In the same building with me were two young couples: Bob Murray and his wife and their baby, and Frank Smith and his wife and their baby. Frank met his wife, a delightful red-head, while she was teaching at the Lawrence College girls' school while he was still at the C.T.C, a year before I got there. There was O.B Craven, whom I liked very much. A bachelor, he took up with a Mrs Powell, a single parent who had her teenage son at Allen. There was some speculation as to whether O.B and Mrs Powell would marry. I remember your telling us once that, as you passed by her window you saw her sitting on the floor of her drawing room as O.B in a chair stroked her hair, her face glowing in the firelight with love. I remember when O.B took leave during the year to do his B.A and B.D (Bachelor of Divinity). When I was leaving Allen, he said to me in great earnestness, as he shook my hand, ‘Maurice, don't leave God out of your life’. He was not to be lured away from his vocation, as many of us were, to seek commissions in the armed forces, and for this I admired him immensely.
Towards the end of my year at Allen I'm afraid my mind was taken up less with teaching than with the prospects of a commission. As I didn’t care for the army or air force, I tried for the navy. Besides, by that time Cisco was already in the navy. I must add, a little ashamedly, that the naval uniform had a lot to do with my choice. I was selected at the final interview in Bombay on the condition that I have surgery on a varicocele on my left side. I was nervous about the operation, and I remember making veiled enquiries about it from the school nurse who now and again dropped in at your place. She said it was a simple operation and fairly common, so I was relieved to hear that.
As soon as I returned to Lahore, I had my surgery done at the Albert Victor Hospital. Immediately after, I informed the naval authorities and received my posting to start training on 14 January, '44, at H.M.I.S Feroze in Bombay, with the rank of sub lieutenant, R.I.N.V.R. I wondered at about this time whether you had plans to return to Wynberg for another year. But there was no way I could find out, not having had the gumption to get your Cawnpore address before we parted. I expect that by now you and your children have plans to move on from Wynberg. Please keep in touch. My address for the next long while will be British Fleet Mail Office, Bombay.I'll be writing to you again in a year's time, if not sooner.Maurice.
Letter #2: The Navy (1944) Naval Headquarters, New Delhi. 3 Jan, '45.Dear Sasso,It's exactly a year since I wrote to you before I left for Bombay to join the navy. As you can imagine, it has been a full and eventful year, the tempo of life speeding up in ways that have sometimes left this villager of a fellow confused and bewildered, wondering whether what he was doing was the best thing for him. I spent the last week or so in Lahore, with Una's family, not far from where I lived. A bust up occurred between my father and me and I was unceremoniously thrown out of the house, bag and baggage. My mother, try as she would, failed to appease my father's wrath over something so trivial that I simply cannot remember what it was. She arranged with Mrs Mott for me to stay at her place till it was time for me to go. If ever I felt sorry for myself, it was then. I was angry, hurt, and humiliated. I couldn't wait for the 11th January when I'd catch the train for Bombay to begin a new life.
Although I had been to Bombay before for my final interview, this was to be an entirely new experience for me. On reporting to Capt. Passmore Edwards, R.I.N.R, Commanding Officer of the training ship H.M.I.S Feroze, I went through all the initiatory stuff, and in the brand new summer uniform of a sub lieutenant, R.I.N.V.R, I began on January, 14, my naval career. The only other trainee I knew was Keith Gantzer, from my Oak Grove days. But for some reason we seemed to have little or nothing to do with each other during our five-months’ stint which consisted of general courses: divisional (introductory) with an unwelcome dose of parade ground drill (the navy way), seamanship, navigation, communications, anti-submarine, torpedoes, radar, and gunnery. To distinguish us trainees from the others, we wore navy-blue stockings instead of the white. Our training done, we were glad to shed anything that would draw attention to our rookie status in the service. Many of us, acutely conscious of this, resorted to tarnishing whatever was new looking in our cap badges or shoulder straps, and giving our caps a well-worn look by punishing them into shapes that wouldn't betray their newness.I was indeed fortunate to have as my first commanding officer, Capt. Passmore Edwards, a man of great dignity and kindliness. He remembered me from when I first appeared before him in my final interview in Bombay, and now he seemed to take a certain interest in me that made me feel more comfortable in my new surroundings. I admired and respected him as much for his exalted position among us as for his personal qualities. We'd rise at 6 am and finish at sunset and the discipline was tough and unrelenting. There was so much that my landlubberly ways made it hard for me to adjust to. As everything had to be done the navy way, I had a lot of unlearning to do. The place seethed with the strangeness of things naval: the language, the distinctive uniform, the nearness of ships and the sea, and the unaccustomed sight wherever we went of navy personnel among the hordes of men and women in service uniforms. In the bustling metropolis of Bombay, despite our being welcome in posh places, I’ve felt a loneliness I’d never experienced before. Gone were the familiar old sights, the quiet surroundings, the homely comforts, the warmth of friends and family. From now on I had to adapt. As it happens, I’ve not only fitted in, but have come to enjoy my new life.
In June, my training ended, I spent my 10 days' leave showing myself off in my new uniform, first to my family in Lahore and, of course, at the Burt among my old friends. Then on to my old Saharanpur, mainly to see my Grandpa Keess, and to Allen, full of conceit, to see Muriel Baker and Esme Hughes (but, sadly, no Sasso there). While at Allen, I had the honour of refereeing the Inter-house boxing finals. I then went on to my old school where my brother Nigel was a boarder.
My first posting was to Ranchi on an aircraft recognition instructors' course. After two weeks there, I was posted to naval headquarters, New Delhi, and there I stayed at a desk job till the end of last year. I found board and lodging, along with an English army officer, at the home of Mr Monty Collins, a senior secretarial officer at the Legislative Assembly. His wife and their daughter Joan, a 2nd officer in the W.R.I.N.S (Women’s Naval Service), and around my age, lived at home, while his son Keith, three years my senior, was a regular lieutenant in the navy, stationed in England. Keith's status as a regular officer calls to mind that among officers in the navy there was a class distinction that was made conspicuous by the design of the stripes we wore. At the top were the regulars, called ‘straight stripers’, then came the former merchant service officers, called N.R's, who wore ‘wriggly’ stripes. Last came the V.R's, like myself, with no sea experience, who wore ‘wavy’ stripes. It's interesting that in no other armed service were such distinctions visible among officers. Fraternising among us was minimal. Even civilians, I believe, recognised these distinctions. Monty Collins was noticeably proud of Keith's status as a regular officer, having trained at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.At naval headquarters one became acutely conscious of rank. On top was the Flag Officer Commanding, vice Admiral Godfrey, R.N, and then hosts of senior officers, down to yours truly, a sub lieutenant with six months' seniority. My job at naval headquarters was a preferential appointment. I liked it mainly for its remoteness from the sea and ships, as well as for my burgeoning romance with Joan. In November, however, I persuaded Lt Boyle, R.I.N.V.R, a Canadian, who was in charge of the A/S (anti-submarine) branch at headquarters to include me in the next specialist A/S course at H.M.I.S Machlimar outside Bombay. I had done well in the short course during my training, and had some background in electronics with my university physics.
At naval headquarters I worked in the office of the Director of Naval Reserves under Cdr Spiers, R.I.N.V.R, a mild mannered, pleasant Englishman, as was his assistant Lt Cdr Roper, a very knowledgeable and likeable fellow. I had access to confidential reports of every reserve officer in the service, including my own. They were called S206's, but my responsibility was with the reports concerning those officers who were being considered for promotion or more senior postings, such as command of ships. My job was to draw the file in question and scrutinise the comments of the reporting officers and, if necessary, draw their attention to those parts that were not clear or, more particularly, those that singled out the shortcomings of the officer concerned, but revealed that he had not been made aware of them by the reporting officer. I was then to draft a letter pointing out this omission and turn it in to the Directorate for further action. I thus became privy to much confidential reporting on some fairly senior officers, some of whom, if I hadn't come across them already, I would recognise, in a manner of speaking, from reports I'd read on them. I gained some interesting insights into a few of the adverse reports, mainly those by senior British officers on Indians under their command, where the latter might have shown signs of the anti-British feeling that was becoming increasingly evident in the armed forces at the time.
My rank entitled me to travel first class on railway passes, and whenever I could I'd slip down to Lahore and enjoy the occasional weekend at home. My mother and my sister Flo had joined the Women’s Auxiliary, and Lahore was a hive of service personnel, but few in naval uniform, which I must admit pleased me immensely.I'll write again, and hope to be able to tell you of how my conceit has given way to better things in me.
Letter # 3: The Navy (1945) British Fleet Mail, Bombay. 3 Jan, '46.Dear Sasso, It's now about four months since you, Joan and Mary left on the s.s Franconia for England, after spending the day in Bombay with me and your husband Carlo, who left the same night to go back to Cawnpore. I presumed that Carlo wasn’t able to accompany you and your children because of having to wind up his affairs in India. After you left, he and I went off to a quiet bar where we chatted and drank for a while, before he left me, to spend some time on his own before his train left from Bombay Central, by which time you were well on the high seas looking forward to a new but uncertain future in a new country. It was wonderful seeing you again and also the children and Carlo, whom I’d never met before. I’ll always remember those last moments with you, as I took you to my flat in Colaba, where I introduced you to Robin Seal, a naval friend of mine. He spoke in whispers because of his laryngitis, but I remember your being very impressed with him. A Cambridge man, he seemed familiar with the part of the country that would soon become your home. By now you must have settled in, if newcomers ever settle down in places like England in the aftermath of a war. My one hope is that my letters will help keep us connected, and if fate is kind maybe we'll find ourselves together again, should my career take me to England for advanced training.
You must have noticed, sadly enough, that I'd taken up smoking. It all started one boring day in N.H.Q, in September, '44. By the time you saw me in Bombay, I had been smoking for about a year, well and truly in the fashionable but disgusting habit. I would like to tell you that it was because a fellow officer who, seeing me idle at my desk, threw me a packet of cigarettes and persuaded me to light up, and that that was the start of my smoking. But that would not be entirely true, for I could have thrown the packet right back where it came from, but didn't, thus making the fault essentially my own.I was posted a month before the anti-submarine course began in February, '45, to an anti-submarine trawler, H.M.I.S Ramdas, under the command of Lt Johnson, R.I.N.R. I felt the full force of my inexperience at sea as I struggled to adapt to the new demands on me. One day in Bombay harbour, just before leaving the ship, the C.O, looking at the worsening weather said to me as duty officer, ‘If it gets rough, heave to.’ “Hell!” I said to myself when he'd gone, “What does ‘heave to’ mean?” I was thankful that I didn't have to expose my ignorance, but I knew only too well that a learning experience had passed me by, perhaps for ever, and that I would probably never have the chance to do what is called ‘heaving to’. In a way, I wish ‘Johnny’, as the C.O was called, had taken me for the ignoramus that I was and spelled out everything for me, thus saving me the embarrassment of having to ask. As it turned out, I had to get by with a great deal of bluff, none of which did me the least bit of good in the long run. I have since learned never to give the impression of knowing something I know nothing about.
This sort of ignorance dogged me throughout the A/S course in H.M.I.S Machlimar (the native word for fish striker or killer), nor I'm sure did it escape the notice of my instructors, in particular Lt Cdr Ridley, D.S.C, R.N, who rightly suspected I had used my influence at N.H.Q to be included in the course. The other five officers in the course having had ample sea time, and had few qualms about the course. I often wished that Lt Boyle in N.H.Q had denied me my request to take the long course on the grounds that I would be at a grave disadvantage without adequate sea experience, instead of testing my fitness for the course by asking me a rather odd question, ‘What is a soft tube?’ pronouncing the word ‘toob’ in his Canadian way. When he found me hesitating, he said that it was a radio diode valve. Only then did I realise what his question was, and tried, I think successfully, to assure him that I knew the answer all along. Actually, I never did see the point of his question, convinced that one could do an electronics course without knowing what a ‘soft toob’ was.
The course began with a month on electronics as a basis for understanding the theory behind the submarine detection devices being fitted to anti-submarine vessels. The teaching instruments were excellent. ‘Attack teachers’ simulated anti-submarine engagements with amazing reality, but could never give the feel of the same thing at sea. ‘Mass-procedure teachers’ likewise taught the skills necessary to maintain contact with submarines and to communicate information to the team of operators, headed by us anti-submarine control officers.My inexperience with escorting convoys, the chief targets of enemy submarines, left me in the dark concerning the realities of counterattacking these underwater menaces whilst maintaining naval procedures at sea. In short, I was equal to the theoretical requirements of the course, but woefully inadequate to the sea-going realities involved.
When, at the end we were tested in a corvette on an exercise attack on a Royal Navy submarine, I knew Ridley was there in the Asdic (Sonar) hut watching me disdainfully as I mishandled the attack that was underway. Thus ended one of my most painful moments in the service, but I had no one but myself to blame for it.
About ten days after you left, I was posted to British Cochin to take command of a motor minesweeper (M.M.S) nearing completion. I stayed at H.M.I.S Vendruthi, and had little to do but wait, but I enjoyed the leisurely pace of life there, particularly after my trying months at Machlimar. The vessel was designed to sweep magnetic mines and was completed in mid-December and commissioned as M.M.S 151. By this time I was promoted to Lt R.I.N.VR, but I was terrified at the prospect of having to sail the vessel to Bombay, never having had the experience for such an undertaking. Fortunately, a regular officer, Lt Bromley was sent to Cochin, and he with myself and S/Lt Krishan, R.I.N.V.R, and a crew of 30 ratings brought the ship to Bombay. After dropping anchor Bromley left the ship, leaving me in command. I took every opportunity thereafter to get in as much ship handling as I could.
As I write, with my M.M.S at anchor in the harbour, I'm reminded of the momentous events of 1945 that have etched themselves into my memory, some purely personal, others universal in their awesomeness. The first was my ill-advised A/S course, then the end of the war in Europe on May 8, followed by the surrender of Japan on September 2, after such unprecedented devastation with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then the nagging thought that with the end of hostilities we would be demobilised and out of work. Then one turns from the purely personal and relatively trivial to the crimes against humanity perpetrated by enemies and allies alike. And where in all this are there words for the holocaust, the attempt at genocide by the Nazis in the death camps of Europe?
I’m going to take my chances with the selection boards for a permanent commission. These boards also test candidates for the Central Administrative Service, Nehru's new name for the prestigious I.C.S that he has no time for because of what he sees to be its unresponsiveness to the will of the people. But there is trouble ahead, and I have no doubts about the wisdom of your choice to settle in England.
Letter # 4: The Navy (1946) British Fleet Mail, Kure. 3rd Jan, '47.Dear Sasso,Another year has gone by, and I'm sending this to the old address at Seaford, Sussex, hoping it finds you, after your sixteen months there, reasonably well adapted to the rigours of climate and post-war restrictions in England. As you can see from the postmark, I'm in Kure, Japan, in the grip of a cold winter not unlike yours. The papers tell of bedrooms in London so cold that one's breath drifts on the air like puffs of smoke, food and drink prices are astronomical, and grim, joyless people stalk the streets of charred ruins from thousands of bombed out buildings. I hope little Seaford has been spared these depressing legacies of the war.
This last year has been for me an eventful and pleasant year, so unlike 1945. It began with a friendship I formed with a former Lawrence College boy, Gerry Beasley, a little older than I, with a lively, high-spirited style and a yen for dancing that matched my own. His mother and three sisters live in Poona, where his father is an army doctor. Within a few months we began catching the well-known Deccan Queen from Bombay to Poona, spending week-ends with his family, and going to dances restricted to other-ranks, but which we got around by sneaking in without our shoulder straps. Gerry's cousin, Coral Hogg, a petite, attractive, olive-skinned girl about our age, who was living in Bombay, went there too but was monopolised by Gerry. They made fine dance partners and left no doubts about their mutual infatuation with each other. I usually danced with Gerry's sisters Zena and Paddy, and enjoyed his family's hospitality and the dances. Later, Coral had been bringing with her a cousin, Edith Burton, a nurse at the J.J.Hospital in Bombay. She hasn't the sparkle of Coral, but she outdoes her cousin in warmth and tenderness. I liked her soft eyes and comfortable ways and began dating her. I must confess that I'm still a virgin, but that doesn't mean that I'm not tempted. I've only just learnt of my posting to H.M.I.S. Godavari bound for the Far East and Japan, and will be away seven months with the British Commonwealth Forces. I wish I’d promised to write to Edith while I was away, for I’m rather fond of her.
Meanwhile, I’m still in command of my M.M.S 151 in harbour. Recently, ratings in the service paraded in mass demonstrations against alleged racial discrimination towards them by certain British officers in the service. The ensigns were hauled down and replaced by the national tricolour. It was mutiny, for the ratings left their posts and joined parades that surged down the streets of Bombay. In Karachi, the flagship Narbada had guns at the ready. It was some days before order was restored, the authorities discreetly deciding against retribution. One afternoon, as I was heading towards a water boat to replenish my tanks I collided with a merchantman leaving port. I had the right of way, but in the confined space I had no room to take evasive action even if I had wanted to. My bow was badly damaged, and the merchantman returned to port with a hole in her starboard side. I was towed into dock for repairs, after which I was posted to the Godavari in October last year.
Just after the collision I got the news of my permanent commission. A board of enquiry later acquitted me of wrong doing, but that didn't stop Bombay's local rag The Blitz from questioning my fitness for a regular commission on the grounds that I had 'caused' the collision.
In mid September, just as I had shipped my lieutenant's ‘straight’ stripes, I received news that Una, her mother and father, and younger brother Dick were arriving in Bombay, on their way to England. Mr Mott wasn’t going with them as he was still winding up his affairs with the railway in Amritsar. I met their train at Bombay, just as I had done with yours over a year ago. As their boat the Franconia was not sailing till the next day (19 September), I took time off and showed them round Bombay's scenic spots and took them to lunch at the famous Taj Hotel on the sea front. As with you, I felt a deep sadness at their going, for they had over the last four and a half years been a part of my past that was now slipping away. Una was going to marry Len Hughes, and since I had lost touch with them for some time, the news of her engagement came as a surprise.
