INTRODUCTION

My daughters, and my grand daughter Lucia, have needled me in to writing as much as I can remember of my life for the benefit of my grand children, and their children,and what follows is just that.

The trouble is that I do not really remember very much, and as I never kept a diary until the death of my wife a lot of what I do remember is trivial and boring. The really important episodes are distinctly hazy in my memory,and some of what I write may well be inaccurate. However I do wish that I knew more about my own father's life, and that he had kept a chronicle as I should have been very interested to read it, and that is my excuse for writing this.

Members of my family, and friends should not be offended if references to them are short and merely statements that they were born or existed. I could write a lot about each one of them, but I am not a writer by nature or ability, and I have therefore decided to write only of what I myself did.

Chapter 1

Early Years

I was born on March 6th 1911 in a town called Palmyra in the Province of Mendoza in the Argentine Republic, the youngest of three surviving children. My father was John David William Holmes, and my mother, Barbara Janet Holmes, nee Harper.

My paternal grandfather was a John Holmes, a civil engineer, engaged on railway construction in Northern Bengal in India when my father was born. He had married a Miss Daly, the daughter of a Major William Daly of the Bengal Cavalry a year before the birth. Major Daly was an Irishman from County Cork, and had retired there when wounds suffered in the Relief of Delhi, brought his army career to a close.

John Holmes' mother was, before she married, a Miss Holder from Kinnersley in the county of Hereford. She had eloped with a French officer, named De Fouquerelle, in exile in England with Napoleon III, and John Holmes was their child. Shortly after his birth De Fouquerelle was killed in a minor skirmish on Napoleon's return to France. When John Holmes was about one year old, his mother met a John Holmes, a widower and a merchant with interests in India, and married him. This John Holmes legally adopted the child, and had him baptised into the Church of England with the name of John Holmes.

My Father was the eldest of 5 children, having 2 sisters; Rachel Mary, and Grace, as well as a half brother Gerald Nixon and a half sister Mona Nixon. His mother had married again on the death of John Holmes, her second husband being named Nixon.

Gerald was killed in the first World War whilst serving with The Hampshire Regiment, and Grace died just before, and Rachel, during the second War. Mona had died many years before when she was seventeen. Grace had never married,and had looked after her parents until they died, but Rachel had married twice, but had no children.

Rachel was our favourite aunt, and was a great character. Her first husband was an Admiral Parker, wealthy and retired, and much older than her, and when he died she married Edward Manville, later Sir Edward. He had a distinguished career in business and politics being M.P. for Coventry for many years. He started life as an electrical engineer, and is reputed to have designed the Buenos Aires Tramway System, and went on to become Chairman of the Daimler Car Company, and The Birmingham Small Arms Company, and a director of many other companies, one being the Roumanian Oil Company, which of course ceased to exist during WW2.

My Mother's family is better documented. Her Father was William Peddie Harper, and her mother Janet McKerrow, both Scottish, and both I believe descended from a long line of Church of Scotland divines. My mother was born in Edinburgh where the family lived. She had 3 brothers, and a sister, our Aunt Mia whom we frequently saw until her death. The older two were twin brothers, Jim and John, one of whom later farmed in Nyasaland, now Malawi, and the other settled in Paraguay where he raised a large family. The third brother, Erskine settled in Canada after WW1, and had one son .

Mia married a Trevor Bright, from an old Worcestershire family, and had 5 daughters, Betty Phillips, Nancy Stone, Joan Astley, Pamela Bright, and Felicity Harris, all of whom, except Pamela, have had children.

On the Holmes side of the family, my older sister Ruth Jaques, born in 1908, was married to Dr. Harold Jaques who died some years ago. She was his second wife as his first wife died after having one son Timothy, and Ruth has three children of her own, Nicola Eeles, Peter Jaques, and Celia Elmhirst, all of whom have children of their own.

My older brother, Dick, born in 1909, was one of the first 90 boys at Stowe in 1923, and went on to Cambridge, where he read Military Subjects, and on graduating joined the Regular Army with a Commission in The Royal Berkshire Regiment. He was killed while leading his Company of the Sherwood Foresters, during the break out from the Anzio beachhead in Italy, in WW2. He never married.

