Open Writing

Our stay in Britain was about to end. In mid-October 1938 we said goodbye to our friends, the Hoogstratens in West Cowes, in the Isle of White, not realizing that one day we would meet again. We crossed the Solent by ferry before boarding the P & O’s SS Strathnaver in Southampton for our return voyage to India. Our six months in Britain turned out to be little more than an extended holiday. A very different Britain would await us in the future.

My parents had mixed feelings about returning to India. They would be delighted to see my grandparents and their friends but the thought of Dad once again working under certain despised individuals, was another matter. Dad, as always, accepted his fate knowing that his ability would be respected by those he respected. Gloria and I were delighted at the prospect of seeing our home town again.

I remember nothing of our voyage itself. I do remember our arrival in Bombay, it was a hot and sticky pre-monsoonal day. I had severe colic from eating too many green apples and Mum, as usual, was very ill with Mal de Mer. I also remember our train travelling through raging fires from the docks to the city of Bombay.

The only recollection of the train trip across India was arriving at Kharagpur’s outskirts with both Gloria and me braving the cinders thrown up by the coal-burning steam engine ahead when we hung our heads out of the carriage window with our eyes half-closed trying to outdo each other to be the first to see the signs of our town.

Despite the extreme difference in weather conditions between Britain and India, we seemed to take the oppressive heat and humidity in our stride. The three-week voyage from chilly grey Britain to that of the Tropic of Cancer was gradual, not like air travel nowadays when the dramatic transition can be less than a day.

For the first few months we were allotted temporary accommodation until we moved into a newly built house in a new suburb called, The West End. This too was unsatisfactory to my parents, as a few months later we moved into the downstairs section of a large two-story brick house across the road, very different to the Mock-Tudor duplexes we had lived in before travelling to Britain. Two single men shared the upstairs section.

As The Bengal Nagpur Railway High School was once more the only option available, both Gloria and I were enrolled there.

A few days after I started school, my right knee accidentally jammed between the front brake of my bicycle and my school case tipping me onto my face on the macadam road. My front left incisor snapped in half. The tooth was not properly dealt with until I was over eighteen. Like my mother, there is not a single smiling photograph taken of me during my next seven and a half years in India.

The main method of teaching at the Bengal Nagpur Railway High School was dry and pedantic. Our History and Geography teacher was a stooped small perpetually cowed-looking man, whose wife seemed to produce a new child every year. He would walk into the classroom, take his seat and wait absently for his unruly class to settle down. He would then make us take out our copy of Cassel’s Modern History, for example, and turn to page number so-and-so after which he would instruct us to underline and memorize certain passages for our next lesson. Kings, Queens and Wars measured English history and geography in my school days. This tedious method of teaching was usual in schools like ours. I did not discover inspirational teaching until I attended night school in Canada ten years after leaving the BNR High School. I have a chart showing the dates of reigning English Monarchs and other historic events. It does not show the hundreds and thousands of individual stories about ordinary people caught up in those intrigues, wars and 'important' happenings of the day over which they had no control. That is what I see when I look through my ancestor's lives and try and imagine how they lived.

Once again, I did not relate easily to most of the other students in my first years at High School.

The other boys were preparing for their apprenticeship in the railway workshops. This was not a factor as I was concerned. My parents were determined that my future was not with the railway.

I eventually made a few friends after joining the Boy Scouts. The Church of England Minister, Reverend Maloney, commonly known as Father Mac, was our scoutmaster. He had acquired his nickname from the Catholic Scouts. Our sports master at school, Pat Wright, 'Akela' in scouting terms, was his second in command.

I have very pleasant memories of attending Scout jamborees. Two in particular stand out in my memory.

© Clement 2006