On 19 September I was posted to H.M.I.S Godavari, bound for the Far East in a fortnight. I had a few days' leave in Lahore, and friends of mine, the Ushers, having heard that I was off to Japan, persuaded me to take with me as my steward their young nephew, Ken Pudwell. I managed to sneak him on board where he lived quite happily with the crew. We left Bombay on 2 November to join the British Commonwealth occupation forces in Japan, based in Kure. We stopped a few days at Singapore on 9 November, then Hong Kong for a while on 17 November, and Shanghai and Nanking on 25 November. We arrived in Kure, Japan, on 7 December. I had my twenty-third birthday at sea, somewhere south of Japan. Gerry Beasley was in Kure aboard the flagship, Narbada when we arrived. She was due to return the next day but in spite of the cold and miserable day, we had an enjoyable ‘beer-up’ at the officers' club in Kure.
This was my first long period afloat, and I was still suffering the pangs of my inexperience at sea. I felt sure my fellow officers and the captain, in particular, were very much aware of my inadequacies and maybe wondered how it was that I was awarded a permanent commission. I was content to leave them to their speculations, anxious only to make good my deficiencies as fast as I could while on the job. I made several mistakes that I was aware of and no doubt many others too. In time, I think I became a useful officer on board. I never did hear from my steward Ken what the crew with whom he was in daily contact thought of me as an officer. The commonwealth naval base at Kure is an 18-mile train ride from Hiroshima, so it wasn't long before I found myself viewing the outcome of that act of atrocity from a promontory overlooking the city. Aware that the photos I was taking of the scene before me would show up as a formless wasteland, I nevertheless kept clicking away with my Agfa, my mind recoiling from the reality of that atomic attack on August 6, '45, barely 16 months earlier. The end of last year found me among the ruins of Nagasaki, while we were on a patrol off Sasebo. The destruction by that bomb was just as dreadful as the first, serving as a grim reminder of the senselessness of destruction on such a scale. Whole graving docks and ships lay piled up against the hillsides in rusty heaps, twisted out of recognition. It's one thing to read about the devastation that was Nagasaki, but quite another to be there, as I was, picking my way through its ruins, muttering to myself, ‘This is Armageddon!’
In contrast to this are the natural wonders of this land of legends and old religions, with its serene mountains and snow-capped Fuji in perpetual splendour. This Christmas was white, my first ever, but I wasted it in officers' messes, sipping Japanese beer as if that were all that mattered.
There are moments while drinking in these wonderful surroundings, I stop and ask myself if this isn’t just some fantastic dream. But as I sense the concealed hostility of the people around me, my mind goes back to India – also a defeated nation, under foreign domination. Seemingly oblivious of this, are India’s soldiers, sailors, and airmen happily milling around in a country so recently brought to its knees by mightier powers. Does the pathetic irony escape them, one wonders?
Letter # 5: The Navy (1947) British Fleet Mail, Bombay, 3 January, '48.Dear Sasso, This last year I have accumulated sea-time, one way or another, almost enough to make up for my lack of it in previous years; first to the Far East and Japan and then to Australia.
During the first four months of 1947, while based in Kure, we cruised around the Inland Sea (Seto-naikai), calling at Okayama and Kobe, cities in the British occupation zone.We spent May in Yokohama in the U.S zone as guests of the Americans. While there I met a Californian girl, Betty Jane Donnell, who was assisting in the defence of Tojo at the International War Crimes Tribunal. I attended two of its sessions, presided over by nine judges, chief of whom was Justice Webb (Australia). The chief prosecutor was English, Sir Arthur Cummins-Carr, whose cross-examinations, translated into a number of languages, concerned alleged Japanese atrocities committed during the Manchurian Incident as far back as 1931.
Betty Jane was the perfect hostess, ever graciously taking my friend and me around Tokyo at her own expense, for we were not allowed to be in possession of U.S money. She even arranged for us to spend a week as guests of a Mr Hamamura and his wife in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, blessedly unharmed by the allied bombings of the Japanese mainland of Honshu. We visited the famous deer park in Nara, took photos of its splendid shrines amid the cherry blossoms, and got first-hand experiences of life as it had been in pre-war Japan. The Hamamuras treated us royally. I enjoyed the near-blistering hot baths, their beautiful home and gardens, their parties at home with geishas in attendance, and the delicious meals and sake (rice wine). I was fascinated by their charming manners. For all this we were deeply indebted to Betty Jane. She and I went out to meals and dancing so often that we were almost never apart during our evenings in the Yokohama-Tokyo area for those wonderful three weeks. I was getting quite involved with her, and were it not for my apprehensions about marriage in those days, and to some extent about our vastly different backgrounds, things could have become pretty serious between us. As it happened, however, when we sailed for Kure, it became for us a parting of the ways.
I was reminded at about this time of how Gerry Beasley, when he was here, became similarly involved with an American girl, except that he really wanted to marry her. That affair, I'm sure, broke his heart as it did hers when it ended. I used to wonder about his relationship with Coral with whom he was by now, I assumed, well and truly reunited. I thought often about Edith, but with her I felt no great emotional obligations. I was sure that I would enjoy going out with her once I returned to Bombay, assuming she was still available. The truth is I seem never to think about marrying, despite my being twenty-four and in a career with good prospects. I’ve cared deeply about the few girlfriends I have had, and lack in none of the urges that come naturally to a man. It is more lack of opportunity than inclination that has kept me from having intercourse, although I must confess to a certain shyness in such matters.
In early May, '47, the Godavari sailed south in the Inland Sea, through Bungo Channel and I bade my fond farewell to Japan. When we arrived at Hong Kong, I had broken out with a body rash that our surgeon-lieutenant thought best I have checked at the combined military hospital ashore, lest it prove infectious. A pessimist, he suspected the pox. The navy doctor ashore asked me whether I had been with a woman while in Japan, even before examining my rash. Only when I said no, did he take a look at me and diagnose it as Pteriasis Rosea. I was admitted to hospital to receive daily doses of ultra-violet radiation, while the ship left without me for Bombay. I spent a wonderful month in Hong Kong, free to be away from the hospital till late at night. I chummed up with an Ensign Firch, U.S.N, and we dated girls for most of my stay there. I became friendly with a couple of officers on the Gambia, a Royal Navy cruiser in port, one of whom was a surgeon-lieutenant Glover. I often went aboard the Gambia and spent hours chatting with him. I later went up to Canton as a guest of a Lt JG, U.S.N aboard his landing craft. He and I were guests of the U.S consul for the night we were in Canton, where I had my first authentic Chinese meal in a restaurant. We spent a short while in a night club, and danced with a couple of American girls who were there also without partners. Back at the consul's place that night something got us laughing the way it does sometimes, for the more we tried the harder it became to stop. It had something to do with those American girls we'd danced with -- something rather uncharitable, if I remember right.
On my discharge from the hospital, I was flown back to Bombay, with stopovers at Saigon and Rangoon where I saw the magnificent Shwe-de-Gong Pagoda; then Calcutta where I ran into one of my old classmates, Bill Derry, formerly an officer in the air force, now a pilot with Air India. On my return to Bombay I rejoined the Godavari, only to find that most of the officers and crew had gone on leave, the officers away on 60 days' special end-of-war leave for regular officers. I applied to take my leave in the U.K, intending to spend time with you. I called at Lahore to tell my family of my plans, when to my surprise I found them packed and ready to leave for Australia on the Manoora, an R.A.N ship, once a troop-carrier, now being used to take migrants from Bombay to Australia. I realised right away that I had to switch my plans for the U.K and accompany my family to Perth, W.A where they planned to settle. With my parents, my brother Nigel and sister Flo and several hundred people from India, we sailed from Bombay on August, 3rd, arriving at Fremantle after 12 days, on Indian Independence Day, August 15, 1947. It was a bleak and cold day, mid-winter in Australia, as I helped my family move into the Hostel Manly on Cottesloe beach, 6 miles from Fremantle, 12 from Perth.
Since most of my 60 days' leave had been used up waiting to get to Australia, I had little or no time to spend once I got there. I wanted to arrange a transfer to the R.A.N but after a wild-goose chase to Melbourne learnt that such a thing couldn't be arranged. So I inquired about a teaching job, and was offered a position at Scotch College, teaching upper-school English and some social studies in middle school. It remained now for me to make my long overdue return to Bombay, and submit my resignation. It was just as well that I was resigning, for the authorities were taking a serious view of my overstayed leave. I was docked a whole month's pay, instead of the alternative of a court-martial, which has left me pretty broke. My Christmas was, consequently, the bleakest I've ever had. My spirits are low, and I feel somehow disconnected from all the things that once meant so much to me. Now and again I go out with Edith, but I see no future in our admittedly tender relationship. I've burnt my boats, Sasso, and must do whatever needs to be done in the new land of my adoption.
My friends Robin Seal and Mike Warren, a young 2nd lieutenant, Royal Artillery, keep me in good spirits when they're around. Because of them I seem to have undergone a change of heart towards English people. There is much that I now like and admire about them that my early prejudices prevented me from seeing, and I find myself becoming an anglophile in speech, dress, and manners.My next letter will be from my new home in Western Australia.
Letter # 6: Scotch College (1948) Bassendean, WA. 3 Jan, '49.Dear Sasso,For the first few months of '48 I had no posting and was in limbo awaiting my release. I kept duty at the central office in Bombay, doing the work of a glorified night watchman. What a shameful waste of government money and manpower, simply because some official in Naval Headquarters had no idea what to do with me during those six months from the day of my return from Australia to when I left the service.
I arrived in Perth in mid March, '48, a little over a month after first term at Scotch College had begun. My salary of 385 plus residence was little more than half my naval pay, a fact that rather shocked me well after I had already resigned my commission. I derived some consolation from the fact that my new salary would go further than its equivalent in the navy, because of the lower cost of living in Perth and the reduced expenses of no longer being an officer.
'Scotch', as the school is called, is a fine place, with an outstanding headmaster in Maxwell Keys, a New Zealander. I lived in a single room with a bathroom to myself, in a large home across from the college once owned by the Charlton family, now duly called Charlton House. About ten boys lived here, with a prefect in charge, and I was a sort of master-in-residence. I was actually an assistant housemaster, under Col. Munroe (retd) in School House, there being one other boarding house, Stuart, under the housemastership of Mr Gardner. One other house, Cameron, was for day boys (‘dagos’) only. My small room was no inconvenience to me, after the cabin I’d shared at sea that was barely half its size. The boys were well behaved, coming as they did from respectable homes, often of considerable wealth, on farms or cattle stations, some running into millions of acres. I had some adjusting to do, as you can well imagine. I had already encountered the Australian accent, but now I was awash in it. There was hardly anyone around who spoke the English I had become accustomed to hearing and spoke myself. That being so, it struck me as a trifle odd that it was my job to teach them, of all subjects, English. Auzies refer good-naturedly to anybody they perceive as English as 'Pommies' or 'Poms', occasionally as 'Pommy bastards', and until one gets to know them, one can easily be offended by their brashness. I found them generally as well mannered as anyone could be. I liked my new colleagues, without exception, and got on very well with Maxwell Keys, who treated me with a warmth and deference I shall never forget. He took me with him on tennis afternoons to friends of his in Swanbourne, and once included me with his family to see No no, Nannette, in which one of his former pupils in New Zealand, Albert Chapelle, was starring.
The Keyses had three children, the eldest of whom was Elaine in her last year at Presbyterian Ladies' College, sister school to Scotch. I'd wonder sometimes whether at 24, with my recent status in the navy, Elaine’s parents were seeing me as an ‘eligible’ bachelor. One evening, Mr Keys surprised me while I was in my room entertaining a friend, Jean Sutcliffe. For some strange reason, I found myself introducing Jean to him as my 'sister'. That probably put his mind at rest, until some three months later, when I broke the news that at the end of the preceding holiday I had got married and would like to be relieved of my house duties. He hid any surprise he may have felt at my lying about Jean, and granted my request, agreeing to an allowance of 50 in lieu of residence, hardly a sufficient adjustment, considering the much higher cost of living out. Though he is cordial towards me, I sense a distance growing up between us, which, in the circumstances, is quite understandable.
On my return to Perth, I resumed dating an Australian girl, Marie Stannich, an attractive and vivacious girl I'd met last year, who was working at the rather classy Adelphi Hotel. One day, Mrs Pat Sutcliffe asked me if I would join her in a foursome to a dinner-dance in Perth. Her husband was still in India, winding up his affairs, and Pat's partner was 'Badgy' Owens, a mutual friend of ours from our Lahore days. I agreed to join them, intending to take Marie as my partner. However, at the last minute, I called Pat to tell her that Marie had phoned to say she was down with a bad cold. Pat asked me if I'd mind if she asked her daughter Jean to fill in, and, anxious not to upset the arrangements, I agreed and we met Jean at her place in Perth. I had nearly every dance with her, and felt an instant warmth growing up between us. On Pat's invitation I later went with my brother Nigel to Jean's nineteenth birthday party on June 3, after which Nigel and I went back with her and her younger sister Pam to their rooms in Perth, had delicious coffee with them and caught the bus home.
We went out together a few times in the next week, when one Sunday morning Jean phoned to ask me if she could call on me. I met her at the bus stop and spent the day with her in my room in Charlton House, serving coffee and biscuits, and enjoying her company so much that I became unaware of the lateness of the hour. Around 11 p.m. we set out for Swanbourne station, but found that we had missed the last train. As I couldn't afford a taxi, we returned to my room and spent the night together in my single bed. That night of June 14, I lost my 'virginity' but gave a start to our ‘Virginia’. Even after we learnt that she was pregnant, the thought of marriage seemed never to enter my thick skull. One night, about two months later, the subject of marriage cropped up. Only then did it dawn on me how lovely it would be to have her for my wife.
During the August holidays Jean, Nigel and I spent a lovely week on Rottnest Island, a few miles off the coast. In time we came to regard this as our honeymoon, not having had one at the 'proper' time. I took some fine movies of us in those days of unspoiled paradise. Before the holidays ended, on September 11, Jean and I were married in St Barnabas Church, Leederville. A handful of people were present at the service, my Jean looking lovely in her dusty-pink silk frock with full three-quarter-length skirt and matching floral hat with veiling. I, half-dazed by the experience, had an old schoolmate Grenny Davis as my best man, the pair of us togged up in our Sunday-best suits. A quiet and pleasant reception followed at the Pierces' home in Guildford, where barely three months earlier we had celebrated Jean's nineteenth birthday. We spent the night in our first home, a single all-purpose room in Guildean. Some prankster had strewn our bed with bits of horsehair, and tied a tin can under.
It takes me an hour by bus to get to work, but it's lovely having Jean to come home to. Right now she's seven months' pregnant, and the joy of my life. Some day, Sasso, I hope you get to meet her, as I stand by gazing at you both, the sweetest women in my life. I've felt sheepish about my marriage, for reasons completely beyond my understanding. In time, I imagine I’ll get used to the idea of fatherhood when it comes. Could it be that my boarding-school experience has so affected my perception of marriage and parenthood which any normal chap would have seen as occasions for rapture and pride and celebration? Have you ever come across the likes of me before?
Letter # 7: Scotch College (1949) 241 Stirling St, Perth. 3 Jan, '50.Dear Sasso, Our Virginia Anne was born on 9th March, '49, at St Anne's Hospital, Mt Lawley, while we were at Guildean. She was christened in St Matthew's Anglican Church, Guildford, at the end of May, my father honouring the occasion with a gift of 5.
Our one-room place in Guildean was a bit cramped, so we moved in December to a flat at the above address which my father had taken on a leasehold. We have a front room upstairs overlooking the street and a small room with an adjoining kitchen. The Cabralls, who live below, are from India, and have a girl, Bernadette, a little older than Virginia. A Latvian couple live in a room near us, and we get on well together. Never having had any experience with renters, my father is inclined to be bossy. At 51, he lacks the will and energy needed to improve the place, preferring instead to let it carry on by itself as best it can. His experience with servants in India has not shown him how to deal, for instance, with the pensioner who works in the yard. He needlessly yells at the fellow when he suspects he is loafing on the job.
One big advantage of our place is its nearness to the city, as well as its being nearer to Scotch. We take strolls, with Virginia in her pram, and do plenty of window-shopping on these cool summer evenings. Though Scotch is a prestigious school, the pay is nothing to rave about, and living on my pay is no easy matter. We manage as best we can, despite the expense of my cigarettes which, strangely, it never occurs to me to cut out. Jean is again pregnant, and we're expecting our second child in late May. Whilst I get a change of air at work, Jean is cooped up in our place with not much diversion, taking care of all the hum-drum routines and the day-round care of our ten-month old baby. Expecting our second child must only add to her sense of being shut in, but she is a devoted wife and mother, and in spite of the easy life we had in India, she is more than equal to her responsibilities in this new land.
Our social life is limited, a far cry from the days before we married, when we were free to go out whenever we pleased. We occasionally meet a Welsh couple, Muriel and David Wheeler, whom Jean became friends with when she was at Millar's Timber and Trading in Perth. Her parents, Pat and Ted Sutcliffe, and her sister Pam visit us often. Because they have a car, the Sutcliffes often take us out for picnics and visits to family in the area, which help keep us connected to them. I myself have no friends at work with whom I'm on visiting terms. The few times the school organises commingling parties somehow fail to give us a sense of community. This we get from neighbours, many of whom, however, regard us as foreigners, one remove only from those they disparagingly call displaced persons – D.Ps. There is, besides, the disaffection the ordinary Australian feels towards anyone from an Asian country, no doubt a carry-over from the country's only recently discarded White Australia policy. We never thought it would be like this before we came here. Had we known, many of us might have preferred England. But Australia in its need for immigrants of British origin, advertised itself abroad as a land of opportunity, which indeed it is. We are, however, finding little warmth from our Australian neighbours.Consequently, my first impressions of this part of the country haven't changed much since I arrived, nor have Jean's. It has been a time of mass post-war immigration of Europeans and British, the latter being granted assisted passages that I'm sure you must have heard about. With his insular outlook, the ordinary Australian resents foreigners; nor is he much enamoured of British migrants because of what he perceives as their superior airs. In the schools and universities it is different. So I'm fortunate that I’m at Scotch, and also a graduate student at the university working on an M.A. So I’m free from the scourge of petty-mindedness one finds among less tolerant people. Jean, who had enrolled in teaching, was attending the university part-time and ‘monitoring’ in one of the local state schools when I met her. She gave these up when we decided to marry. During this time she too was among people who were more understanding towards newcomers than was the ordinary Australian. Only now and again would she run into an ignoramus who wondered how she had learnt English so well on the boat coming out.Jean's father arrived in Australia in early October, '48, nearly 14 months after her arrival here. He was winding up his affairs with the Post and Telegraphs in New Delhi, where he was Assistant Deputy Director General in the Post Master General's department. He had a hard time getting passage out of India, but eventually made it on the Chybassa sailing out of Madras. He arrived to find Jean and myself married almost a month. We get on very well together. Jean's mother who came out on the Manoora with her, Pam and Michael, is a vivacious woman nearing forty, who looks about thirty and likes to be mistaken as such. Jean has a younger brother Peter who came out earlier with his Sutcliffe grandparents.