My father was privately educated by a tutor in England at Wallingford in Berkshire where the tutor and his wife lived, but at 15 went out to join his mother in India when his father died. After a month or two it was decided that it was better that he should return to England to continue his education, and he did so. Later his mother decided to get married again to an old friend called Nixon. At the age of 18 Father decided to return to India, and his mother agreed. In India he enrolled at the Government College of Civil and Military Engineering at Roorkee and studied civil engineering. On completion of this course he did a short spell on a survey of north Bengal, and was contemplating applying for a similar position on a survey in China, when he heard that a volunteer mounted regiment was to be formed in India for service in South Africa for the Boer war, and volunteered to enlist in it: he was selected as one of 75 recruits out of over 1000 applicants.

The Regiment served in South Africa for the duration of the Boer war, and father remained with it for the whole time. He always said that this period of his life was the most interesting, and adventurous of his whole life, The Regiment was employed for the most part on reconnaissance and scouting,and troopers were usually off in the veldt in small parties of three or four living off the land for days or weeks at a time. An ideal life for a young man of 22 or so, which he was at the time. It was the last of the Gentlemen's Wars.

When it finally ended, Father, being unwilling at the age of twenty one or so, to return to India to start to look for a job, joined the British South Africa Police, whose job it was to pacify the country, and help it to return to normal life after a long and damaging war. This offered the same kind of adventurous life that he had enjoyed with Lumsden's Horse. He stayed with the Police for about a year, and then decided that he had better begin to think of a serious job that could use his Engineering qualifications.

In due course he applied for a position with the Argentine Railways, at that time owned, and built, by British companies, and he obtained a job as a civil engineer for the construction of the Railway in the Andes, and on the borders of Paraguay. So in due course he arrived in the Argentine. My Aunt Mia's husband, Trevor Bright, was working for a British company, Forestal Land, in the Argentine, and Mia was there with him. My mother, after finishing schooling, went out to stay with her sister, and that is how she met my father. They got married in due course, and started a family. Ruth was born in the Argentine, Dick in England, and I in the Argentine.

The Great War, WW1, started on August 4th 1914, and early in 1915 Father resigned from his job, and returned to England to join the Army, taking the family with him. He was 38 years old, and could easily have remained in the Argentine with a clear conscience, but he was, and remained all his life, intensely patriotic.

This action meant relinquishing a good salary that enabled him to keep his family in considerable comfort, with house servants, nanny etc. and exchanging all this for the meagre pay of a 2nd Lieutenant in The Royal Engineers. As a result the family suffered considerable hardship, and I do not know how my mother could have managed, but for Uncle Ted Manville who helped financially; however she still had to get a job in the Censorship Office, and we children were looked after by a nanny and at Kindergarten. We lived at various addresses in London and Surrey, during the whole war until it ended in 1918. As soon as we were old enough we were sent to boarding schools, Ruth and Dick going at 7 years old, and I at 6 of my own choice. By this time father had been promoted to Major with better pay, and so the family was somewhat better off.

Because I was so young I was sent to a small school at Sunningdale in Surrey, owned, and run by the two Misses Bradnack, whose brother owned the school where Dick was, which was nearby . However after a short time for some reason or other Miss Bradnack's school had to leave their premises, and amalgamated with the brother's so that for some period I was at school there. I should, no doubt have remained there but for the discovery that one of my eyes was blind. It happened as follows; we new boys were to be taught rifle shooting, and were taken to the Gymnasium which was used as a rifle range. When my turn came to be shown how to aim etc, I was made to hold the air rifle off the right shoulder which was my blind side, and being too shy and nervous to say anything, I did as I was told. At that age I thought that everyone had only one good eye. I therefore lay down as instructed, pointed the rifle at what I thought must be the target, and pulled the trigger. There was an immediate howl of pain from a master who was standing to one side, who had been shot in the leg. I came under considerable adverse comment until I was able to explain that having a blind right eye placed me at a considerable disadvantage when required to shoot off the right shoulder , or words to that effect.

