Open Writing

Raymond Arnold Clement, William and Catherine’s fourteenth child, was born in Calcutta on the 12th of March 1878. He was educated in Calcutta and, like his father, graduated as a Marine Engineer from Roorkie College.

In an extract from a letter to me from my father, Rupert, about his father Raymond dated 11th July 1990, he says: - "Grandad was a marine engineer with an extra Chief Engineer's ticket & left his sea faring job to take charge of a ferry service at the riverside port called Saraghat. From there he took charge of another ferry service in Mokameh Ghat which consisted of three large powerful ships that were built in Glasgow, Scotland & were sailed to India. These three ships were used to ferry full trainloads of freight across the river (Ganges River) a distance of about 3 miles back and forward. There was no bridge then, as the river was too wide. There was also a fourth ship, slightly smaller, that was used to ferry passengers across to a waiting train on the opposite bank. Mokameh Ghat was a very important railway junction with the largest covered platform in India. Freight trains (Broad gauge 5'6" wide tread) lined up on one side & all goods were transported to metre gauge wagons on the opposite side. Thousands of tons a year. Jim Corbett, the famous tiger slayer was in charge of this operation & he gives a very apt account of it and of life in Mokameh Ghat in his book 'My India'. Jim Corbett was born in 1878 and worked at Mokameh Ghat from 1898 for 21 years, which would include the time my father, Raymond was there. My father left there following the death of my mother, Beata in 1914."

On July 17th 1903 Raymond Arnold Clement had married a widow, Beata Eva Webb (nee Lindberg), in Saraghat, Assam. Beata, she also had been born in Calcutta. She had first married Arthur Eden Webb in Calcutta in 1894. Arthur Webb died in Calcutta aged thirty-seven on the 7th of June 1902.

This is where matters become confusing, as three weeks before Arthur Webb's death on the 18th of May 1902 my father was born and was christened Rupert Hector Webb. On the 17th of July 1903, fourteen months after Arthur Webb's death (the required time for mourning at that time was twelve months), Raymond Clement formally adopted my father. I knew Raymond until I was aged seventeen and I am positive, judging from his and my father's physical likeness and other characteristics, that Raymond was my father's natural father, not Arthur Webb. My father never admitted this to me, although it is hard not to believe that he too did not share my belief. I said to my father, when we finally spoke of the matter in 1991, that my mother was convinced that Raymond was our true 'Granddad' and had said so to both my sister Gloria and me when we were in our early teens. I also told my father that I had never lost my love and respect for my beloved Grandfather. He was the only true grandparent, adopted or not, that I ever knew.

In 1904 Raymond and Beata then had a son, Arnold Bertram. Sadly he died that same year after an operation for Spina-Bifida. They then had five daughters, Beata Vera (16th March, 1905), Phyllis Marjory (7th January, 1909), Catherine Grace and Evangeline Hope (twins) (5th June, 1911) and Phoebe Enid (17th February, 1914).

Tragically my grandmother Beata Eva died of enteric fever at 9 a.m. on the 30th of August 1914. My father, at twelve years of age, was sent away as a boarder to the Armenian Free School in Calcutta. His young sisters, one a babe in arms, were farmed out to various relatives until their distraught father could make arrangements for them to be returned to him in his isolated riverside home. My wife and I visited my grandmother’s tomb in the year 2000. She is buried in the same grave as her grandmother, Esther Wood.

My Aunt Phyllis, whose memory was at odds with my records, described this traumatic time in a letter to me written in 1996 shortly before she died; she says: - "I do not know how much I can help you regarding family history. My mother died when we were so small, Rupert 11 years old, Bea 7, I was 4, the twins 2 and Enid a babe in arms. My father was very fond of my mother. He left his job; sent us all to different people found another job and collected us again to be together. Rupert and Bea went to school, I to my Uncle John, my father’s brother, Kitty and Eva to Franz Lindberg, my mother’s brother in Bombay, Enid to Aunt Outhwaite and her sister. I think in Dum Dum, near Calcutta. When my father tried to leave me with Uncle John and Aunt Dolly, I cried and refused to stay, so he took me away and tried again. I was given sugared candy made in the shape of animals and while playing he left, so I did not see him again. My Uncle John was very nice; I used to walk over him when he lay down, to massage him. Aunty Dolly had a monkey, I teased it and it caught my leg and bit me (little bites from my knee to my ankle). Uncle John was an electrical engineer. How I got this idea that he put up the first electrical sign in Calcutta, it was for Lipton’s Tea! I do not know, it would be hard to check this. Uncle John died soon after I left and Bea and I were the first ones to be collected and stayed with Dad in his new job in a place called Dowletchandi. The only people there were us with our nurse, and it was only a temporary stay waiting for the river house in Bharisal to be built by the railways, so Dad must have been the first person in charge of the ferry. There were two big paddle wheel ships to pull barges laden with compartments, carriages or anything on rail across the river Meghna, a tributary of the Brahmaputra. The First World War had started; the nurse played the accordion; she had a boy friend fighting and she and Bea would sing war songs like ‘Farewell my bluebell.’ We kept a number of ducks; they would go to a pond in the A.M. and return on the P.M. all on their own.

We lost all track of mother’s side of the family. Franz and family went to Africa, when Enid came to us, now aged 7 years. She wrote to Aunt Anna but there was no reply. All our grandparents died before we were born, I only saw Aunt Edith when she was suffering from asthma very badly on one brief occasion and she died. I saw Aunt Phoebe and Patty her granddaughter -that’s all, no one else. Dad's brother who was an engineer on a ship during the war died when the ship was torpedoed. He was married and lived in Scotland. All I know about his family is that his wife got angry when Rupert wrote to her asking for a kilt I don’t know how old Rupert was at the time."

My aunt Phyllis died not long after posting these letters to me. Her last words on her deathbed to her daughter, Peggy were, "It's been fun". This truly indicates her unique view of her long and eventful life.

© Clement 2006