My mum and Nigel still live in Guildean from where my mum travels to Perth to her work in a leather goods factory. Nigel has just done his senior year at Guildford Grammar School, and because he’s strong in science and maths is planning on a cadetship in electrical engineering.
Letter # 8: Scotch College (1950) 9, Otway St, Swanbourne. 23 May, '51.Dear Sasso, Our new address needs a word of explanation. The other day, out of the blue, I received a lawyer’s letter informing me we were under eviction orders, no reasons given. Our Stefan was born on 22 April, '50, and other than move we didn’t know what to do. In our frantic search for somewhere to live we came across a house for sale in Swanbourne, just a block away from Scotch. An elderly widow, Mrs Makin, was asking 2,000, which seemed reasonable, but without enough savings we had no way of raising a mortgage. The A.N.Z Bank in Perth accepted Jean's father as security, and in next to no time we found ourselves happily at the above address. A good ‘starter’ home, its only drawback is its 33-foot frontage -- just half the usual frontage for homes here.
Stef was born in a government hospital, King Edward Memorial (K.E.M.H), in Subiaco, a suburb of Perth. He was born four weeks before time and weighed only 6 lbs compared with Virginia's 7 lbs 14 oz, but he measured 24 ins. compared with Virginia's 22. He was born with a shock of fine hair that stood out from him as if he had had an electric shock. The nurses called him ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy’. He has been the more difficult of the two to rear, crying at night despite our attempts to quieten him with a ‘dummy’ frequently dipped in honey, and with rocking his bassinet often with a force born of desperation. I wonder sometimes whether his crying at night has something to do with our untimely eviction from Stirling Street. Though I’m still smarting, I wonder if it hasn’t been for the best after all, and I’m reminded of William Blake’s comforting couplet: “Under every grief and pine, Runs a joy of silken twine.”
Our evenings get a welcome relief from on-shore breezes called the ‘Fremantle Doctor’, and although not particularly close to the beach, we catch glimpses of the Indian Ocean from our place. The neighbourhood is nicer than our previous one, besides its being so close to Scotch College, a mere five-minute walk away. About three weeks ago, my mum came down with rheumatic fever and was admitted to Royal Perth Hospital. She has to lie very still in bed, without so much as bed sheets being changed. These precautions are to ensure minimal damage to her heart. A social worker has told her she may never work again, and that by signing certain forms she could get financial help from the government. She turned 48 on November 1st last year, a little too young to be classed as an invalid.
The better houses are usually brick, with either tiled roofs or, as with ours, corrugated iron. Bathrooms are fitted with chip-heaters. There’s no running hot water, and we have a ‘copper’ in the laundry with a hand-wringer and scrubbing board, and a sanitary toilet at the bottom of the backyard, as we are not connected to deep sewage. Our stove and lounge fireplace are gas fired. All other heating is by electric radiators and immersion heaters. The floors are hard wood with area rugs, and are stained a dark brown and polished with wax. As in India and England our electric supply is 220 volts, with 440 volts for heavy-duty appliances. Homes here are generally cheap enough to buy. Into my third year at Scotch, I find the teaching of English most interesting. What gets me down is the corrections I have to do. If only I could see some benefits from the work I put into marking, I'd be happy to work away at it, but I'm afraid there’s nothing to suggest that pupils write any better by being shown the errors they make. Their sole concern is the mark they get. If it's good, they're happy; if it’s not, there’s an end of it.
Letter # 9: Scotch College (1951) 9 Otway St, Swanbourne, 3 Jan '52.Dear Sasso,Virginia will be three in a couple of months, and Stef two in April. They get on well together, Stef quite happy to let big sister call the shots. One day we overheard Stef say to Virginia, ‘Let's play trains, love. You be the train and I'll be the railway line.’ Stef then assumed the appropriate position, as Virginia duly acted out the scenario. My mother tells in her diary of an incident or two that caused her great amusement at about this time, and I have hundreds of feet of 8mm colour movies that I'm putting together as a record of our children growing up.
Very little has changed at the school. I still teach far too much English, and would dearly like to have a break with some maths in middle school. We have a room off the lounge in our home which I use for private tuition in senior maths and English for Gerry Simenson, John Sear, and a few boys at Scotch. For these I charge the going fee which helps towards the expenses of renovations. With my private pupils in English I concentrate on composition, which even though it means corrections, is not heavy when the groups are limited as mine are to some three or four pupils. I still have a tough time with my marking load at the school, where the classes are often more than 25. I have of late been considering the use of an opaque projector (epidiascope), to display student writing on a screen and have the class comment on the work before us. The headmaster agrees that this has interesting possibilities and is looking into getting a machine from the University.
Today, busy with the house and covered with dust, I had an unexpected visit from Mr Keys who told me that Col. Munroe was retiring, leaving a vacancy as C.O of the cadet unit. He asked me if I would take over, as I had been Munroe's assistant for the past four years. I agreed. So this year I step into the shoes of a retired colonel, who was awarded a Military Cross, the Croix de guerre (French decoration for bravery), and was twice mentioned in dispatches. The unit will have to make do with a great deal less from a former naval fellow of no special merit, and get on as best it can with him in command, holding the rank of captain. The cadets and under-officers parade in kilts, glengarries and sporans to the strains of our own pipe-band. There's something distinctive about their uniform, and I must admit to being very proud of the unit when we go to cadet camps at the end of school terms.
Jean's maternal grandmother, Blanche Mc Carthy, who recently came out from India and was living with the Sutcliffes, passed away suddenly on 10 December last year at age 77 years 8 months. After school, and still in my army uniform, we visited the Sutcliffes. I remember trying to comfort Pat as she sobbed on my shoulder, feeling remorse at not having been more patient with her mother just moments before she collapsed and died. It's the only time I’ve seen Pat emotionally broken.
As I ramble on like this, I should mention the matter of my parents' divorce which was final, on the grounds of my father's desertion on 23 August, '48, the laws of the land granting a decree nisi after two years' desertion. Although divorced for the past 16 months, they appear to be affable with each other.
Letter # 10: Scotch College (1952) 9 Otway St, Swanbourne. 3 Jan, '53.Dear Sasso,Our two months' summer holidays are here again after a year of some memorable happenings. An earlier than usual Easter break saw me down with infectious hepatitis. I was in Royal Perth Hospital from the end of March to the beginning of May, about 5 weeks, the last ten days being spent under observation in Shenton Park convalescent home, not far from where we live. The headmaster was concerned about my long absence, which must have seemed excessive, but I had his daughter Elaine who was nursing at Shenton Park give him first hand information about me. I myself felt well enough to return to work, and I was concerned about my not being able to teach my senior physics evening classes at St Hilda's Girls' School.
A Martinere girlfriend of Jean's, Iris Taylor, came from England to spend a long holiday with us. She was here while I was in hospital, and left just before I came home. She seemed very close to Jean, and they must have enjoyed being together, particularly while I was away, when Jean could well have enjoyed the closeness that Iris gave her. I myself found it hard to relate to Iris, mostly because she seemed not to have advanced much beyond the days of her girlhood. Her attitudes seemed to belong to her past in India. But I did admire her skill and patience as I watched her, with patterns and fabrics spread over my study floor, meticulously cutting out a navy-and-white outfit for Jean. The result was a stunner, thanks to the loving attention she gave it. I'll send you a photo of Jean in this dress, wearing an attractive navy hat to match.
I was discharged just five days before the end of term, and, eager to go to camp, I felt rather uneasy about going after my long absence from school. An incident in camp involving one of my cadets brought me home early. On my return I found that Jean was arranging to start nursing at Claremont Mental Hospital, and that would mean her moving into residence there as soon as arrangements could be made for Virginia and Stef. I persuaded my mother, who was living with my brother Nigel in Portree Guest House in Perth, to move in with us, thus making it possible for Jean to go into residence. In mid August, about five months pregnant with Sue, Jean returned home, having been away about three months. Sue was born 12 December, just one day before I returned from camp.
The Sutcliffes who had moved into a place of their own on Albany Highway, Victoria Park, called on us often and Pat was a great help in many ways while Jean was away. With her interest in Yoga and eastern mysticism, Pat found great satisfaction with a group in Perth with similar interests, calling themselves the Universal Great Brotherhood, founded by a Frenchman named La Ferrier. At their invitation I gave a couple of talks: The Poetry of Thomas Hardy, and English Prose Styles, much of the material coming from what I was teaching at Scotch. The group is showing signs of languishing, due I think to La Ferrier's desire to move to the eastern states. Over the past few weeks, however, because of our lovely summer the group, mainly women in their forties, are building an ashram in the Darlington hills, and Pat looks well as she pitches in with these enthusiastic people. Ted adopts a wait-and-see attitude as he has no doubt done in the past with Pat’s heady undertakings.
Second and third terms at the school have been unusually stressful. The marking load in English is heavy, and I’m exhausted. The compositions I mark are for the most part ill-written, and so carelessly tossed off that I wonder why I should waste my time with them.Organised sport goes with the seasons: cricket, tennis, and rowing in autumn and winter, football (Aussie rules), hockey, and rugby in the spring. The highlights of the year are when The Big Four compete in swimming in mid-March at Crawley Baths, rowing in mid-April on the Swan River, and the piece de resistance, athletics, in mid-October at the W.A.C.A ground. All Perth it seems turns out for these events, especially the athletics, supporting the school of their choice with enthusiasm bordering on hysteria. There is talk of the P.S.A. (Public Schools Association) including Wesley College in its membership, so as to have Methodist representation. The churches play an important role in education, our P.S.A schools having their counterparts in the eastern states, albeit on a loftier scale there. In Victoria, Australia’s top school, Geelong Grammar (Anglican), is one example. In W.A the Anglicans have Guildford Grammar and Hale, the Presbyterians have Scotch, the Catholics Aquinas College, and soon the Methodists will have Wesley College. There’s a general belief that these schools are somehow superior to the others around. The myth, unfortunately, persists, public school kids fancying themselves a cut above those in the government schools in the same way that Etonians, Harovians, Wykehamists, and their kind do in England. What is one to make of this brand of snobbery, Sasso? Letter # 11: Scotch College (1953) 9 Otway St, Swanbourne, Jan, '54.Dear Sasso,Ten years ago I left Allen, four years later I left the navy, and now after six years I’m leaving Scotch, and our house is up for sale. I worked as a labourer with a building company till Christmas, and am about to start with a firm that makes cantilever awnings for store fronts. I simply had to get away from teaching. My old bete noire, marking, has worn me out. I imagine that my colleagues believe I've gone mad, and they could be right, but none of them is saying anything. Mr Keys, I think is relieved I'm not going to another school, though he too must wonder why, with family responsibilities, I’m leaving a secure job.
Early last year I found that I was relieved of senior English. Peter Cowan, a former tutor at the university, took over from me. No doubt a good move, in light of Peter's qualifications and standing as a published writer, it did nothing to lighten my English load in a bulging middle school. By year’s end I was burnt out, well and truly. Mr Keys, if we had been in closer touch, might have noticed things before it was too late. With my resignation before him, I thought he felt some genuine regret as he tried to have me reconsider.
Early last year my mother took a live-in job as seamstress at the hospital in Shenton Park, and has been spending her days off with us. Later in the year an outbreak of polio savaged its victims indiscriminately, and my mum worked at sewing garments for their afflicted bodies. 1953 will long be remembered for its tragic association with polio.
Letter # 12: The Business Years (1954--55) Walter Rd Bassendean, 55. Dear Sasso, We are on a downward spiral. We live in a place we sardonically call the ‘palace’. For three pounds a week, we got this sub-standard dwelling in August. It lies sufficiently below street level to allow run-off rainwater into the house. There’s one power point in the entire place for all our electrical appliances. The toilet is in the backyard, and in the lounge our carpet rises and falls when the wind blows under the house. The ceilings are pressed metal, and the house has weather-board and a corrugated iron roof, all in all a most unprepossessing place. Its only virtue is the low rent and its nearness to my wrought-iron factory in Stephen Street, Guildford.
At the end of January we left Swanbourne and took a rental home in Bayswater for 8 a week -- a little high for my pay from Stevenson and Taylor. My mother was with us when Russell was born 21 May, '54 (8 lbs) at K.E.M.H. At this time I was with Doggett Aviation in Maylands, and had traded in the '39 Buick for a '48 Chevrolet. Doggetts had a sideline in wrought-iron and I became interested in it enough to consider starting out in it on my own. Renting an old jam factory in Stephen Street I managed to get an order or two right away for grills, but without good workshop equipment, I struggled on till I got some capital from Dudley Jones, whose sister was one of my first customers. A chartered accountant and a man of means, he was in a position to lend me the money I needed, besides his being just the man for my tax returns. I gave him a lien on the factory equipment, and started operations in the middle of last year, my newspaper ads bringing in a steady flow of orders. While filling them I kept upgrading the premises, adding an office and erecting a sign with the name ‘Brayley Steel Products’. As business increased I took on a young chap, Jim Brenchley. Like me, he learnt while on the job. Later, I took on a part-time office clerk, Phyl Mc Phearson, who lives across the street from us. Soon after, I took on Syd Hodgkinson, my cousin Kathleen's husband, who was a great asset with his skill in things mechanical and electrical. He has good artistic sense and, perhaps as important as anything else, he is friendly and likeable. We'll make a decent living out of it if the orders keep coming in.
My mother is still with us, and the Sutcliffes have their chicken farm in Glen Forest. Pat finds the work boring, now that the Universal Great Brotherhood has folded up. Pam is in England where she has been since mid '52, and Nigel is nearing the end of his associateship in electrical engineering at Perth Technical College.
Letter # 13: The Business Years (1954--1956) Midvale. 3 Jan. '56Dear Sasso,My wrought-iron business has failed. It's back to teaching for me after a two-year respite in which I've had a brief but valuable experience of a world outside school rooms, an earlier one being the navy. In a month I start at Guildford Grammar School. The factory has closed its doors for the past month and I’m working off a debt to a steel company by making for it a number of grills. Other debts, however, could not be so conveniently discharged, leaving me with Dudley to dispose of my assets. Everything was sold at give-away prices, the balance owing to be paid monthly from my Guildford salary. You can see how grateful I am, Sasso, to have something to fall back on and especially this job I now have at Guildford. The Headmaster, P.N. Thwaites interviewed me last month, and after checking with Scotch, offered me senior English on a salary of 1,000, which is more than I would have been getting at Scotch, even if I’d never left it.
I wish Syd, Jim, and Phyl had been as fortunate, but I'm happy none of them have debts to pay off. Jim has another job and is continuing his apprenticeship, Syd is with Vox Adeon Howard in Perth, doing what he likes best -- selling, and in a line that’s just up his street, namely electronic sound systems. Phyl goes back to being full-time mother and housekeeper.
Behind this sad failure stands my discreetly silent wife Jean. If she has any recriminations I'd be the last one to know, so considerate a person is she. I'll never forget how hard she worked alongside me when I was making those grills to pay off my debt. Any other woman would have given me up for the impractical dreamer that I was, but she has stuck with me when I needed her most. Do I need to tell you how much I love her?
Last September we left the ‘palace’ and took a State Housing rental home in Midvale, a step up from where we'd lived the previous year. My mother moved in with us, but is arranging to get a place of her own. With Nigel she can buy a State Housing property for low-income earners, but the waiting period is two years.
Just four days ago, on New Year's Eve, our Evelyn was born at K.E.M.H (7lb 10oz.). Like her siblings she’s a Brayley with her shock of dark hair. The nurses put a band on her forehead with a feather to create the likeness of a new-born Red Indian. Jean and I intend this to be our last contribution to Australia's population!
Letter #14: Guildford Grammar (1956—1965) 58 Swan St. 3 Jan.’57.Dear Sasso,Summer is here and it feels good in more ways than one. My first year at Guildford has ended, and for me it's back to the accustomed round of teaching and long holidays. This is not to suggest I've any misgivings about my two years in business. I learnt a lot, albeit the hard way, and I'm grateful for the experience I’ve had of a world so different from anything I've been trained for. I’m convinced that trying to sell something, no matter how good I believe it is, is not for me.
Guildford is probably the top private school here. Its Old Boys' List reads like a Who's Who of Western Australia. Peter Huddleston, recently knighted, is an old boy who is top brass in the R.A.F; Wallace Kyle, only a step behind Huddleston, is an Air Vice-Marshall, R.A.F; and quite a few old boys are Rhodes Scholars.
The present staff has more than a sprinkling of Oxford and Cambridge graduates. In fact, two of those appointed along with me are Cambridge men: Peter Naish and Malcolm Stevens. Peter and I are good friends, but I have a feeling that with his English tripos he'll be looking for a position at the University. He's a former pupil of William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, the set novel in my English class. Headmaster Thwaites, Eric Merryweather the senior English master, Harry Hyde the chaplain and housemaster of St George's, John Legg the assistant chaplain who teaches Latin, Bill Greenway who teaches maths, Jack Clarke the geography man, ‘Mac’ Mc Intyre the French master, Donald Evans the music director and organist are all Oxford or Cambridge, and give the school a tone befitting a public school. Ernest Waller, senior maths master, is an M.A from Punjab University, and is an outstanding teacher. David Greenhalgh, physics master is a Ph. D. Wallace Kyle, visiting us recently, remarked that in his day at Guildford every member of staff was either Oxford or Cambridge.