Aunt Rachel, who was "in loco parentis" as our parents were in India, had me immediately sent up to her in London, and she took me to the King’s oculist, Sir Arnold Lawson, who put drops in my eye so that I could not see clearly for a week or so, and then when I could see again made me wear a black eyeshade over the good eye in order to encourage the bad one. Absolutely useless of course, and I had to grope my way round school when I returned there, and could take no part in school activities, and my lessons suffered. Miss Bradnack used this disability to persuade my parents to allow her to take me to the school which she was about to open in Canford Cliffs, the experiment of merging with her brother's school not being successful

Miss Bradnack's new establishment was a semi-detached villa near the sea, and had room for very few boarders, but an added advantage from the parents’ point of view was that she was prepared to take us three children for the holidays as well if required, a great advantage, as in those days people working abroad could usually only get home to England every 3 or 4 years.

Thus began my life with these two elderly "Victorian "spinsters. The elder one was very much the boss, and always known as Miss Bradnack, whilst the younger was known as Miss Bea, and appeared to be terrified of her sister. I do not know their ages but to me they seemed ancient, and I suppose they were somewhere in their fifties. They dressed in Victorian fashion, with high neck whalebone stiffened collars, and their skirts were down to the ground. Miss Bradnack was just plain ugly with a squashy shapeless nose,sagging jowls,and bulbous watery eyes behind gold rimmed pince-nez worn on a chain. Miss Bea was a much more sympathetic character,and better looking, but had no say in the running of the school, except that she supervised all the domestic arrangements, and acted as a sort of matron.

I think we all hated Miss Bradnack, she must have been rather an unpleasant creature, and I was the only unfortunate boy who stayed at school permanently, terms and holidays, and was joined by my brother Dick in the holidays, and once or twice by Ruth. As a result Miss Bradnack seemed to think that she had a proprietary interest in me, so that she even resented it when my mother wanted to have us on one of her rather rare visits home. As a matter of course all our letters to the parents were dictated to us by Miss Bradnack, so that we were never able to tell the parents of our miseries. On one occasion towards the end of our stay, when mother returned from India, all three of us were at the Bradnacks, and mother had written ahead that she was returning home and would come and see us immediately she landed, before she started to look for a house to live in for the holidays. We were not told of this, and on the afternoon that mother was due, we were sent out to a cinema, so that we were not there to greet her when she arrived. This was the final straw and proved Miss Bradnack's undoing, as Dick and Ruth came no more, and I stayed only long enough for me to take the Common Entrance exam.

All the foregoing may give the impression that we were cruelly treated, but that was not so, and probably for most of the time I was reasonably happy. Certainly there were a great many children in the same position as us, for a large number of British worked abroad in India, Africa, the Colonies and indeed the whole world. The tour abroad would be for a minimum of three years, and usually five or more, and the only means of returning home was by boat, the journey taking between three and five weeks. There was no question of children being able to join their parents for the holidays as is the custom nowadays.

However my fading memories of the Bradnacks are not happy, and it is significant that the most vivid is of punching Miss Bradnack on her squashy nose when she wrongfully accused me of stealing two and sixpence from her bag.

I must acknowledge that the teaching I got there gave me a head start when I went on to Stowe. Miss Bradnack's own education must have been rudimentary, as in order to coach me for the Common Entrance she had to engage a tutor for me. This good lady would arrive every afternoon by bicycle after we had been for a walk or played a game of rounders, and she taught me all the subjects necessary for the exam so that I passed easily, and was well ahead of my age group when I arrived at Stowe, except in games, of which I knew nothing.

Another early memory of Bradnacks; my first dog, Nigger, was a black retriever that got on to the bus with us one day when we were returning from Bournemouth, and we kept him thereafter. He would sleep on my bed, although he was very large, and would growl ominously if I moved my feet. He was a godsend to Miss Bea at meal times, for, terrified of her sister as she was, she dared not leave anything on her plate, and became expert at flicking unwanted bits from her plate on to her lap whence she would craftily transfer them to Nigger. We loved to watch this with the thrill that she might be caught, but as far as I can remember she never was.

