Open Writing

Taking a Sabbatical implies some sort of holiday, but my Sabbatical from Openwriting has been far from a vacation. Over the summer months I have slaved away over a hot computer putting together a myriad of research on the takeover of Mauritius in 1810 and the island’s first British Governor, Sir Robert Townsend Farquhar Bt.

My husband, who was born in Rose Hill, Mauritius and educated at St. Joseph’s College, Curepipe before coming to England to study music, has spent much of his retirement unravelling his country’s history. As it was an uninhabited island prior to the 17th century, research amounts to a neat parcel of time and basically three different colonisers; the Dutch who abandoned the effort within a few decades, the French who had more success but who, after less than a century, found themselves ousted 200 years ago by the British. Since then the world has moved on and Mauritius gained its independence in 1968. The British Empire is now a memory left to those who remember maps covered with huge swathes of pink.

Research is one thing, a book is quite another. What seemed like a good idea after a couple of gin and tonics whilst sitting under a Filao tree in the tropics, a velvet sky dotted with a million stars blanketing us in the balmy euphoria of possibility, is a different matter in the reality of England. The dice however, had been cast and the six had landed on my square; I was designated wordsmith and it must have been the gins because I said ‘yes’.

There have been times when the weight of commitment has seemed like a sack of coal on my back and there have been other occasions when I was so engrossed that hours flashed past. It has been difficult to keep up with friends and family, the garden has not received the due care it deserved and housework has been cast aside without a backward glance. Both my husband and I have spent further long hours in Cambridge University Library and the British Library, surely two of the best in the world, to clothe the bare bones of the story with detail and bring the skeleton to life.

The Napoleonic era has always held a fascination for me, although previously, either from an angle centred on the rise and fall of a self-made man or from the heroic deeds of Nelson and his fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar during which a dim and distant relative of mine captained the Ajax. Writing this book brought me face to face with the concept of the British playing the long game and just how good they were at it. Mauritius had been in the sights of our empire builders for more than half a century before, by careful strategy, blockade and sheer numbers of troops, Britain captured the island to safeguard her possessions in India and the Far East.

Writing this publication has brought some extraordinary rewards as well as a sense of achievement. The web is wonderful and I have made contact with people all over the world who have generously contributed their own valuable knowledge. Three marvellous women in Australia – Dawn in Perth, Janice in Sydney and Marion in Brisbane - all unstintingly yielded up their research findings and kept me going when I flagged at the half-way stage. While libraries and archives proved the largest source of material, I was also given every assistance by places like Westminster School, the Oriental Club in London and the Mauritius Turf Club.

Sir Robert Townsend Farquhar was the second son of Sir Walter Farquhar, physician-in-ordinary to the Prince Regent. What emerged during the writing of this story was how that old chestnut, ‘it’s not what you know but who you know’ held sway then as now. Without the privilege of being the son and heir, Robert joined the East India Company and was posted to India by the time he was 17 years old. His career from then onwards was down to words in the right ear and being in the right place at the right time.

Last Wednesday ‘The Man and The Island’ finally went off to the printer. Handing it over was akin to birthing a baby and immediately giving it into the care of a Nanny. I came home bereft; a strong case of the empty nest syndrome surfaced. Two days on and relief set in. The notes are filed away, I can see the floor of my study and today I managed a pleasant couple of hours with one of my daughters. There is life after birthing after all.

‘The Man and The Island’ Sir Robert Townsend Farquhar Bt. First British Governor of Mauritius 1810 – 1823, will be launched in Mauritius in early December and go on sale in selected bookshops in England in the New Year. It will also be available direct from the authors. Email: mary.basham@keme.co.uk

Mary Pilfold-Allan October 2010