The school uniform is distinguished by its boaters, and the centrepiece of the school is its beautiful chapel, the gift of an Englishman, Cecil Oliverson, who never lived to see it. The day starts with chapel service at which the staff wear gowns, the chaplain conducting the service. A choir of trebles, accompanied on the pipe organ by Donald Evans, leads the hymns and psalms, most of which I know off by heart. Many of us teach in gowns, at least until lunch, but the Head wears his all day. The seven periods allow all the subjects to receive equal attention, and as at Scotch, I give a period a day to each of the areas in the English curriculum. It’s been a good year, thanks to my being given senior classes, where the marking seldom degenerates into the grind I've known it to be.We are enjoying the social life among staff families, and Jean and I play badminton in the school gym with others in the community.
Letter #15: Guildford Grammar (1956--1965) 58 Swan St, 3 Jan. '58Dear Sasso,My second year at Guildford has ended. At the end of first term Peter Thwaites suddenly resigned as Headmaster, leaving Harold (‘Uckey’) Gladstones as acting Head. Uckey did a good job shouldering such a responsibility for all of second term, handing over to the new Headmaster, David Alexander Lawe-Davies, B.Sc. (Sydney). Earlier in the year we saw a master from Marlborough, England, who was rumoured to be vetting the school, prior to his likely appointment as Head. It appears he was not impressed by what he saw. My belief, like those of my colleagues is that he found the council, lorded over by Old Guildfordians, not to his liking, because of their wish to run the school with the headmaster dancing to their tune. They probably saw Lawe-Davies, a fellow Australian, as the man they wanted. His father was principal of a theological college in Sydney, and, through the Archbishop of Sydney (Primate of Australia), via Archbishop Moline of Perth (Patron of Guildford), his selection was a fait accompli. This is mere speculation, of course, but the likelihoods are there. His first term has been more remarkable for his sociability than for any special distinction he might have for the position. He seems to lack the je ne sais quoi of headmasters of public schools. His wife, Alva, certainly has grace and charm, and seems to have won the hearts of the Council, if one can go by what the chairman had to say on Speech Night. Wives, here as elsewhere, play an important role in their husbands’ advancement.
Through Uckey I was able to get Council approval for an epidiascope for my English classes. It came about the time Lawe-Davies arrived. I invited him to sit in on one of my classes where I demonstrated its use as an alternative to correcting the conventional way. His only comment, however, was that it was too ‘subjective’. I wondered: 1) did he notice that there was good class participation, and that the boys were seeing, perhaps for the first time in their lives the work of their classmates? and 2) did he think that English is the cut-and-dried subject that most others are? I remained silent, but I’m uneasy about his attitude towards what I'm trying to do. I doubt if I can count on him for the support I feel sure Thwaites would have given me, or Keys at Scotch.
On 10th May last year, when term ended, Harry Hyde told me that my father had died during the night of a heart attack in Royal Perth Hospital. I was stunned, for I’d not been in touch with my dad for quite a while.
Our Jennifer was born on 1st October (7lb 8oz) at Swan District Hospital, Midland. She will be the last of our little ones, for I'm to have a vasectomy in a month's time. A doctor friend of ours has recommended a cold chisel instead. What do you think, Sasso?
Letter #16: Guildford Grammar (1956—1965) 58 Swan St 3 Jan '59.Dear Sasso,About a month after I last wrote, I went into the Mount Hospital in Perth for a vasectomy. It shows my ignorance in these matters that I had never before heard of such a thing. I looked it up in the dictionary after the surgeon, Dr Watson, mentioned it. So, now with our six children, we are at the end of our baby production. It’s been heavy on Jean who’s had to make do with the rather primitive facilities of a ‘copper’, scrubbing board, and wringer for washing, and a wood stove for cooking, not to mention the wood that needs to be chopped for fires in the laundry, kitchen and lounge. It's no wonder that when we drive out in the country Jean's eye inevitably spots stashes of firewood which, quite conscientiously, we load into the boot without the least snigger from any of us.On January 11th my mother moved into her home in the new suburb of Cloverdale, 20 minutes’ drive from our place. Jean's parents moved in with her, after they sold their Glen Forest chicken farm and bought a snackbar not far from Cloverdale. Virginia will be ten in a couple of months, and she is in the Guildfordians junior marching girls' team, coached by Ernest Waller. His daughter Patricia is the team's leader girl, and they practise on the hockey ground behind our place. They do very well in competitions, which are a treat to watch, especially the senior teams with their spectacular routines. Virginia, Stef, and Sue go to Guildford primary school. Russ goes to the local kindergarten headed by Mrs Chamarette. Evelyn and Jennifer are still at home. I continue to take movies of our kids growing up. One day I hope to edit and put them on larger reels for more convenient viewing.
Towards the end of '56, Peter Naish staged a poetic drama called Lion at the Gates which he wrote and directed, drawing his cast from his English classes. It was a big success, and its literary merit caught the attention of the English department at the University. At the end of first term '57 Peter resigned to become a tutor at the university. It's a start that will I'm sure lead to a lectureship. Before he left, he married Erica Lushey, the Matron of Henn's House, in a ceremony at Erica's parents' place in South Perth, with me as his best man. We seldom see them nowadays, taken up as they are with Peter's new associates at the university.
Letter # 17: Guildford Grammar (1956--1965) 58 Swan St 3 Jan. '60.Dear Sasso,My fourth year at Guildford has ended, and we feel very much at home here. Now and then I recall a day in September, '47, when, in uniform, I brought my brother Nigel here to have him admitted. Rev. Freeth, the Headmaster, readily admitted him, and on hearing me mention that I was a trained teacher, he offered me a position with a salary of 600 plus residence. I declined because I had already settled with Scotch. What I did not know at the time was that it was a very generous offer when compared with Scotch’s. Salaries aside, I have always liked Guildford.
Our friend John Legg who was at Guildford in '57 and returned to England in mid '58, came back last September after being ordained. He had married his long time sweetheart, Rachel Davies. I met them as their boat docked in Fremantle. Donald Evans and I took them in our Vauxhall to Bunbury, where John had been appointed curate to the rector of Bunbury. Rachel is expecting their first child, due in seven months. John seems happier now than in '57, when his relationship with Rachel was causing him some stress.
Letter # 18: Guildford Grammar (1956--1965) 58 Swan St 3 Jan. '61.Dear Sasso,According to the University of W.A. I enrolled in 1948 having been granted the status of Bachelor of Arts (Hons) for the purpose of proceeding to the degree of Master of Arts, but have not completed that degree. I was allowed to proceed to the degree by submission of a thesis, and I got as far as obtaining approval for my title, which after two changes was finalised as The Novels of James Joyce. I worked long and hard before I realised at the end of last year that I was not equal to the task I had chosen for myself. I talked to the department chairman and he agreed that I should discontinue. I switched to a Diploma of Education course, which is only one year's part-time study. It begins in a couple of months, with evening classes at the University in education, psychology, principles of phys. ed., and social foundations of school and community.
In August last year, Nigel left for England, having finished his Associateship in Electrical Engineering in '54, his Diploma in Electronics and Radio Engineering in '56, and his M.I.E.E (Aus) in December, '59. He worked with Phillips (Perth) in '55, and in the Post Master General's Department since '56. He’ll be home this time next year.
Letter #19: Guildford Grammar (1956--1965) 58 Swan St,3 Jan. '62.Dear Sasso,How do I sort out the tumble of events that have occurred in the last six weeks? I'll start with my Dip. Ed. exams that began in mid-November last year. I was about to go into an exam on Social Foundations of School and Community when I got the news of a car accident in which Rachel Legg was badly injured and taken from Northampton to the Royal Perth Hospital. As soon as the exam was over I hurried to Rachel's bedside, hiding as best I could my shock at seeing her bruised and battered face, a patch covering an eye that had been removed. Other injuries included a thigh ripped by a wooden rail that had pierced the bonnet and dashboard as her car crashed into a bridge when she fell asleep at the wheel. Her two passengers: a young woman whose husband is a fellow-clergyman of John's and the one-year-old Debbie Legg were unharmed.
John came to our place as soon as he could from Northampton where he is the vicar, and Rachel's mother Mrs Davies flew out from England as soon as she got the news, and has been staying with us since she came. She takes the train every day to visit Rachel, on one occasion gamely riding with me on my scooter to get to the hospital. In her late sixties, she has totally captured the hearts of Jean and myself. We have taken to calling her ‘Mother Davies’. She has an older child Michael, who is finishing medicine in London. Michael Davies and John Legg were together at St John's, Leatherhead. Their fathers being clergymen, it seems the two families have long known one another.The university classes were on the whole not very interesting, the exception being psychology. I found the statistics part illuminating, and also the setting up of experiments and evaluating the data obtained. There was not enough on B.F Skinner, the behaviourist, whose researches at Harvard into learning were well known at the time.
Letter # 20: Guildford Grammar (1956--1965). 58 Swan St, 3 Jan. '63.Dear Sasso,Barely six weeks ago, we were saddened by the sudden death of Harry Hyde, Guildford’s chaplain for the past nine years. We were good friends and I liked him immensely. He went to the same school as John Legg--St John's, Leatherhead, Surrey, and got his M.A from Caius College, Cambridge. He served as chaplain to the Forces and later in the U.S as chaplain to St George's School, Newport. We had had a staff meeting that hot afternoon of 22 November, and Harry had gone to the beach near his home in Scarborough for a swim. He saw a lad in difficulties, and plunged in to save him. The boy's life was saved but Harry lost his. I went to his interment in Karrakatta Cemetery, and saw through tear-filled eyes his coffin being lowered into the ground. I will always remember the long chats with Harry over glasses of sherry in his room at Henn's House. He loved his tennis during the season, and hockey during the rains when he'd deliberately fall in the slush, and wallow in it till he was unrecognisable.
Two senior members of staff retired at the end of last year, Harold Gladstones who was Second Master, and George Beere who was housemaster of St George's. I was very friendly with George, with whom I would have my ‘stirrup-cup’ after the house prefect would nod in at the Common Room to say good night after lights out. We'd talk for quite a while before I'd head for home, a five-minute walk away. George, who taught Latin, had for some time been saying that his retirement would give him the time he needed to read Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He is a hard-nosed scholar, a bachelor, and totally without sham of any kind. As I've sat, talking with him about everything under the sun, I've been deeply conscious of being in the company of the last of a vanishing breed, the public school housemaster, the kind immortalised in James Hilton's Goodbye, Mr Chips
In November Jean began training at Claremont Mental Hospital to become a registered psychiatric nurse. We shared our scooter, I for my evening classes at university, she for her work at Claremont.
I enrolled in Philosophy 10 at the beginning of the year. It has been a most interesting and valuable learning experience for me as I've been exposed to the revolution in philosophy in the 20th century, the main thrust of which is an analytical approach to the language philosophers use to set forth their ideas. The textbook is John Hospers' Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, an extraordinarily engaging work that has brought about a turning point in my thinking. Nigel, who returned from England in early January, also signed up for the course, but after a burst of enthusiasm in the first two months, fell off in his attendance. I plan to take another unit, Philosophy 21 (Moral Philosophy) starting in a couple of months. If this year is as interesting as the last in philosophy, I'm in for another rewarding intellectual experience.
Letter # 21.Guildford Grammar (1956-1965). 58 Swan St 3 Jan. '64.Dear Sasso,A month ago I turned forty, twenty years after we said goodbye to each other in Wynberg dormitory. I try to visualise you and your children these days: Peggy almost the age you were in '43, Bobby a year behind Peggy, Joan a year behind Bobby, and Audrey and Peter well into their thirties.
Jean has done a year at Claremont, and I have completed Philosophy 21 (Moral Philosophy) at the University. I am enrolling in a final unit, Philosophy 30, which, when I'm done will give me a second degree, this one from the University of W.A. Last April, while riding to work, Jean was thrown off her scooter when a car ran a stop sign and hit her, sending her to the pavement. Ernest Waller got the message on his phone, and immediately came over to take the kids and myself in his car to the emergency department of the Royal Perth Hospital, where Jean had been admitted. The kids were crying but I managed to assure them that Jean’s injury was not serious. The physician on duty was one of my former pupils at Scotch, Michael Frayne, and before we saw Jean he assured us that she had only bad abrasions on her thigh. The bike was damaged slightly, and after being detained for a while Jean was released and we brought her home, where she recovered quite rapidly. Soon after, we traded in the scooter for a Renault Gordini, and Jean and I share it the way we did the scooter.My lecturer in Moral Philosophy, David Muschamp, the son of an Anglican bishop, is a former pupil of Guildford which he left just before I came. As I'd watch him lecturing and running our tutorials, I'd reflect on how it might have been had I come to Guildford early enough to be his English master. He graded my assignments, never giving me more than 75%, which I'm sure was fair, in light of his revealing and helpful comments on my work. He probably saw in me someone who was more enthusiastic than exceptional, which I think is true.
David's classmate, another brilliant fellow named David Malcolm, won a Rhodes Scholarship in 1960, after his law degree from the University of W.A about when Muschamp did his honours in philosophy.
Letter # 22: Guildford Grammar (1956--1965). 58 Swan St, 3 Jan. ‘65.Dear Sasso,I've just finished philosophy at the University, and will get my degree in early May. I’m doing also a thesis for the Teachers' Higher Certificate on The Bearings of Existentialism on Education.
I'm making this my last year at Guildford, and hope to come to England to do an M.A in London. I’ll be staying on long enough to get my ten-years' long service leave of three months with pay.
Now for the big news! After twenty years of smoking I quit three days ago. Jean and I spent New Year's Eve with her brother Peter and his wife Elly at their golf club in Mt Yokine. I sipped beer all night and smoked till my mouth was sore. Shortly after midnight, on our way home I drew on my last cigarette, and flicked the butt out of the car window, watching it in my rear-view mirror tumble out of sight. The money I save will go towards our boat fares to England. With savings from my Guildford pay and Jean's at Claremont, we'll have enough for our two years in England. So, it won’t be long before we’ll be seeing each other again. I can't wait for you to meet Jean and our six children. It will have been 21 years since you and I were at Allen.
Letter # 23: Guildford Grammar (1956--1965) Maylands, 3 Jan, '66.Dear Sasso,The past year has been most eventful, and more than usually full of changes. Early in the year we joined the Mormon Church. One hot afternoon in late January two young men called on us, announcing themselves as missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (Rather a mouthful, I thought). They asked us if we knew anything about the Mormons, and we told them we'd only heard about them, not wanting to mention their polygamy. A very pleasant pair of young men with engaging American accents, they scored a hit with our two older girls Virginia (16) and Sue (13) and, indeed, the rest of us as we gave them a welcome they probably hadn’t expected. They set up a time for us to hear their message, and within a few days were back to give us their ‘lessons’. We sat around our dining table as they made their presentation with the aid of flannel boards and labels, each of the missionaries supplementing the other as they went along. Soon they broached us with the ‘challenge’ to accept baptism. I was very impressed by the agreeable feelings they generated among us, and it was no surprise when Jean agreed to baptism. She was baptised on 15 February, the children a week later, and I a month after the children.My colleagues sometimes ask me about the L.D.S church, and if while responding I seem to be proselytising, I'm described as ‘swinging my Mormon pickaxe at the foundations of the Anglican church’.
On 15 December we moved into our new home in Whatley Crescent, Maylands, a lovely ranch-style place we bought from Dr Magnus, whose boys I taught, the older one at Scotch and the other at Guildford. Kittie Magnus, a delightful woman, has left us a lovely home with a fine garden and grounds for the very reasonable price of 7,500, which in a month's time will read as $15,000, as the country swings over to metric. Jean finished her nurse's training last year, and is now a registered psychiatric nurse, entitled to wear a veil and be called Sister. She still works at Claremont, and Pres. Dawson (Herb) is keen to have her serve in a leadership position in the branch once we settle into our new home.
So, the English venture is off, things turning out quite different from anything we'd expected a year ago.
Letter #24: Governor Stirling (1966-1968) Maylands 3 Jan. ’68.Dear Sasso,Governor Stirling High is barely a mile from Guildford Grammar, but the two schools are quite different from each other. At the end of this, my first year with the government system, everything seems so stark and competitive, teachers eyeing one another with a view some day to demonstrating before appeal courts their fitness for a position above that of a rival who has been appointed to it. It's a whole new world for me, and until I get used to this unabashed cut-throat competition I'm going to miss what I left behind at Guildford. On the other hand, here you will not find principals with the power that is vested in headmasters of private schools to use as capriciously as they wish. This is another reason why I left Guildford.
The pupils here are not unlike those at Guildford. Both places have the bright ones and the not so bright, as one would expect to find in any normal distribution of school children. It is refreshing to find at Stirling an absence of illusions about belonging in privileged institutions. As an English teacher with access to how kids feel about themselves, I found that a great many at Guildford regarded themselves superior to those in the government schools. It was usually the case, however, that the less able ones were the most likely to harbour such illusions.
I taught senior English this past year at Stirling, and found it no different from teaching at Scotch or Guildford. The chief difference is the extent of supervisory presence in the shape of department heads. Bob Pilbeam, head of English, seems to be around constantly, making his presence felt. Senior positions are much sought after here, and heads of departments do their best to be noticed for their strengths, occasionally becoming an annoyance to teachers working with them. Pilbeam, for example, keeps insisting that we teach pupils how to evaluate poetry by having them use certain criteria, ‘pegs’, as he calls them. I'd like him to demonstrate how he would use his ‘pegs’ in commenting on a poem placed before him. I wonder if he's come across I.A Richards's Practical Criticism. ‘For anyone who wants a good laugh,’ Orwell once wrote, ‘I recommend Practical Criticism, that classic expose of the pretentiousness and incapacity of a selection of Cambridge students of literature.’