Aunt Rachael and Uncle Ted used to visit us occasionally when they were on short holidays to the Royal Bath Hotel in Bournemouth, and would arrive in the grandest Daimler car driven by Kellow their chauffeur. Uncle Ted always had the very latest Daimler, and Aunt Rachael also had one for shopping. The whole road of rather horrid little semi-detached villas would have their lace curtains drawn aside while the occupants watched with avid interest the arrival of the grand personages, Aunt Rachael beautifully dressed as always, and Uncle Ted in an immaculate suit, a grey Homburg hat, and with a button hole and a large Havana cigar, looking every inch a millionaire. Miss Bradnack, the tyrant ,would hover around bobbing , and smarming. We would then all go off, and eat ourselves to repletion at the Royal Bath.

In spite of all my unhappy memories of the Bradnacks I think that I have a lot to thank it for. Having no mother to run to when hurt or miserable, must have given me a certain mental hardihood, and a sense of independence.

At the end of the war in 1918, father had stayed on in the army, and had been promoted to Lt. Colonel and had been employed as a Royal Engineer on clearing up the battlefield in north France, and we children spent a very happy summer holiday in hutted camp with him, and the troops under his command, and toured all over the Lille, Mons, and Poperinhge area, in an army car mounted on railway wheels, which ran on tracks laid previously, roads being almost non existent, due to the intensive shelling of the war. We saw the areas before they were cleaned up, with wrecked tanks, guns, trenches, and occasional corpses, and collected numerous small souvenirs, and generally had a wonderful time

When this work was completed he was posted to India on the North West Frontier, and later to the post of C.R.E. Calcutta in, I believe, 1921. After some time he decided to leave the army and took a position as general manager of a railway which had its headquarters in Delhi. During this period he was very seriously injured when the inspection trolley on which he was travelling, ran at speed into an obstruction of railway sleepers deliberately placed on the track. He was thrown off, and broke a leg and his pelvis, and was told that he would never walk again without crutches. However within a few months he was fully mobile again, without a trace of a limp,and for the rest of his long life remained a very active man, riding and playing tennis until an advanced age.

However after a time, Father decided that he would look for another job, and through the good offices of Uncle Ted he was interviewed for the position as General Manager of the Mexican Railway, which at that time was controlled by the Firm of S. Pearson and Son , a very large civil engineering company, who had designed and built it. It ran from Mexico City to Vera Cruz, and was a scenic wonder. Father’s previous experience well qualified him for the job, and he was appointed to it at a salary of £5000 per year payable in gold, an enormous amount in those days. At the same time he became General Manager of the port of Vera Cruz, which was a subsidiary of the Railway.

Chapter 2

School

The family financial outlook was transformed and Father could now easily afford to send us all to boarding schools, for which we had all been entered and which Ruth, and Dick were already attending. Ruth was at Bedford High School, and Dick had gone to Stowe in 1923 as one of the first 99 boys. Father left for Mexico late in 1925, having returned to India to settle up his affairs, and hand over to his successor, and I went to Stowe as a new boy in September 1924. Mother stayed on in England to see us settled in school, and then she too went to Mexico. Unhappily the marriage was already breaking up, Mother having fallen in love with Alan Gordon Walker, a High Court Judge in India, but it lasted a few more years before they finally parted.

Stowe had been started in 1923 by a public spirited body of wealthy and influential people, who thought that there was a need for a new Public School free of the traditions and conventions of the existing schools. They had purchased the house and very extensive grounds of Stowe, formerly the seat of the Dukes of Buckingham, in order to put their ideas into practise. They appointed as headmaster a 36 year old housemaster from Lancing College in Sussex called J.F.Roxburgh who later rose to be considered the leading headmaster in the country. He brought with him from Lancing a few boys to form a nucleus of a school, and the school was formally opened in 1923 with 99 boys.

The whole estate was perfect for use as a school,being about 2 miles from Buckingham, and the grounds of 600 acres contained 2 lakes, ample areas for playing fields, and numerous Grecian temples, and follies scattered about. The house was enormous, built in early Georgian times, with huge rooms containing beautifully decorated ceilings. There is no doubt that any boy educated there would appreciate Georgian architecture for the rest of his life.

Roxburgh was an unconventional headmaster and believed in no unnecessary rules or conventions such as existed in most public schools at that time, so that a lot of freedom was allowed, and out of classroom hours, boys, if not taking part in compulsory exercise or games could go anywhere at will providing they were present at roll call, or class, as the case might be.

My first term at school was something of a shock after my time at a small "dame" school, and I was lucky to have an older brother there to show me the ropes. I had passed the Common Entrance well, and found the work in my first term's form easy. In the second term I was moved up several forms, due to my good grounding in Maths, which kept me near the top of my various forms for the whole of my school career, as it was marked highly in proportion to other subjects at the weekly reading out of orders.

Games were compulsory on all but 2 days a week, but unless one was playing in a picked team, one was left to choose what to do, and had to tick a form in the house room daily showing what exercise one had taken, and a false entry meant a beating by the head house prefect. I was useless at cricket, perhaps due to my blind eye, and hated it, as in my first summer term when doing compulsory fielding practice on a slipcatch, some sadist hurled a ball at me, and hit me full in the face, breaking my two front teeth, and making my nose bleed. Thereafter I was always in the very bottom lot of house games, which were usually played on one of the more distant fields, and as I got older I managed to get myself placed as a fielder in the deep whence I could often manage to sneak off to swim in the lake, which was my favourite summer passtime. In the winter I enjoyed rugger and running, but never really distinguished myself in these, a 2nd row forward in the house team being the pinnacle in rugger, but in cross-country running in my last year I did manage to come in 11th of the whole school, the winner that year being P.D.Ward who later ran in the Olympics for England, and I wasn't all that far behind him!

There was very little bullying at school, and I suffered it only once in my first summer term when a nasty type called Luckock threatened to throw me in some nettles when we were out rabbiting; fortunately Dick was there, and hit him across the arm with a stick, breaking the arm, and so we had no further trouble from him or anyone else.

I have no very vivid memories of school, and have only kept occasionally in touch with those who were also at Cambridge with me, as I made new friends there.

The Masters at school I remember well, but I regret, not with affection. I had three successive house masters, the first the Rev. "Pop" Earle, who was fairly elderly, and soon moved to a new House, then a man called Arnold, who I heartily disliked as he had favourites, and needless to say I was not one of them, and finally another Parson called Playfair who was a much more sympathetic type, and was a four year Oxford rowing Blue. The first two were probably latent homosexuals, and indeed I well remember one occasion when I, David Niven, and a boy called Willes, who was rather pretty-pretty, were all doing extra Latin with Pop Earle in his room. Pop could obviously restrain himself no longer, and leapt on Willes much to my, and Niven's amusement. Pop soon remembered where he was, and recovered himself with some lame excuse. Apart from this, I can honestly say that I never came across homosexuality at school , although I know that one or two boys were expelled for it during my time.

As mentioned previously, David Niven was a contemporary of mine, and we were very often in the same sets or forms, but he was in a different House. He was always the star of school concerts, and usually did an act with a boy called Keith, which was in great demand although it never varied much. At an O.T.C. Camp which we shared with Eton, and Monkton Combe, (vulgarly known as Monkeys Womb), the whole audience of perhaps 500 or more boys yelled another act off the stage with cries of "We want Niven", continuing until he reappeared, and did another act.

The Officers Training Corps was compulsory unless one was flat footed or otherwise incapacitated, and in those days was for the Army only, and Infantry at that. There were once weekly drill, and weapon training parades, in uniform and boring. Roxburgh who had never served in any of the Forces was very keen on the O.T.C.and thought that it ought to have its own band. With this in view volunteers were called for, and I seeing what I thought would be an opportunity of avoiding drills etc. put my name forward. I am still mystified why I was accepted to play a fife, as I had no knowledge of, or interest in, music, and was given no kind of test, which I would have inevitably ignominiously failed. In due course I was given a fife, and told to practise with it, and I never managed to produce a single sound with it. Fortunately after about a year the idea of a band was dropped so that my deception was never revealed.