Letter #25: Governor Stirling (1966--1968). Maylands, 3 Jan.,1968.Dear Sasso,Another upheaval in a few months as we pull up roots and move to Alberta, Canada. A couple of months ago, as Jean and I were planning to take our children with us during these holidays to a temple in New Zealand, it struck us how expensive it would be for return air fares for us. There was no other way we'd be able to go to the temple in the time available, and, determined not to postpone the venture, we decided instead to move to a place that had a temple. So we settled for Alberta. A missionary from Lethbridge, Robert French, had told us about the Cardston temple, and it wasn't long before his parents were in touch with us, sending us information about the Lethbridge area. Jean and I inquired about jobs and we both got offers, I from Cardston High and Jean from the Cardston hospital. So we’re selling out and making preparations for our new life in Canada.
Last year I was inspected by a Superintendent of English from the Department, Miss Dickenson, who sat in on one of my classes. I had met her once before, when she visited Guildford in a quasi-official capacity, and I’d invited her into one of my ‘epidiascope’ lessons. She had seemed very interested in my approach and commented on its possibilities. The lesson I gave was on Shelley's Ozymandias, and she was sufficiently impressed to give me an outstanding report. She herself had been an English teacher.Our children are excited about moving, but our friends are not. I have moments when I wonder what life will be like in a small town, particularly one that’s predominantly Mormon.
Letter #26: Cardston High (1968--1984). 305 3 Av. Cardston 3 Jan, '69. Dear Sasso,Last year has been a chapter of interesting events, the last of which finds us in our first home in Cardston, situated at the north-west corner of the temple, giving us uninterrupted views of it through picture windows in our two front rooms. At night the temple is bathed in pearly light, and no amount of sub-zero temperatures is affecting our enthusiasms. Life at school can well be described as culture shock from which it'll take me a while to recover.
On December 7 Stef, who stayed behind in W.A, married Pauline Harris. That is why he didn't come with us, but we are happy he did what he wanted to do. Bishop Dawson married them in the Dianella Chapel and Jean's parents stood in for us at the service.Virginia, who was expecting a baby, left in early August for Melbourne to stay with Peter and Elly Sutcliffe till the baby, a girl with the given name of Nichola, was born on November 29 and given up for adoption to an L.D.S family in Melbourne. We are expecting Virginia to join us in a month's time, and are looking forward to having her with us again, sadly, without her Nichola.
Letter #27: Cardston High (1968--1984) 305 3 Av Cardston, 3 Jan. ‘70 Dear Sasso, Christmas, a few days ago, was our second in Canada with snow all around and Chinook winds blowing in their welcome ways.
A month after I last wrote we picked Virginia up at Calgary International. It was freezing that evening when she got off the plane, dressed in light summer clothes. She obviously didn't expect our freezing weather after Melbourne with temperatures of 40 C. She took a job in Calgary looking after two boys whose father, a stage hypnotist, was away with their mother on tour. On June 7, she married Rob Cameron at our home, Bishop Glen Jones officiating.
I spent six weeks in England doing genealogical work. On my arrival I found that John and Rachel had divorced and Debbie and Maurice (my godson) were with Rachel in Brede at Mother Davies’s place. After a night there I headed for Bexleyheath, excited to be seeing the Motts and Una after 23 years. I spent a week with them and another with John in his West Kensington vicarage, during which time I unearthed priceless information in Somerset House and the Public Records Office in London. I spent a wonderful week by myself in South Molton digging up Brayley records back to 1600. John had arranged with the vicar of St Mary Magdalene to allow me access to its registers. I stayed at the Castle Inn at George Nympton, a few miles south, and enjoyed the friendship of an elderly English couple at breakfast before setting out each day for St Mary’s.We work the semester system in the high school but the yearly system in the other schools. Almost everything is different from what I’ve been used to, but our kids seem to be adapting well. With me, it might take for ever to adjust to the slacker discipline in the high school and I'm already thinking seriously about enrolling in doctoral studies in education at the University of Montana, Missoula. To that end I'll start with summer classes this year, and then move to Missoula to work full time to finish the degree, after which I'll try for university teaching. My wish to teach at a university, however, will have to come to terms with my desire to remain here among people who are beginning to mean so much to me.
Letter #28: Cardston High (1968--1984) Cardston, 3 Jan. 1971.Dear Sasso,On June 2 last year Jean had a hysterectomy. It seems the operation causes great pain and disablement for a while, particularly if by incision. Jean, nevertheless, began at the Auxiliary Hospital on 1 July, barely a month later. Indications are that she will be put in charge as soon as the incumbent retires.
I'm noticing an improvement in the behaviour of my students, and I mentioned this to Shirley Kopitske, the fabrics and dress teacher who is also in charge of the cheerleaders. She said that the change was more likely in me than in the students. And maybe she's right, the problem all along having been with me and not the kids, as I've been imagining. Coming to a new country we bring with us preconceptions about what is or is not acceptable behaviour. In Australia and Britain school discipline is stricter than one finds here. Our children Sue, Russ, Evelyn, and Jennifer are adapting faster than I am, and in time their changing behaviour will reflect their assimilation into Canadian life. Sue is head of the cheerleaders and is a good friend of Joyce Webster. Russ was Student of the Year, an award that speaks for itself. Evelyn and Jenny have good friends among their classmates.
Letter #29: Cardston High (1968—1984) Cardston, 3 Jan. ’72.Dear Sasso,On 29 December Sue married Dale Zo Bell who is from a farming family in Raymond. She decorated the church hall herself and it was a fine testimonial to her energy, enthusiasm and creativity. Earlier in the year she graduated from high school. She would have finished the previous year, but because of some question in Edmonton about subjects being transferred from Australia, she had to forego some of her credits and re-do Grade 10. So it happened that Russ, who though 17 months younger, graduated at the same time as Sue.
Russ is at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, doing pre-med. He plans to serve a church mission when he turns nineteen in May next year. This will give him two years of university before his mission. Both he and Sue have had summer jobs during their vacations: Sue at the Post Office and Russ in construction in Cardston.At the end of March last year Stef and Pauline and their two-year old Nigel came to us for a month. During the Easter break we loaded up the Rideau 500 and headed for Disneyland, eight of us in the car: Stef, Pauline, Nigel, Sue, Russ, Evelyn, Jean and myself. Jenny stayed behind with her friends.
Having abandoned the idea of Missoula, I advertised in the local paper for a large, older home. Gene Ockey called to say he had his apartments for sale and we agreed to meet him at the place. When we got there I realised it was the house I used to pass by on my way to and from school, and thought it badly neglected. Two brothers lived there, one with his wife and baby, the other with a girl who was a former student of mine. The place reeked of tobacco, and for curtains, one window had a faded green bed sheet hanging from a string by safety pins. Jean tried to have me cut short the visit, but I didn't know how to tell Gene we were not interested. By the time we got to the back of the place I was able to tell him so, but he pleaded with me, saying that he wanted only what he paid for the place. Thinking that this was my way out, I asked how much he paid. He said $7,000. I shook my head and said, expecting to hear him refuse, that I wouldn't think of offering him more than $6,600. To my surprise, he asked me if I would pay him that much. Unable to back out, I agreed to the deal.
We moved in as soon as the renters left, and I worked on the house to bring it up to scratch. Jean’s parents are coming in February and we need to make room for them as well as two of our children.
Letter #30: Cardston High (1968--1984). 266 2 St, Cardston. 3 Jan,'73.Dear Sasso,We enjoyed having the Sutcliffes here for six months of last year. In July we did our grand tour with the Sutcliffes: to Vancouver and then Washington, Oregon, and California (Disneyland). At San Diego, I bought heavy-duty shears for the wrought-iron work I intended to start. We went on to Tijuana where we were reminded of our days in India, haggling over prices. We stopped at Las Vegas, Salt Lake, and Yellowstone National Park and returned, after being away two weeks.
On our way home, while looking for a place to stay, we were offered a motel in Las Vegas at greatly reduced prices on the condition that we attend a presentation advertising land in Florida. We accepted the offer and showed up at the presentation, at the end of which we found ourselves suckered into the purchase of a building lot in Poinciana, near Orlando.
First semester of '71 I had Evelyn in my English 20 class. I had recently begun having my students write one-paragraph compositions, about a half page, on any topic they liked. These mini-essays would allow for concentrated attention to matters of unity, coherence, and clarity. I’d mark them out of 5, and comment in ways that I hope would help kindle unlit fires. I wish I had thought of this many years ago, when full-length essays were wearing me out without noticeable benefits to anyone.
Virginia has been in Waterloo where Rob has been working on a degree in Physical Education. Their income from Virginia's nursing is barely enough to pay Rob's tuition as well as maintain a home, so Virginia asked us if we could have Jason for a while. He was eight months old when he was flown out to Calgary in the care of a young man employed by the airline. Virginia and Rob returned to Calgary where Virginia nursed at the Foot Hills Hospital and Rob took a job with an electrical contractor. While we were away Skye was born on 7 August. She was a week old when we first saw her in Virginia’s arms, her eyes glistening and bright.
Letter # 31: Cardston High (1968--1984) 266 2 St, Cardston, 3 Jan, '74.Dear Sasso,Russ has done two years of premed and is on a mission in Finland. Robbie has abandoned Virginia, having taking up with a girl in Logan where he was completing his degree in recreation. He returned briefly to Cardston to the job of recreation director that had been held for him. We’ve not seen him since. Virginia has been nursing at the Blood Indian Hospital and she, Jason and Skye live in our upstairs apartment.
We did our first trip back to Australia in July. It's interesting that although we lived over twenty years in Australia, and only three of those were spent in the Church, it was our L.D.S friends to whom we gravitated when we returned. Earlier, we stopped in Townsville and spent a few days with Pam and her four children and the Sutcliffes, who lived in a caravan on Pam's property. That was our first time in Queensland and Pat made delicious mango-fool from partly ripe mangoes. The Sutcliffes drove us to Cairns where we visited Peter, Elly and their four kids, and spent an interesting hour off Green Island in a glass-bottom boat watching the underwater marvels of the Great Barrier Reef. I had never seen a custard apple before, so Pat bought one and surprised me with it when we came ashore. I enjoyed its taste, even though custard apples were out of season. We spent our last three weeks with Stef and Pauline in Girrawheen in their State Housing Commission rental home. It was a cold, wet summer and we huddled around electric heaters in the lounge and slept in their bed warmed by electric blankets. Stef had a Vesper scooter on which he would ride with one or other of his kids standing in front of the driver's seat and fearlessly holding on to the handlebars. Stasia, barely eighteen months old, is the apple of her father's eye, and indeed of her grandparents. Nigel, three years older, is a lovely little fellow.
We were treated in Dianella Ward like long lost friends. At church, especially, we felt a warmth we’d never felt before.
Letter # 32: Cardston High (1968--1984). 266 2 St, Cardston. Jan, '75.Dear Sasso,Len and Una Hughes and their son Mark came to us from England. We took them to Disneyland, Las Vegas and Salt Lake. The day before we returned, the Sutcliffes arrived for their second stay with us. It was a full house, ten of us in all. How Jean manages is a marvel to me.
Two semesters ago I had our Jenny in my English 20 class, the first to be housed in the new building. It’s designed for team teaching, a fad that’s sweeping the educational landscape and has caught the fancy of the school board without its making any impression on us teachers who seem, curiously, to have been forgotten when the building was being planned. We have interesting open areas: classrooms, library, and study hall. Teaching, nevertheless, goes on in the usual way as we sometimes wonder what exactly ‘team teaching’ is and how it can be done in high schools, now that we have this fine new building for it – cart-before-the-horse situation? Meanwhile, kids sitting at the back of the room grin at others similarly seated in adjacent rooms. The place occasionally takes on a carnival look, whose purpose could be something other than educational. Someday, no doubt, the walls will return and the authorities will repine that it was unimaginative teachers who never did see the idea’s great possibilities. A pox on all of us!
Letter # 33: Cardston High (1968--1984). 266 2 St. Cardston. 3 Jan, '76.Dear Sasso, Russ returned from his mission in June and enrolled at Brigham Young University in September. He worked throughout the summer and is using his earnings to keep himself at university. I bought Jean a Pontiac Acadian, but when we realised that Russ would need wheels at university we let him have the car for his use.
Jean and I spent five weeks in England with the Hugheses. It was Jean's first time in England and my second. We crossed the Channel in a hovercraft and went by train from Bologne to Paris where we spent a week in a hotel, making daily trips by the metro to the Opera. It was a very dry summer and our endless walking made us thirsty. Since drinking tap water was not advised, we drank Vichy water instead. Although Paris's city proper is small, no corner being farther than a few miles from the square in front of Notre Dame cathedral, one can do little other than ‘scratch the surface’ of the city. We took a city tour by bus as historic sites sped by, leaving us with memories of famous names: the Tuileries, the Louvre, the Place de la Concorde, Montmartre. We strolled down the Champs Elysees, taking in a movie on the way, stopped at the Arc de Triomphe where Jean and Una braved the Paris traffic and crossed the hub at its busiest. We walked past the Eiffel Tower one evening and did a day Seine River cruise. Paris was a rich experience, but too short, or perhaps long enough to allow us to boast we’d been there.Sue's second child Britney was born May 4 last year in Cardston Hospital. Barely a month old, she developed a respiratory condition that nearly cost her her life. Sue had been at her bedside along with a nurse who was ‘specialling’ Britney, when she called me to say that Britney was seriously ill and could I come around and give her little one a priesthood blessing. Sue was in tears and I raced down to the hospital, after an unsuccessful attempt to get Dr. Russell to assist me with the blessing. Soon after I’d given the blessing the pediatrician Dr Alan Van Orman came by to say that Britney was out of danger.
In August, Virginia joined the R.C.M.P and began her training in Regina where she is at present. Hers is the second women's troop in training. Along with Jean’s parents we, her proud parents, will be at her graduation march out next month.
Letter # 34: Cardston High (1968--1984). 266 2 St Cardston, 3 Jan, '77.Dear Sasso, We've just returned from Langley, B.C, after leaving Virginia and Dennis (Massey) who were married in Winnipeg on 18 December. Most of our family were there: Sue, Evelyn, and Jenny (bridesmaids), my mum, Russ (who had driven from Provo, Utah), and Jean’s dad. Pat at the last moment backed out. Jason, Skye, and Kerbi were dressed R.C.M.P style for the occasion. It was a scarlet wedding conducted in the L.D.S church in Winnipeg, and our family sang Love at Home. A dance in the hotel rounded off a lively and colourful evening.
In July Stef and Pauline and their children, Nigel and Stasia, came out with my mum, now a landed immigrant. She was baptized by Russ soon after her arrival. Immersion terrified her so much that the ritual had to be repeated. I heard her remark before the second immersion that she felt it was a sign that she ought never to have been baptised. Conservative in these matters, and having trained in the Faith mission as a young woman, she is critical of rituals. Nor does the temple interest her in the least.
My colleagues and bosses are nicer than any I've had before. Had Australia been half as good as this, I’d have been a happier fellow back then. I like teaching, and have no desire for senior positions that could well mean the end of my teaching life.
Letter # 35 Cardston High (1968—1984) 266 2 St, Cardston, 3 Jan, ’78Dear Sasso,Russ graduated summa cum laude (highest distinction) from Brigham Young University last year, and Jean and I drove to Provo with my mum, Jean’s parents having got there earlier. The graduation at the Marriott Centre was most impressive, its being the first Commencement any of us had witnessed. After the ceremony we took Russ to Drumheller where he started his first job. Jenny was also in Drumheller where she has been working with Trans-Alta Utilities. Jenny and Russ soon got themselves a small house each, not far from one another.
Towards the end of January last year, soon after Virginia and Dennis's wedding, Pat was baptised. While we were away at the wedding in Winnipeg, Jim Ferguson, along with Dr Van Orman, had been fellowshipping Pat and had her take the lessons given by full-time missionaries. Within a couple of weeks Ted too was baptised.
I spent Easter '77 in England doing genealogy. I met Una's brother Dick Mott and his wife Joyce and their two boys Matthew and James. He is a ‘born-again’ Christian and was doing his bit trying to convert us. His wife is Anglican and he and Joyce evidently agree to disagree on religion.
Recently Pat has been talking about returning to Australia by herself to settle in Queensland's Atherton Tableland, remote from towns and cities, yet near Cairns where Peter, her favourite child, lives with his young Philippino wife. She talks of fleeing what she calls her oppressive life. At one time she contemplated the Nilgiris in India, little aware of the problem of living there on a pension barely enough for her daily needs. Nor has she allowed for Ted's determination to stick with her regardless.
Letter #36: Cardston High (1968--1984) 266 2 St, Cardston, 3 Jan, ‘79Dear Sasso,My mum has just returned from a month's holiday in England where she joined Nigel who had been making his way there overland from Melbourne. He was to have travelled with his girlfriend Yvonne Law, but at the last minute a disagreement between them caused them to go separately and meet in London. When Nigel arrived in England in early December he learnt that Yvonne had returned to Melbourne without leaving any indication of her whereabouts. He worried himself sick over this and drank a great deal to alleviate his distress. Although he and my mum had a brief holiday on the Costa del Sol at a nice hotel in Fuengirola, Nigel's nerves were shot, and the more he drank the worse he became. They spent Christmas with the Hugheses in Bexleyheath, and in his depressed state he must have been very poor company for them. I'm concerned about him and would like to see him if, as he says, he will be returning to Melbourne via the U.S and Canada later this month.
My mum has been in the Chinook Lodge for the last two years and is bored, finding it hard at seventy-six to fit into the Mormon way of life. She went to the temple once only, and found the ceremony bewildering. To make matters worse she had an angina attack towards the end of the session and threw up. She complains about the altitude of 3,800 ft, imagining it to be the cause of her angina, and wants to move to Winnipeg believing it to be at sea level.
Easter last year we decided to visit Poinciana, Florida, finally to check on our land-purchase in '72. I hadn't seen for 35 years my cousin Aileen Innis, living in Bramalea, nor her brother Peter Mc Intyre who is in Brampton. Aileen invited us to spend a few days with her and her husband Quentin, and Peter and his wife Barbara planned to come over and take us out with them. We called on my cousin Edgar Brayley and his Portuguese wife Isabella and their two sons, and a third young man who went by the name of Brayley, but was Isabella's son by a previous marriage.
In Poinciana we were shown the location of our lot, which, if nothing else, confirmed its authenticity. We told them we wanted to sell, but they persuaded us to inspect their show homes should we change our minds and decide to build. The homes were well priced, but Jean didn't care for the idea of building there because of its distance from Cardston.The Sutcliffes who have been with us since '76 returned to Australia last fall. Ted bought a car in Cairns, Qld. and drove to W.A. where in Bentley they bought a unit in Swan Homes. Ted’s cancer flared up again, yet he drove that incredible distance with Pat. Their marriage stays together only because a separation now would be unthinkable. Ted hasn't long to go; his cancer is gaining on him fast.
Letter #37: Cardston High (1968--1984) 266 2 St, Cardston, 11 Jan. ’80.Dear Sasso, Our phone rang at 12.30 a.m on 5 January when we got the news of Nigel's death in Melbourne. I flew out on the 6th to supervise arrangements that had already been started by one of Nigel's old school friends Charlie Willis. Charlie and his wife Sandra met me in Melbourne, and drove me to the funeral home where I spent some sad moments alone with Nigel. The Willises did everything they could to make me comfortable. I spent my first evening with a girl friend of Nigel’s, Margaret Keple, who told me about his final few months. I gave the eulogy at the cremation service and had a hard time with it. I made a cassette recording of the service, so that our family here and in Australia could hear it later.
In April '78 we bought an investment property on 3 Avenue from Ardith Tjornelund. We rented it almost straight away to the family of Adib and Maha Nader from Lebanon.For the past seven years my sideline in wrought iron has been very lucrative. I work evenings after school, making railings mostly, and find it a little tiring after a hard day’s school.
I took a long break from ironwork during the summer when we had the Hugheses and Bas with us for a month. With our ¾ ton truck fitted with a camper top we headed out on our journey, intending to camp en route. We drove to Red Deer where we called on Paul and Marina Moss; then on to Edmonton's Klondyke Days and then Jasper, Lake Louise and Banff and on to San Francisco (Petaluma), Reno, Salt lake, and then home -- a total of 1,500 miles. We camped overnight at places along the way, setting up a small tent to house our gear, while we slept in the camper.
Flo is in poor health and her smoking doesn’t help. She lives in Doubleview with her younger daughter Cheryl, who has a B.A from the University of W.A and is a journalist for a local magazine. Carolyn, her elder daughter, lives in a fancy home with her second husband, David Wheeler, and their infant son Brandon.
Letter # 38: Cardston High (1968--1984) 266 2 St, Cardston. 3 Jan, '81.Dear Sasso,We had two sad losses in our family last year: Nigel on 4 January, and then Flo who passed away in her sleep on 4 May.
Shortly after returning from Nigel's funeral I got in touch with a former Australian girl friend of his, Lyn Hancock (nee Taylor). She had written a few books, and it was through her publishers that I was able to phone her at her place in Summerland, B.C. She knew about Nigel but was surprised to learn from the death notices that we had been in Canada all these years. We wrote to each other, our letters mostly about Nigel, to whom Lyn said she nearly got engaged in '61, but things fell out differently and she married David Hancock, a marine biologist from whom she has since been divorced. Lyn and I plan to meet soon. If possible she would like to work it in with one of her book tours in our area. In '79, we bought another small house by Lee Creek. We rented it to Frank and Wanita Daniels. Frank is one of my more recent students (spring ’75). His mother Martha Daniels works with Jean in Long Term Care and is one of her dear friends. Last July I went by myself to England and stayed in Bexleyheath till the wet and cold became unbearable. I fled to Toremolinos on the Costa del Sol where I spent a week, feeling a loneliness among the crowds that reminded me of my early days in the navy. I paid a sentimental visit to Fuengirola to get a feel of where in Dec '78 my mum and Nigel had spent hours overlooking the Mediterranean, sipping soft drinks, or with Nigel something stronger.
Letter # 39: Cardston High (1968--1984). 266 2 St, Cardston, 3 Jan, ' 82.Dear Sasso, Jean's father died of lung cancer on 20 May last year in Bentley, W.A after an illness that began in '78 when he went twice to St Michael's, Lethbridge, both times for a cystoscopy. Towards the end, Pat nursed him till the strain forced her to have him admitted to a nursing home nearby.
Jean had the satisfaction of visiting him, with Sue and Evelyn, while the Sutcliffes were in Swan Homes. My mum went with them, but she stayed with my niece Carolyn. Jean's dad was in great discomfort during her three weeks there, coughing constantly and quite unable to drive his car, leaving Jean to do the driving. He died two months after Jean returned.
At the end of January last year we rented a U-Haul, loaded my mum’s belongings into it and headed for Winnipeg on one of the coldest days that winter. We settled my mum into her tenth-floor apartment, and headed for home after a night in Indian Head. My mum wrote regularly from Winnipeg, her letters full of the joys of living in a big city. She loves to look out from her window over the city, especially at night with Winnipeg’s lights ablaze.
Letter #40: Cardston High (1968--1984) 266 2 St, Cardston, 3 Jan, '83.Dear Sasso, Bas Mott spent a month with us. We took him with us to visit my mum in Winnipeg, and let him drive for long stretches because he enjoys driving. We left for England the same day that Bas was due to return, he to Gatwick and we to Heathrow. With the Hugheses we went to Porec, Yugoslavia. It was a most unusual holiday -- afternoons on topless beaches, evenings with discotheque music till bedtime. It was my first sight of bare breasts, but I was surprised how soon the novelty wore off, as non chalance replaced my eager looks in their direction.
Back home, I had feelings of guilt, such being the conditioning of my years in the church. I was reminded of an amusing aside Zakini makes in Teahouse of the August Moon, referring to the Okinawan custom of nude bathing: ‘pornography question of geography’. How true!
I attend workshops in English where speakers from Britain and the U.S are guests. I often meet a catholic nun Dr Anne Murtagh of the University of Lethbridge and we get together during recess and swap ideas.
Letter #41 : Cardston High (1968--1984). 266 2 St, Cardston, 3 Jan, '84.Dear Sasso,On 23rd April, '83, Pat left Australia, presumably for the last time, to settle here. She was with us a few months and then moved into the Chinook Lodge in Cardston. Her Australian age pension is barely enough to pay her keep, leaving her very little for extras. It would make sense for her to consider a marriage that will give her financial security. There is a likely suitor in Rulon Butler, a respectable and well-to-do widower. He seems interested in Pat. There’s a snag, however, as he has a young daughter who has considerable influence over him and is not keen that her father remarry. Her inheritance could be in jeopardy. She seems, otherwise, to like Pat as do Rulon's other children. There is also a man of ninety, Richard Law, who lives at the Lodge and, judging by his Cadillac, he seems pretty well off. Letter #42: Retirement (1984 on) 266 2 St, Cardston. 3 Jan, '85.Dear Sasso,We spent September in England with Len and Una, and I had 16 days in India while Jean and the Hugheses and Bas went to Minorca. I wasn't sure whether Oak Grove still existed. There wasn't a soul that I knew who was still in India, forty-four years having passed since I left it. I picked up the phone and talked to the office of the Indian Consul in Ottawa. I asked the first official who came on the line if he could give me the name and address in Canada of any Indian national who might be able to tell me
about my old school. By a stroke of luck, I was given the name of a Dr Chetan Singh, a geologist with Alberta Research Council in Edmonton, who, I was told made a practice of visiting his family in Dehra Dun every two years. His sister Lakshmi is the wife of a retired Indian army brigadier, Surendra Singh. He gave me Surendra's address and suggested I write and let him know of my plans. He also assured me that my old school was flourishing. A lively correspondence began between Surendra and myself, and he invited me to stay with him and his wife, Lakshmi, in Dehra Dun, just 50 miles from Saharanpur, and ten from Oak Grove. A more convenient arrangement I couldn't have hoped for.
Of my stay in India two days were spent travelling, two with the Gandhi family in Delhi, where I visited some old haunts of my N.H.Q days in '44, and two days awaiting my return to London. I spent two days at Allen Memorial School, now renamed Wynberg Allen, my first night in what was once the residence of old Biggs and his wife. I couldn't help noticing how spartan the conditions seemed. I addressed the school at its morning assembly, after which the principal, Mr Edwards, took me into a few of the classes where I spoke to the kids. I found the English I was hearing quite strange. I was to find the same during my two days at Oak Grove. While there, at the invitation of the Principal Mr Kichlu I addressed the staff and boys at an after-school assembly. Back in Dehra Dun, Surendra, a member of the board of Governors of Camden Hall, arranged a morning assembly at which I spoke to the staff and school.
It's six months since I retired, and I'm enjoying this demi-paradise.
Letter # 43: Retirement (1984 on) 266 2 St, Cardston. 3 Jan ‘86Dear Sasso,.For some time now I’ve been feeling the need to put to use such writing skills as I have for the benefit of people who find themselves unfairly treated by those in authority, particularly governments. Words out of Tagore’s Gitanjali keep haunting me: ‘Give me the strength, oh Lord, never to bend my knees before insolent might.’ I feel inspired by such words. But what exactly can I do about it? Maybe one of these days the opportunity will come, or perhaps I’ll create it.
Jenny had twin girls, one still born, the other, Melanie, who lived only twelve hours. It's been a long and difficult time for Jenny, Mike and the rest of us. We hope our ‘Pen Pen’ comes out of this without lasting emotional scars, and indeed feel well enough to try for another baby.
On May 25 Lyn Hancock came to Cardston to plug her most recent book Tell me Grandmother. She and a woman friend spent a weekend with us and we enjoyed the time we had to share memories of Nigel. Early last year as Pat, Pam, Jean and I were returning from our trip down south our new Cadillac went out of control on the icy slopes above Lake Moyie, 12 miles from Cranbrook, B.C. We span around twice, jumped the guardrail and finished up over the side, tail end towards the frozen lake eighty feet below. A small tree, against which the rear end of the car had stopped, saved us from certain death. Unhurt, we scrambled onto the highway and were taken into Cranbrook by passing motorists. Next morning we drove the car home and had extensive repairs done to it.
Letter #44: Retirement (1984 on) 266 2 St, Cardston. 3 Jan, '87.Dear Sasso,The plight of Lyle and Trudy Prete in our town, foster-parents for many years, gave me the opportunity I’d been waiting for to help people in distress. Despite their being recently named Foster-Parents of the Year, they found themselves charged with assaulting their foster-children. They underwent a costly trial, the case eventually being thrown out of court. The Pretes had been assured by the then Social Services Minister that the Government would help them with an ex gratia payment to cover their lawyer's fees, which amounted to some $38,000. When I met Lyle in April he said there was no hope of their getting anything from the government, as the new ministry under Mrs Connie Osterman was refusing to fork out anything. Taking up cudgels on their behalf, I headed up a citizens' committee of three, and through letters brought pressure to bear on Ms Osterman for what I saw was a case of rank injustice. My battle with the government began in June and ended just before Christmas, a few days ago. The Premier of Alberta, Don Getty, intervened, asking the Pretes to have me suspend publicity of the case as he was in the final stages of a settlement. On December 18 the Pretes were offered $20,000 which they were going to decline on the grounds that their expenses were nearly double that. But, afraid that the offer might be withdrawn if they refused it, they accepted. I was ready to pressure the government to come up with at least as much as the Pretes paid out in legal expenses. In the end I did what they wanted. So ended my first attempt at helping a neighbour.
Encouraged by my success in the Prete case, I thought I might be of value as a town councillor. So I filed for nomination and for three weeks thought about nothing but elections. My pounding of the pavements paid off when I found that I had polled high and won a seat. Town council will be my preoccupation for the next three years, but I’ve decided that I'll I’ll not run a second time.
Letter #45: Retirement (1984 on) 266 2 St West, Cardston. 3 Jan, '88.Dear Sasso,
A few days ago a man who is in charge of the school for the handicapped was charged with using electronic devices for eavesdropping on phone conversations. As soon as I could I went to the Municipal Division office where the man’s wife works to find out what had happened. She was in tears, maintaining that her husband was innocent, and that his accuser was one of his staff who was trying to get him fired. I assured her that if it went to court and he was found innocent, I would fight for him as I had done with the Pretes. Fortunately, however, the charges were dropped.
Letter #46: Retirement (1984 on) 266 2 St West, Cardston. 3 Jan, '89.Dear Sasso,Jean and I returned today after five weeks in England and Tenerife. Bas was at Heathrow to meet us and took us to Bexleyheath. On 4 December we flew to Tenerife and spent an enjoyable two weeks there, returning on the 18th in time for Christmas, our first in England. I phoned Cardston to find out how mayor Larry Fisk's trial went. I was told he had been suspended from his job as corrections officer and was stepping down as mayor, pending the outcome of his trial for sexually assaulting a native youth in his charge. I was ready to defend him should it turn out that he was wrongfully charged. Unfortunately, he was convicted, lost his job with the Solicitor General's department and had to step down as mayor. I regret to say there was much malicious licking of lips by fellow members of council.
We left Heathrow on 2 January but had to turn back thirty minutes after take-off due to electrical malfunction. Most of the passengers who had the Lockerby disaster fresh in their minds, it having occurred only twelve days earlier, must have thought that a similar disaster was about to overtake them. Our turn around was almost exactly over Lockerby. Back in London, we were taken to one of the better hotels there and next morning we took off in perfect safety.
After Tenerife, one of the highlights of our stay in England was our two days in Oxford where I took some fine videos of my favourite college, Magdalen, and an ancient pub called the Trout Inn just out of Oxford on the way to Woodstock. Bas very obligingly drove us there and back even though he had no personal interest in Oxford.On 11 May last year Jean and I flew to Texas to attend the blessing of Russ's third child, Erika, born on 7 March. Russ and Renee are in student housing in College Station where at Texas A&M Russ is working on his Ph. D which he hopes to finish in August. On his off days Russ drove us to the Johnson Space Centre in Houston where we saw the huge space shuttle and many other wonders of space technology.
Letter #47: Retirement (1984 on) 266 2 St West, Cardston. 3 Jan, '90.Dear Sasso,A week after I wrote to you I found myself, as deputy mayor, chairing a council meeting in the absence of Larry Fisk who had stepped down after being convicted of criminal assault. After Stan Johnson was elected by us as acting mayor I vacated the chair and sat with my fellow councillors.
Our Poinciana land sold at last and that helped with the cost of renovations. In any case it was a relief to get out from under a financial commitment so far away in Florida. The fear of its being a scam has also been laid to rest.
On January 17 my mum was admitted to St Michael’s, Lethbridge, with a broken hip. After the operation she came to Cardston Hospital, and later to the Auxiliary where Jean is in charge.On October 11 a tumour was removed from my mum’s breast and barely three weeks later another was discovered, but it was decided not to operate. At 87, and in no pain, surgery was deemed unnecessary.
In September last year, between council meetings, Jean and I went on a cruise to Alaska. Though I had been at sea in the navy I had no idea what a cruise was like. We booked with Holland America Cruises on the Noordam, and it was a most enjoyable experience. We boarded the ship at Vancouver, at the site of Expo '86, and sailed through the inner passage to Ketchican, Juneau (the capital) and back to Vancouver, the cruise lasting a week. We spent our 41st anniversary at sea and had the usual recognition at dinner with a cake, candles and a sparklet. We made friends with a group of women from Vancouver who called themselves The Cruising Four. They obviously wanted to dance so it wasn't long before they joined our table in the Piet Hynd lounge.
After twenty-one years at the hospital Jean retired at the end of 1989, just three days ago. The staff got together a month before and arranged a party about which I was bound to secrecy. The staff spared nothing to show their love and appreciation for the years Jean had been their ‘boss’. Past members of the staff who had faded out of the picture came back to revive old memories and join in the fun, and Jean was deservedly happy. My mum was there too, a little confused, but aware enough of the reason for the occasion.
Letter #48: Retirement (1984 on) 266 2 St West, Cardston. 3 Jan, '91.Dear Sasso,At a church dance on 27 December I found myself feeling rather weak and unable to dance more than once before needing to sit out for the following number. I don't remember having felt like this before and we left before the dance ended. Earlier in the day a blizzard had dumped a lot of snow and I had been out shovelling when I felt a desperate need to rest a while. On the 29th Jean and I walked down to the hospital where the doctor on duty in Emergency, gave me an E.C.G. He wasn't happy with the trace and called the internist to take a look at it. When he saw it he had me admitted right away, and I was started on an I.V to thin down my blood. As it is the holiday period, I have to wait till the cardiologist at Foothills Hospital in Calgary is able to see me and, if necessary, order an angiogram. I persuaded the doctor to let me attend the New Year's dance at the Legion in Lethbridge. I danced very little, and had difficulty afterwards walking back to our room at the El Rancho.
We were lucky that nothing happened while on our world tour from September to November, without any health insurance. We spent a month in England, during which we spent a week in the Algarve in Portugal. We then flew to Geneva, where we picked up our rental car and drove to Lausanne, Winterthur, Salzburg, and Vienna. We flew to New Delhi and spent a week with the Panwars in Dehra Dun; then on to Hong Kong, and a month with Stef and Pauline in W.A. On our way home we spent three days in Nandi and got home at the end of November. On 2 December Stasia phoned to give us the tragic news that Pauline had been killed in a car accident, a male youth evidently running a stop sign as he ploughed into Pauline's car around ten at night. This happened just four days after we said goodbye to them at Perth airport.
Russ and Renee's fourth child, Natalie Ruth, was born in Winnipeg on 24 August, a smiley little one, the youngest of our 18 grandchildren. Russ is an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, and he likes it there.
Jean and I did our second cruise with Holland America in March, this time to the Caribbean. We were at a table for six and made friends with David and Carol Carver from Centralia, Washington. Jean writes to Carol and we hope to visit them soon and consolidate our friendship. It was the Noordam again, and it was nice having the same Philippino dance band that played in the Piet Hynd Lounge on our Alaska cruise. We became friends with our Philippino wine waitress, Victoria, on the earlier cruise, and it was nice seeing her again, and especially being remembered by name. We sailed out of Fort Lauderdale and called at San Juan, Puerto Rico, Tortola, St. Thomas, and Nassau. The same comedian, Don Sherman, who had us in splits on our Alaska cruise, entertained us again.