About once a term the O.T.C. had "field days" which involved going to some part or other of the country and there having imaginary battles with some other school or schools. I think our usual opponents were Radley or Eton and sometimes these battles became quite dangerous, as we were issued with the standard Army .303 Lee Enfield rifle, and blank ammunition. On at least one occasion, one of the opposing side had put a pencil down the barrel, and fired the blank, drilling a neat hole in one of our side's caps. For the most part field days were a military shambles, as the Masters who masqueraded as Officers had very little idea of military tactics, and the boys just wanted to have fun. Looking back I can see how very badly we behaved sometimes, and I remember once, on returning by bus from a field day, and passing some cyclists riding with drop handlebars, and with bottoms in the air, one of us leaned out, and gave one of them a terrific whack with a swagger stick, which we all carried.

One of my other interests at school was riding, an interest that I acquired rather late after staying a winter holiday at a village called Ablington in Gloucestershire, with the people who ran a crammers at which Dick was studying for Cambridge, and at which I learnt to ride. At school I hired a horse from a local livery stables, and usually managed to ride at least once a week. We were encouraged to hunt especially when the Grafton met at the school and this I did as often as I could. I can hardly believe it now but I was fanatically interested in all things horsy and subscribed to Horse and Hound and read every possible book or paper on the subject. My ex house master Pop was a very keen horseman, and the music master, Mr Huggins became MFH of the Grafton. This enthusiasm for riding lasted until I was past 40 years of age, and I really learnt to ride well in the cavalry O.T.C.at Cambridge and later with my father in Mexico. The enthusiasm died when I returned to England after the War and had to chase my horse round the field at Stourton to saddle and bridle it, and I decided to give up riding for good.

Some time in 1928 I took the School Certificate, and got enough credits to pass into Cambridge, but there was still a college entrance exam to take. At about the same time Dick took the Littlego exam, an alternative exam for Cambridge, and passed it. Roxburgh then entered us both for Magdalene, and I was to take the Honours exam, while Dick took the ordinary College entrance exam. In due course I went up to Magdalene and took the exam and on leaving, left ten shillings with the head porter as was the custom, in order that he should send me a telegram at school to let me know whether I had passed or failed. After an anxious wait of a few weeks I got the telegram shortly worded "sorry failed". Naturally I was devastated, as I thought that I had done well enough at least to get me in with the non Honours candidates, and went along to Roxburgh, and told him of my failure. He was very good to me. and furious with Magdalene, saying that he would never send another boy there. A few days later he sent for me and told me that he had had a letter from Magdalene, saying that not only had I passed in but that I had done so well that they were also going to admit Dick, as they did not wish to separate the brothers! Of course I never told Dick of this. Later when I went up to Cambridge, I taxed the Porter with his misleading telegram, and he explained that he had only looked at the list of ordinary candidates, which of course I was not on. I am sorry to admit that that exam was the summit of my scholastic achievements, and it is still a matter of regret to me that I completely wasted my time at Cambridge, as far as learning went , and worked only just enough to get an ordinary degree.

Having passed the necessary exams I spent one more term at Stowe, but was not required to attend classes, but expected to read in my study, and otherwise occupy myself usefully with a few other boys who were in the same position. We had in consequence a wonderful Easter term with complete freedom to go where we liked, hunting rabbits in the beautiful Stowe grounds, riding, and playing Squash.

After Father had moved to Mexico the break up of our parents’ marriage became a reality, and Mother returned from Mexico to tell us that they had decided to divorce. We had known for some time that this was likely, and so it did not come as much of a shock. Father had hoped that the move to Mexico, and away from India, would enable them to become reconciled, but Mother was bored with the Anglo-Mexican way of life and pined for Gordon-Walker, and so they had decided to part when we all had finished school.

During the last summer holiday at Stowe, Dick and I went to Mexico to see our parents, and Ruth, who had gone out earlier. We travelled on a Holland America liner to New York, called the S.S. Volendam and Father met us in N.Y. We stayed two nights at the Pennsylvania Hotel, at that time quite grand, and, having two or three clear days to wander about, we on one of these went to Coney Island, then a giant amusement park, and in the course of the afternoon were attracted to a gambling game being played, around which a lot of men were gathered, and which consisted of a roulette wheel and one was invited to bet on which number the ball would end up.We foolishly placed our bets doubling up each time we lost, which was every time except the first. Of course it was not very long before we had lost every dollar on us, leaving not a cent with which to get back to the hotel. We were desperate, and it dawned on us that the game was crooked, so not knowing what to do, we approached a large policeman swinging a night stick, and he, after giving us a good ticking off for being so stupid, marched us over to the stall we had played at, where the crowd round it quickly melted away, and said to the operators, "are you going to give these guys their money back, or are you going to show me your license?" After some protests they finally gave us our money back, and we left for the town as quickly as we could. We both learned a lesson we never forgot.

From New York we went by train in Pullman carriages to Mexico City, a journey that took five nights. It was very interesting to us, who had not visited the States before, but I can imagine that it must have been very tedious for Father, as we did not get many opportunities to get out and have a walk around. The Pullman seats turned into an upper and lower bunk at night and the lower one was the one most sought after as one could get out to walk about without disturbing the other occupant. The first night, Dick, after cleaning his teeth, went to his reserved lower bunk, and found a woman in it, much to his embarassment.She had obviously calculated that he being very young, would meekly climb into the upper bunk, but she was wrong, and he called the porter, and had her turfed out in her nightie, much to her embarassment, and our amusement.

We had a most interesting, and happy holiday in Mexico, but sadly I had to return to school after 6 weeks to take the School Certificate, while Dick stayed on for another three months. Father took me as far as San Antonio in Texas, and after that I made my way to N.Y. on my own but I can remember nothing of the journey except that I sailed home on the Veendam, a sister ship to the one in which we travelled out.

Chapter 3

University

I left Stowe at the end of the Easter term in 1929, when I was 18 years of age, and Dick and I both went out to Mexico, for the summer holidays, to stay with the parents who were still together, Ruth being already out there, and it was to be our last time together as a family. We journeyed out there in a German freighter that carried twelve passengers, and was scheduled to take two weeks for the voyage to Vera Cruz, We called in at Havana, and spent the best part of a day there when it was pre Batista, and pre Castro, and a very free and easy city. After leaving Cuba a storm known as a "Norte" blew up, and the ship had to hove to, head to sea, for three days. Most of the passengers were in a miserable state from sea sickness as the ship was only a small one and the waves enormous. We were young and loved it!

Father met us in Vera Cruz in his private railway carriage "Malinche" which had been built for a Cuban millionaire, but not taken over by him. It was all brass and mahogany, had three bedrooms, a shower, a dining-sitting room, an observation platform, and of course a kitchen etc. There were two stewards with it, one to cook, and the other to look after us and wait at table etc. Both were American blacks and great fun, especially the cook, Dave, who was enormously fat , and could hardly manage the corridor. The railway from Vera Cruz to Mexico City must be one of the most scenic in the world, going as it does from sea level tropical country to a temperate climate 8000 feet up, and it was a most interesting journey, and especially nice to be rejoining the family.

Mexico at that time was a very wild and lawless country, with bandits roaming in the countryside away from the larger cities, and every train had an armoured carriage at its end in which were a body of soldiers, to protect the passengers. It was commonly said, that in the event of a bandit hold up, the soldiers were of more danger to the passengers than the bandits, being better armed and just as poor, more inclined to kill and rob rather than just rob. Not surprising really as they were nearly all conscripts, seldom paid, and expected to live off the land. Fortunately we never encountered any bandits on the railway, but did occasionally see, when travelling around the country by car, the body of an alleged bandit by the roadside, summarily shot by the army, or so one was told, but it was quite as likely that sometimes they were simply peasants who had refused a demand for cash or food.