Letter #49: Retirement (1984 on) 266 2 St West, Cardston. 3 Jan, '92.Dear Sasso,Last year started with uncertainties but ended well. First there was the apprehension of something wrong with my heart. No pains, no shortness of breath, just a sense of the finger of heredity pointing menacingly towards me; my father had died of heart before turning 59, my brother likewise before his 48th, and my younger sister also of heart just after turning 55. I had turned 67, had lived longer than anyone in my father's family, and felt fine but for a dull pain in my jaw while exercising. An angiogram at the Foothills Hospital revealed, astonishingly, five blockages, enough to send me to the top of the waiting list for bypass surgery. I couldn't believe I was in any danger. I had been taking Vitamin E supplements for over two years, I was exercising every morning, and hadn't smoked for 26 years. I was also careful about my diet and had annual tests for cholesterol (all normal, despite my weakness for chocolates).
On 4 February last year I underwent quintuple bypass surgery, and I did well enough for the cardiologist a month later to take me off all medication except Entrophen (coated aspirin). Stress tests are fine, and my sensible diet and regular exercise make me feel on top of the world.
While in the Cardston Hospital awaiting surgery I was visited by home-teachers and the bishop who offered to administer to me. I was most grateful to these brethren for their concern, but declined their offer. By this time I had undergone a loss of religious belief so complete that a priesthood blessing looked like a dreadful superstition towards which I could never again subscribe, frightened though I might become as my surgery drew near. When the day came I was concerned as anyone would be, but never wavered. I was able to place my faith instead in those men and women of the team of experts that would hold my life in their hands till I was in the clear and could manage on my own. I will never forget my friends in the church for their concern over me in those days. I only wish I could have accepted their offer of a blessing, if only to show a sharing of beliefs with them. But for some two years I've had doubts about the existence of God. For 25 years I had willed myself to suspend such doubts so that my family might enjoy the benefits of membership in a church that focused on family life, had unimpeachable values and gave direction and purpose to personal life. I'll always see the church as an instrument for good in people's lives, and continue to admire its fine missionary work and its inspirational leadership. I'm proud of the church’s prominence in the world, and its reputation. Nearer home are those fine people in this town who think nothing of helping someone build his house or barn without thought of recompense. Religious beliefs aside, I continue to see myself as part of this fine community.
We had a family reunion in July at Sue's place in Red Deer. Stef and Stasia were there, but Nigel couldn't come. Later in the year Jean and I visited my cousins Aileen and Peter in Brampton, Ont., and then went on two cruises, the first of ten days in October to eastern Canada, sailing out of New York on the Rotterdam, the second of two weeks in December sailing out of Fort Lauderdale to Caracas and Venezuela. This is probably the best cruise we've had, again on the Noordam, with cabins on promenade deck with near-lavish appointments.
My mother passed away peacefully on 12 August in the Cardston Hospital, just two months short of her eighty-ninth birthday. I am the last of my immediate family, and I hope I'll enjoy a life as long as my mother's. All my family have been cremated, and it is my wish and Jean's too that we have the same when our time comes.
Letter #50: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth Rd, Mesa. 3 Jan, '93. Dear Sasso,As you can see, we are in Mesa, Arizona, where we have been since 24 November. We bought what is called a ‘park model’, 12 ft wide and 33 ft long with an 18-ft awning down one side for a carport. Our awning forms a roof for an 8X12 shed and an ‘Arizona room’, 12X18, which adjoins the shed and provides additional living space. The main unit has the dining room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, all furnished to our taste. Living in it is the nearest thing to being at home, but for the space. The landscaping is desert style with cactus, bougainvillea and palms. We pay an annual rental for the lot and the park’s facilities such as tennis courts, swimming pool, jacuzzis, dance hall, library, cable T.V, and craft centres. This year we paid $1800. Although we don't use all the facilities, we enjoy ourselves with the few we like. Jean is in the tennis club which is a very enthusiastic, friendly group. Next year the club will have two more courts in addition to the two it already has. I enjoy myself doing what I ordinarily do – read, walk, and dance at the many places where the best of bands play to large audiences. Mesa (population 480,000) is a modern, clean city and in the winter is home to ‘snow birds’ from the U.S and Canada with the single desire to get away from the cold of our homes up north.We returned from our fourth cruise on 11 December, this time with Royal Caribbean to the Mexican Riviera (Mazatlan and Porta Vallarta) and took with us Louise Hillyer, a dear friend of Jean's from their nursing days. She was widowed in February, '90, when her husband Fred died of cancer.
In September Jean signed up, with Louise, for ten days in England. I didn't care for this whirlwind venture, so I stayed home.
Pat, now three and a half years widowed again, has been living in Diamond Willow Lodge in Magrath. She has her eye on a resident, De Var Coleman, who appears not to be much interested in her, despite her not too subtle overtures towards him. She's nearly eighty-three, but it seems the old fires are not out and it’s sad because she’s attractive and intelligent and would enjoy the company of a suitable man. She barely remembers Richard, failing to notice that his picture is no longer in her room.
Letter #51: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth Rd, Mesa, 3 Jan, '94.Dear Sasso, Soon after we came home in April, we thought it time that Pat be moved to the Cardston Auxiliary Hospital, and that's where she is now. She has settled in well, although she could be missing De Var, but her memory seems to be failing and it may be that soon she will forget him when a new attraction appears. During the year, as it happens, a younger man who gets about in a wheel chair since his stroke a while back, talks to Pat, both being former residents of Diamond Willow Lodge. Starved as Pat must be of male attention, she is likely to be swept off her feet by this young fellow should she think he’s taking an interest in her -- not that there’s anything wrong with that. It could sweeten her life if their feelings were mutual. Jean and I visit her daily, I at her evening meal where she needs her food cut for her or her jello mashed to save her choking on it, as happened once when, fortunately, Jean was there and saved her with a Heimlich manoeuvre.Jean had flights booked for New Zealand to visit Gillian Evans (from our Guildford days) who was dying of cancer. Just before Jean was due to leave, Ruth phoned to say that her mother had died. I suggested that Jean switch her plans and ask Una if she'd like her to spend a month with her. Una was very happy to have Jean spend a holiday there in September.
Letter #52: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth… Mesa. 3 Jan, '95. Dear Sasso, Jean and I have just returned after six weeks with Stef and his new family in W.A. We arrived on 19 November and were met at Perth airport on a sunny day by our Brayley grandchildren. We had a nice time with Stef’s new family, and with Nigel and Stasia (Possum) and Debbie, Nigel's wife.
You will probably recall my telling you that when we were planning to come to Canada, Virginia stayed behind in Melbourne with Jean's brother Peter Sutcliffe and his wife Elly till she had her baby, and that after giving it up for adoption in late November she would join us in Cardston in February, '69. Every anniversary since that occasion, Virginia has lit a candle for her little one. Early in November, '93, Stef sent us a cassette tape in which he told us that Virginia's baby, now twenty-six, and going by the name of Rebecca Waite, after scouring through all kinds of records in every Australian State, rang Stef's number in W.A. Carol answered the call, but being unaware of the situation said she would tell Stef and have him get back to Rebecca. Stef knew straight away it was Virginia's child and told Rebecca he would get in touch with us and have us tell Virginia in Vancouver. As soon as we got the news we phoned Virginia who was speechless with joy. It seems that Rebecca's existence was no secret to Jason and Skye, nor to her husband Gary Campbell. Our kids were thrilled when we told them, and we sent off a letter to Rebecca. Jean and Rebecca exchanged letters, as also did Carol, and Jean sent gifts from here, each time expressing the hope of getting together soon. That in fact happened on 22 November, three days after our arrival in Perth. Rebecca stayed with us at Stef's home in Kalamunda, and met her cousins Nigel and Stasia. The highlight of her stay was her 26th birthday party at a Perth restaurant on 29 November, just two days before she flew home to Melbourne. Virginia phoned her and they talked a long while. I took countless photos and video pictures of Rebecca for Virginia to see
Letter #53: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth. … 20 Jan,'96.Dear Sasso,On 30 November Jean and I went on another cruise, this time for ten days on one of Holland America's largest ships, the Ryndam, sailing out of Fort Lauderdale and calling at St Lucia, Barbados, Dominica, Tortola, Nassau. We had a great time, making friends with an elderly couple from Florida, Irwin and Hazel Phillips, who joined us at dances. We flew to Bloomington, Indiana, for Christmas with Russ and his family. Though it was freezing cold, we enjoyed ourselves. Russ drove us to Evansville to visit a friend of the Sutcliffes, who was with the U.S army stationed in Shillong when Jean was about fifteen (he was around 22). She knew him as ‘Red’ Young, a nickname he had all but forgotten over the fifty-two years since he was in India. It was a lovely experience for Jean, made possible by Russ's skilful enquiries and his determination to do something that would please his mum. We enjoyed being shown around Bloomington and especially Russ's office at the university, with its sign ‘Dr Brayley’. He must be the first Brayley with such credentials, let alone being a university professor.
I come from a line of craftsmen and farm labourers in Devon, England, or, as I jokingly like to put it, ‘a long line of paupers’. There is a line of Wedlake Brayleys whose names appear as writers, and in one instance a Lord Desmond Brayley, a former minister of war in the British cabinet. My genealogical researches, however, come up with nothing as grand as this. I remember my brother Nigel saying that when he was in England in '61, he and his girlfriend Lyn Taylor, called on Desmond Brayley. When they noticed his Rolls Royce in front of his fine home, they parked their van out of sight and walked to the house. They spent an hour with him as he held forth with the braggadocio of a man who has risen to eminence from nothing. A newsclip from a British paper which my sister Flo sent me reported that in '79 Desmond had died of cancer at sixty-six, but not before being charged with embezzling his own glass company.
Len, Una, Chris, and Bas spent a month here. We squeezed them into our park model, and showed them as many of the sights in Mesa as their one month’s stay allowed. They enjoyed the Resort and Una spent her time browsing among the many craft stores around. Towards the end of our stay in Mesa last year, Sue phoned to say that Jean's mum had died in her sleep around midnight on 25 March, eight days after turning 85. By pre-arrangement with Salmon Funeral Home, Pat was cremated, and we set 26 April for a memorial service in Cardston.
It was the kind of service Pat would have liked. Our friend John Webb conducted the service, Pat's step-children, Catherine Miashita from Winnipeg and Ted Law from Glenwood offered prayers, Sue gave a nice talk, Jean thanked the guests for coming, especially the Law family, and I gave the biography, excerpts from which are as follows:‘Pat's life makes for fascinating telling, for she was an unusual person, the product of an extraordinary background in one of the most interesting places on earth -- India. Here began her preoccupation with eastern religions and her practice of Yoga, which claimed her devotion for most of her life.
‘She was jointly raised by her maternal grandmother and her aunt, a well-to-do physician in the women's part of the palace of the Nawab of Rampur called the Zenana, which housed the wives and concubines of the Muslim ruler. Here she was to see at first hand the palace extravagances that have become legendary for their incredible excesses.‘Her aunt, a dedicated theosophist, sowed in Pat the seeds of eastern mysticism which found fertile soil in her niece. It was a surprise, therefore, when at sixty-seven she joined the Mormon Church.
‘Pat's attitudes were largely shaped by her aunt, a saintly person. Pat was generous to a fault, to her the things of this world were but dross.
‘Most of her schooling was as a boarder, where she attained top honours. At seventeen she entered Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow, modelled on American lines. The science courses she had to take for pre-med evidently proved too much for her, for there is no evidence that she received any credit for them during her only year at college. ‘While living in Shillong, she made a home for an assortment of pets: a dog (Sancho Panza), two cats (Bossy and Montmorency Leopold), a goat (Billy the Kid), a duck (Peter Duck), two Muscovy ducks (General and Madame Chiang Kai Shek), a leopard (Bijli, the Indian word for lightning, suggestive of the animal's terrifying speed in action), and a hand-raised chicken (chick chick). This veritable Noah's ark might well have included a snake or two for she herself had no aversion to them.
‘People, noticing her unusual style, were impressed also by her copious vocabulary and command of English which she aired as freely as most women do their finery.‘Pat's twenty-seven years in Australia seemed a time of profound dislocation for her, accustomed for so long to the comforts of life in India. Her move to Australia could well have disrupted her emotional well-being for the rest of her days.
‘A costly funeral of the usual kind went against her grain, for she preferred to take her leave of this life with as little ceremony and expense as possible. In accordance with her wishes her ashes were buried in a family plot in Cardston cemetery, alongside my own mother's ashes.’
And finally: ‘I wish, when she was alive, I had had the thoughtfulness to say to Pat, “Thank you for being my mother-in-law.” “You mean,” she would have said, “your battle-axe!” “Yes,” I would have replied, savouring the playfulness of her remark, “my battle-axe, indeed; my very dear battle-axe.” ’
Tears filled my eyes as I spoke these last words.
Letter # 54: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth.. Mesa, 3 Jan. ’97.Dear Sasso, Last winter we had a number of guests for short periods: John and Maurice Legg for just Christmas Day (John had come from his home in Greece and Maurice from Los Angeles where he was living).
Last May we bought the Crabtree property. Our reason for buying it was that a 12 ft driveway to the south belonged to Crabtree and he was not interested in selling it. Our property had the grave disadvantage of no access to our backyard, other than by this driveway, which we use with Crabtree’s approval -- not at all a satisfactory arrangement should we wish to sell. On our return in April, we were surprised to see the Crabtree place for sale. Here was our chance to get the strip, but it meant buying the house with it, which we promptly did.
We’ve had our moments of anxiety about Stef’s job on Barrow Island. The company was going to lay him off in March, and prospects of new employment were bleak. He and Carol have their expensive property in Mt Helena, and with no way of meeting their mortgage payments they would have had to sell. Moreover, there was the threat of unemployment for Stef. However, he seemed optimistic. As it happened, the catering company re-employed him, and though he took a drop in pay he picked up a sizable severance package. We can now breathe easily.
Stasia is coming to the end of her work visa in Japan, teaching English. Her love of the country comes through in her letters. For some time now she has known that I was in Japan 50 years ago with the Commonwealth Occupation Forces, based in Kure. We had talked about Hiroshima, etc. and she wrote to say that she went to Hiroshima and Kure just for the satisfaction of being where her ‘Pop’ had been. I was so moved when she told me how she stood on a cliff in Kure, and overlooking the Inland Sea, called out, ‘Konnichiwa, Pop’ (Hello, Pop). Did I hear it, she asked in a letter. ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I heard it’. She’s a very self-assured and capable young woman, and enjoys living in Japan. Jean is very much her father's daughter in nature. She has that rare gift for defusing potentially explosive situations, and but for her our different ways could well have created conflicts between us. I have my mother's failing, which is a drawback in situations requiring acquiescence. Like my mum, I seem bent on having the last word in disputes. Which of my traits our children have I do not know, but it is my hope that they have Jean's.
Our children share her love of competition. She enjoys tennis, badminton, cards and, more recently, carrom, a game we grew up playing in India. In this respect she is unlike me, for I don’t care for competition. Reading, writing, listening to radio talk shows, taking long walks, dancing, and immoderate stretches of loafing are my forte. Jean is different. She fills in empty spaces working at crossword puzzles. She likes to gamble and I don’t; but, for all our differences, we are eminently compatible.
Russ is like Jean in competitiveness. He thrives on it, which is why he does well in examinations. He has a good head on his shoulders and is a hard worker. He married later in life than is usual for returned missionaries, and has proved to be a fine husband and father. He has strong feelings for family life and always keeps in touch with his sisters.Virginia is happily married to Gary Campbell, he for the second time and she for the third. Her kids Jason and Skye have reverted to their Cameron name. Gary and Virginia work in surveillance out of Vancouver R.C.M.P. Jason (25) and Skye (24), both single, regard Gary as their father, and relations between them are a source of joy to us. Gary's mother, Vicki, and her husband Gordon Phillips are good friends of ours.
Letter # 55: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth…Mesa. 3 Jan,'98.Dear Sasso,We dearly wish to see Stef again, and hope it will be this year. His marriage to Carol has ended, but it seemed inevitable, Carol wanting out because of another man who happened to be the branch president of the church where she and Stef were members. Ironically, Stef and the man's former wife, Yvonne, are going together. We hope they marry, and if possible in time to be able to come to our 50th anniversary in June. Ever since Dale finished his Ph. D he has had his eye on a professorship at Utah State University. His appointment came through early this year and they have moved to Logan. We enjoy our friends in the park and the dances when we go. Recently we made friends with Guido and Anne Matteotti from Lethbridge and John and Agnes Brook from Washington.
Letter # 56: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth, Mesa. 3 Jan, '99.Dear Sasso,On July 3 Jean and I, as we drove behind Russ and his family, were diverted to a campground nearby on some pretext or other. Jean noticed Gary and Virginia's Jeep with its B.C licence plates. She said to me, ‘This is our reunion!’ Somewhat dazed, I swung into a parking bay. We were no sooner out of the car when coming towards us out of thin air, it seemed, was this swarm of familiar faces: Stef and Nigel and Deb, then Skye and Jason and Virginia, and in moments a bunch of over thirty of our kids and grandchildren. Even Yvonne was there with Stef. It was too much for me. Tears filled my eyes as we hugged one another.
The following evening another surprise: our friends from far and wide joined us, nearly forty of them, Jean very ably introducing every one to every one else. Absent only were Stasia (in Japan), Tyler (on his mission in Utah), Matthew (unable to leave work), and Becky (in Australia).
Letter #57: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth… Mesa. 3 Jan, 2000.Dear Sasso,On Sunday morning, May 23 at 4 am G.M.T Una called to say that Len had passed away four hours earlier. His prostate cancer spread in the last little while, but Una had not expected him to go so soon. We hope sometime she can come and stay with us, either here or in Cardston.In mid June Jean had chest pains and was told it was angina. Her tests at the Regional Hospital in Lethbridge showed nothing serious, and she seems to be fine now. Her left knee is painful and she suffers at tennis, but mostly at dances doing the ‘latins’ with me. In July I sent a copy of my Oak Grove journal to the principal. I heard nothing until mid December when he sent us season’s greetings and told me how much he liked my write up. I had suggested that my 30 pages be abridged before being squeezed into The Oak Grovian. He replied that it would go in 'exactly as it was', and would be given 'pride of place' in the magazine which was about to go to press. I thanked him for his kind remarks and said that I looked forward to getting the magazine.
Our granddaughters Britney and Sage married Clayton Didier and Steve Henderson, Brit on July 4 in beautiful Kananaskis Park, and Sage on August14 in the Reader Rock Garden in Calgary.
We greatly appreciate our health scheme, especially as it compares with that of the Americans. Our out-of-country health insurance is fairly costly, but with Alberta Retired Teachers' Association our premiums don’t increase with age, nor with our medical condition. Few people who go south are so fortunate with their insurance. One of these years, as I keep saying, we'll sell our place and the rental properties in Cardston and do as Khayyam of old has said,
‘Ah, take the cash in hand,Nor heed the music of the distant drum.”
Our kids have grown up with tidbits from Omar Khayyam, and Jean and I can still recite many of his quatrains.
Letter #58: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth.. Mesa. 3 Jan, 2001.Dear Sasso,A year ago today Stasia, who lives in Japan, spent four days with us. She’s always in touch with us and her letters are a treat. On May 28 she phoned to say she was engaged to Kazayuki Ise, an only child, working for a computer company in Kobe. Two months later she told us that she and Kaz had married in a civil ceremony and were planning to solemnise their vows during a week in Perth early next year. Neither Kaz nor his parents speak English. We are happy she married the man of her choice, and we take our hats off to her as she prepares to make a life for herself in a country which most people would find too strange for comfort. We would love to have gone to Perth to be with her had it been at all possible.
A number of things were delayed this season: we didn’t leave for Mesa till 15 November. Because of Jean’s knee surgery on 3 October we had to stay home for six weeks after. The day after our return to Cardston on March 29, Pam phoned to say that Michael was dying and that Jean should come within a week or it would be too late. She was on the point of giving up trying, believing it was impossible to get to Perth in time, but I insisted she do her best or she’d never forgive herself. With the help of a few people, especially the passport authorities in Calgary, Virginia’s travel agent in Vancouver, and her husband Gary who turned over his air-miles to Jean, we had her on a flight out of Lethbridge on April 1. Virginia joined her in Vancouver the next day, and after an overnight stop in Sydney they were met in Perth by Stef and Yvonne who took them to Michael and his wife Michelle’s home. Ordinarily undemonstrative, Michael was visibly moved. He tired easily, so they visited for only a half-hour each day. Pam was there too. Later, Jean and Virginia flew to Sydney and spent a few days with Pat and Tony Hardiman at their place in Exeter.
Michael died on 10 May, and Michelle was broken. Our family sent her the money to come out to us. We took her to Sue’s in Logan and to Evelyn’s in Bellevue, Washington. Russ and his family came from Bloomington, Indiana, to see Michelle while she was with us.During the summer Jean planted her garden, and played a little tennis. She made a large rectangular flower bed in the back. Bordered with red landscape ties, it had a gorgeous array of flowers in the middle of which stood a blue gazing ball in a white iron stand. We enjoyed the sight of this garden until a hailstorm smashed the ball and killed the flowers at their colourful best.
Letter #59: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth... Mesa. 3 Jan, 2002.Dear Sasso, My Oak Grove piece appeared in The Oak Grovian of 1999 with forewords by the editor, and Mr Rajiv Kishore, the principal. He sent me also a copy of The Oak Grovian of 2000, which had an interesting account by Charles Probett. In it were a few experiences that I had described in mine. Rajiv gave me Charles’s address in Boca Raton, Florida, and soon we were exchanging letters, photos, and e-mails, besides chatting on the phone. Through Rajiv we got in touch with a Mrs Joy Cameron, now in her ninetieth year, who was at Oak Grove from 1918 to 1928, long before Charles and I were there. I’d like to visit her in South Yorkshire while I’m in England this fall. She has written some 270 pages of her journal and has promised to send me her Oak Grove pages.
I’ll be getting in touch with the new principal soon, as I would like to visit the school one last time this fall. On my way back I’ll stop over in England and stay with my cousins Maureen Pepper and Coral Sowa and, if possible, Una. Jean prefers that I go alone, since it’s for personal reasons that I’m going. I’ve not met Coral before, and this seems as good a time as any to meet her and her husband Richard. Maureen I’ve not seen in over 25 years, and I’ve never met her three children.
As Russ and his family were moving to Virginia, we visited them for a week in Bloomington, Indiana. Russ was taken on at George Mason University at Manassas, Virginia, as full professor with tenure, and left Bloomington on July 20. On U.S Thanksgiving Day (23 November) we were stunned by the news of the highway accident of Renee’s parents on their way home from Edmonton. Ruth lost her life and Warren had severe injuries to his arm and leg. It appears that a pickup ran head-on into them.
Letter # 60: Retirement (1948 on) 1101 Ellsworth.. Mesa. Jan, 2003.Dear Sasso,This Christmas was special because we had our friends from England with us for 18 days from 22 December. We had also Virginia and Gary who came 13 December and are still here, renting a space in the pet section because of their dog Sam. Stasia and Kaz came from Japan and spent Christmas with us, leaving on 26 December. We had ten people for Christmas dinner. Full marks to Jeannie for her umpteenth fantastic meal, but for this one especially. New Year’s eve was a huge success as our party of fourteen brought in the occasion at a dance in Valle del Oro.
Russ treated Jean and me to an 11-day holiday at their place in Manassas, Va. We had a happy time there and I spent a few hours in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Russ took us round to places of interest made famous by the Civil War.
I enjoyed my five weeks in England. I had planned to spend a week at Oak Grove and four in England, but trouble between India and Pakistan forced me to change my plans. I divided my stay in England between my cousins Coral Sowa in Surrey, and Maureen Pepper in Devon, leaving me a few days with Una in Bexleyheath. I enjoyed their hospitality and came home with treasured memories. The highlight of my stay was my stay in Leiston, Suffolk, where I shared a room with Bas in Ogilvie Homes. I visited Summerhill School, founded in 1921 by its world famous headmaster A.S.Neill. His daughter, Zoe Readhead, is the principal, her father having died in 1973. I saw the school in action during my last few hours in Leiston. Luckily, I ran into one of the teachers with whom I sat during breakfast, a self-help affair with none of the formalities of a regular boarding school with its sharp distinctions between staff and kids. Later, I sat in on his English class but not without first having it cleared with his class of two 14 year-old girls, one Chinese the other German. The lesson was a very relaxed affair and I came away with the impression that the A.S.Neill legacy is alive and well there. The kids seem to be in charge of their own lives, and have a sense of their own worth as members of a democracy. I wish I had been able to attend their weekly General Meeting, which A.S Neill claimed was of more value than a week’s curriculum of school subjects. At Summerhill, children run their own school.
Brit and Sage had girls born to them last year about two months apart. Brit’s baby Mazzy was born with Prader Willi Syndrome (P.W.S). There are problems with P.W.S births, but we believe that with the early detection, the wonderful care of her parents, and the possibility of growth hormone treatment, Mazzy will do very well. Sage and Steve’s Tate is a bonny baby and is also growing up surrounded with love.A dear friend of ours, Surendra Panwar, died at his home in Dehra Dun at the age of eighty-two. I was to have stayed with the Panwars in September, but that, along with my trip to India had to be cancelled.
Jean had her knee surgery on May 13 last year and the operation went well as did her recovery after. Now, some nine months later, she is dancing and playing tennis.
Letter #61: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth…Mesa. 8 Jan. 2004.Dear Sasso, The reason we left so late was that Jean, after a bad bout of asthma, developed a serious arrythmia, later diagnosed as ventricular tachycardia, a dangerous condition made more difficult to treat because the proven medications are for those not afflicted with asthma. It seemed that for the two weeks that she was under close observation in the Lethbridge Regional Hospital she was doing quite well, despite her very irregular heart beat. She was flown to Calgary Foothills Hospital for an angiogram which showed her arteries were clear. It was decided that the best treatment was no heart medications as such, only inhalants to prevent the onset of asthma. Jean is doing pretty well. She takes magnesium, and Co Enzyme Q 10 supplements, which are said to be good for strengthening heart muscle.
In early October, Stef and Yvonne came to us in Cardston during their tightly scheduled visits to Tokyo (where Stasia and Kaz live), Paris for a brief fling with Renault cars for Stef, then London, and on to Manassas, VA (where Russ and his family are); then Logan (where Sue and Dale live, then to Evelyn and Lorne’s in Bellevue, and finally Las Vegas before flying home to Perth.
The first of our Canadian great grand children to arrive was Mazzy Didier (Britty and Clayton’s), followed by Tate Henderson (Sage and Steve’s), Hannah Avery (Kerbi and Trevor’s), Felix (Skye and Pierre’s), and Mason ZoBell (with Brayley as his second name) born to Tyler and Becky. At present all three of Sue’s girls are expecting their second babies, the first due in early May.
Towards the end of December Gin and Gary bought a house in West Lethbridge. In March they will return to our place in Cardston where they’ve been with us for the past two years, to make final arrangements and take all their belongings stored in our place to their new home.
Jordan returned from his mission in North Carolina and is upgrading his school work to study nursing in Logan. What a good choice of vocation for him, for he’s a kind and caring young fellow.
Doug Brayley is nearing the end of his mission in Denmark and is being released early to enable him to spend a semester at a university of his choice, all expenses paid by his Wells Scholarship. He has chosen the University of Western Australia and I cannot describe how happy that makes me, as it’s my old university, and Jean’s too, some 56 years ago. It’s nice to have another Brayley there, this time one of such great distinction.Pam who has smoked all her adult life has cancer. She’s on chemo and appears to be doing well. Should her condition become grave, we’ll fly to Queensland to be with her. We’ll then call on Pat and Tony Hardiman in Canberra, and Stef and Yvonne in W.A. A month ago I turned 80, and if you were around, Sasso, you’d be 103 – still spreading rainbows wherever you went.
Letter #62: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth..Mesa 2 Jan, 2005Dear Sasso,About a month ago I began thinking seriously about making one last visit to Oak Grove. To that end, I booked with British Air, so I’ll be gone for two weeks from February 28. Allowing for travel time and a stop-over in Delhi, I’ll have a full week at the school. That should allow me to better absorb the profound changes that have resulted from the Indianization of the school that I somehow missed when I was there in 1984.I bought a lap top computer in February and made good use of the internet throughout the year, almost entirely with e-mails. I’m much better at it than I have ever been, with the result that we’ve been able to keep in touch with family and friends.Kerbi, Britney and Sage had their second babies between May and August last year and named them Emma, Piper and Sloan respectively -- all of them lovely little ones. We went to dances in Lethbridge on Fridays, but only when it was a band we liked. Unfortunately, John and Doris Poole were not in the best of health and sometimes kept away. We stayed the night after the dances at Gin and Gary’s place in Lethbridge and were made most comfortable.
Jean played little or no tennis in Cardston during the summer but has been playing quite a bit since we got here in late October. Her health has improved, but she tires easily. We were particularly saddened by the passing of our friend Guido Matteotti in February last year. We’ve drawn Anne closer to ourselves since she has been widowed.I’ve done a lot of reading, mostly re-reading books that I’ve specially liked before. I correspond by e-mail with Hazel Craig, author of ‘Under the Old School Topee’, a well written account of European schools in India during the time of the Raj. I sent her a copy of my journal whose India portion could prove useful to her in another book she is writing.
Our children and their families are doing fine. Doug returned from his mission in Denmark and had five months at the University of WA. Austin left for his mission to Paraguay in July and sends interesting reports of his work there. Nigel spent five days with us in December, and we enjoyed his stay with us. Stasia is doing well in Japan and is a regular e-mail correspondent of ours. Jason spent a short time with Gin and Gary and we were able to be with him there. We visited Sue and her family in Logan and saw our g-grandson Mason (‘Mr Pants’) when he came over with his mother Rebecca from Olympia, Wa. Jordan came to us in Cardston with his girlfriend, Bessie. They are now engaged to be married in mid February and Jean will be going to Logan for their wedding. While there she’ll be with Sue’s children and grandkids. Evelyn and Lorne’s son Matthew joined the US navy and is training with turbines. Jenny won’t be coming to us this winter, nor will Virginia, as they want to stay home this winter for a change. This is our thirteenth winter in Mesa, and the routine round of 5 ½ months here and 6 ½ in Cardston is one we like very much. In a couple of years we plan to sell out in Cardston and move to Lethbridge. Our granddaughter Sage Henderson wants to buy our place in Cardston. She and her husband Steve want to raise their children in an LDS environment rather than in Calgary where they are presently renting a house. We like the idea of keeping our Cardston home in the family and hope things will work out that way. We have also two rental places that we want to sell so that we can pay cash for a home in Lethbridge. Aside from Virginia and Gary, we have friends in Lethbridge and we would like to be near them. As it is, we see them only at the Friday dances, and then only when we like the band.
You and I are fast approaching the 62nd anniversary of a promise I made to keep in touch. I feel mighty proud of myself for having kept the pledge I made that night in early December, 1943.
I’m still working on my ‘Growing up in India’. Its foundations have already been laid in the pages of my journal. I hope to finish it by the end of 2006.
Letter # 63: Retirement (1984 on) 1101 Ellsworth…Mesa. 20 Jan 2006Dear Sasso,We’re in the middle of our fourteenth winter in Mesa, and enjoying life in this piece of paradise. What do we do here, aside from enjoying the air we breathe? Jean plays tennis and enjoys going with her friend Carol Fischer, two houses down, to Bingo, on average twice a week. Carol goes almost daily and wins often enough to keep her encouraged. Now and then we have card evenings with Carol and Tom, and more often with John and Marguerite Webb our next-door neighbours. We’ve been to a few dances with the Webbs and a week ago had Anne Matteotti join us. I, of course, walk every morning, enjoying lungfuls of sweet desert air as I go, and discoursing silently with myself for the hour it takes me to do the four miles. I’m in terrific health, and owe it almost entirely to the things I do, including dancing and frequent rides on my treasured cycle. I enjoy reading, my only disappointment with myself is that I’m still not into a solid regimen of writing. I peck at it in a desultory way, and I know damn well that it’s not what turns out books. But I’m determined and know that I’ll get it done, the way it was with my journal. I had the good fortune to spend a week in March at my old school. What an experience that was! I wrote an article about it and sent it to Oak Grove and to others who I thought would be interested, including the editor of the Acorn , a newsletter put out by the school alumni in the UK. Here are excerpts from my article:
“The staff and kids can’t wait to hear you tell them about the old days. What struck me from the start was the extraordinary courtesy of everyone, so much so that I found it hard to resist fancying myself a fellow of no mean importance. In Junior School I signed autographs for its clamouring little girls, until I was spirited away by my escort, Mr Anupam Singh. The senior boys, more reserved, were nevertheless eager to hear about the Oak Grove of my day. I must have seemed an odd relic from the past -- sixty-five years having gone by since I was there as a boy.
“Their food was entirely vegetarian, and they ate western style. Staff and boys ate the same food. In my day, staff food was much better than ours, though, occasionally, the prefects had delicious left-overs from the staff table.
“The old toilets that were flushed automatically had been replaced by Indian-style latrines, with mugs nearby for washing after.
“I noticed a few senior boys standing reverently before a brightly-coloured statue of Lord Siva in a secluded spot near the visitors’ lodge where I stayed. They touched the ground at their feet, then their lips, and paused as if in prayer before quietly moving off. It took my breath away to see such public gestures of piety. The truth is that I was witnessing at first hand the new ethos of Oak Grove.
“Judging from their magazine articles, the kids are pretty serious about their school and everything it stands for – so different from the devil-may-care attitude of my time.“They are always in uniform, tidily dressed and shoes polished – anything less would in their eyes be disrespectful.
“Hearing the staff speak to one another at meals, I took it that the kids too spoke Hindi amongst themselves. Their speech, isolated from British English for so many years has led to a kind of language inbreeding, with the result that it is becoming less and less easy for outsiders to understand them.
“I gave an English lesson to a senior class and was very impressed with their attentiveness and level of attainment.
“One last comment: unlike church-run schools the world over, Oak Grove gave us a secular environment – one blessedly free from religious indoctrination. Today, there is the impression one gets of quite sincere religiosity in the school. What is one to make of it? One encouraging view is that Hinduism is grounded in the principle of nonviolence – ahimsa. Can there be any doubt of the value of such an orientation for growing children? There is good reason, therefore, to be comfortable with at least this aspect of their religious beliefs.”
During the year, I got in touch with my Atkinson cousins living in Perth: Kay Hodgkinson, Mauveen Parsons, Earl Atkinson, and Marlene Saggers and told them we’d be in Mt Helena in May with our son Stef and his wife Yvonne. What a lovely afternoon we had with them and their spouses and a few of their grandchildren who were able to be there.
Earlier in the year, I got in touch with an old classmate of mine, Ralph Scott, and, through him, his sister, Audrey Blankenhagen, both of them living in England. Audrey, five years Ralph’s junior was also at Oak Grove. She has published a book called ‘The Curse of Kali’ which I found interesting, mainly because she was at Oak Grove. She is sending me her memories of Girls’ school, which I’ll find helpful as I try to round out the story of my school days in a book I’d like to call ‘Growing up in India’.
Our granddaughter Sage and her husband Steve who were so keen to buy our place in Cardston have had to change their minds. Steve is doing well with a furniture company in Calgary, and has serious doubts that he’ll find as good employment in Lethbridge. That is a very real concern of theirs, and we appreciate the reason for changing their minds. In July we sold our rental property at #258 to Gerry and Dianne Tolman who are in the business of buying cheaper properties in need of upgrading, fixing them up, and selling them for profit. Work on it came to a halt after some two months because of Gerry’s need for dialysis, without which he will not live.
Our grandson Doug Brayley was married to Cassandra (‘Cassy’) Foutz on 28 December, just a few weeks ago. Cassy’s parents live in Tucson, Arizona, so the wedding took place in Mesa. It was a rather lavish but lovely affair. Erika and Natalie made beautiful bridesmaids in their dark red gowns. The couple are back at Indiana University, where Cassie is finishing a degree in elementary education, and Doug his BA. He’s been accepted into Harvard Law School, a three-year stretch, but then he’ll have it made when he’s finished. That’s all for now, my dear Sasso. Maurice.