We had a wonderful holiday, riding in the early morning, playing golf and swimming at the Country Club, and perhaps tennis in the afternoon, and then probably a party at night. Most weekends we would go to Cuernavaca about two hours drive west of the City, and only 4000 feet above sea level, where Father had a small house with a swimming pool, on the outskirts of a very charming, and unspoilt small town.

Sadly our idyllic stay came to an end, and Mother, Ruth, Dick and I travelled up to San Antonio, with Father, in his private railway coach, and from there to Montreal whence we all returned to England, on the Duchess of Richmond, a Canadian Pacific liner, and had an interesting journey up the St. Lawrence river.

Mother who remained in England permanently, met again with Gordon-Walker, but tragically, when he and she had both obtained their divorces, and were about to marry, he died suddenly of pneumonia, while they were on holiday in Paris.

Father later, in 1935, married Jane and they had a daughter in due course whom they christened Stella.

We went to Cambridge in October, Dick into lodgings, and I into rather gloomy rooms on the ground floor of the college in the second court over looking a not very attractive stretch of the Cam. By this time I had decided to read the Mechanical Sciences Tripos, while Dick read Military Subjects. It was always rather a sore point with me that my tuition fees were more than three times the cost of Dick's, but Father gave us both exactly the same allowance to pay all our expenses for the whole year viz; £400 per year. My college fees were always about £90 a term and I had to live and clothe myself on the £150 left which was not easy, but I seem to have managed although I did leave Cambridge eventually with a debt to my tailor of over £20, in those days quite a lot of money, which Father kindly paid.

In spite of my good pass into Cambridge, I found the work for the Tripos very hard, and clearly I did not work nearly hard enough, which, regretfully was the pattern of my whole time at Cambridge. I think that I was the only person at Magdalene doing the Tripos or indeed Engineering, and there was only one don remotely interested in the subject, an elderly mathematician called Talbot Peel who thereby was appointed my Tutor, and to whom I had to present myself once a week or less, to help me with any difficulties that I might have in my work. This was a very unsatisfactory way of learning, especially for me who was not wildly enthusiastic about the subject and had more or less drifted into it for want of knowing what I wanted to do. I found the Calculus particularly difficult as we had had no grounding in it at school, although I had been in the top section. The result was that I did rather badly in the first year's preliminary exam for the Tripos and Peel said that he thought that there was more to Cambridge than the hard slogging which I would have to do if I wanted to pass the Tripos, and suggested that I take the Ordinary degree instead. This I did and I am ashamed to confess that I worked even less in the last two years. Looking back I think that if I had seen my father more often, and had a settled family home to return to in the vacations I would have probably done more work and done better. As it was all I omitted to learn at Cambridge, I had to learn the hard way in later life.

Magdalene was one of the smaller Colleges, and had a disproportionate number of boys from Eton and Winchester and had earned the reputation of being a sort of finishing school for the rich. There were however many others from other schools, and in general our friends came from these, and from other Colleges. I am afraid that we were "hearties", and not given to intellectual discussion. Early on I joined the O.T.C. in the Cavalry, and although I was already a competent rider, I learnt a great deal more in my three years in the Cavalry. We had a sergeant-major riding instructor from the 17/21st Lancers, and once a week we would parade at a nearby livery stables at 6 in the morning and ride bareback over jumps and in normal cavalry formation drill. It seems odd nowadays to think that in the early 1930s we were still learning to charge with drawn sabres at straw filled dummies, and all the other cavalry manoeuvres that had not changed much since the Crimean War. The worst part of the Cavalry was getting up on a freezing winter morning in a freezing bedroom, lit only by gas, on to a linoleum floor, and having put on uniform, bicycling two miles to the stables. Summer camps however were great fun, usually in Arundel Park in Sussex, as we finished the day’s parades at lunch time, and having fed, watered, and groomed our horses, usually made a bee line for Brighton, or some other place where there were pubs, and girls, in that order of importance. Watering the horses had its excitements, the three troops taking it in turns to water all the squadron horses, so that one rode one horse on a blanket with its rope halter through its mouth as some sort of control, and led two others. The water was some way away from the horse lines, and as one neared the water the horses would quicken their paces sometimes ending in a full gallop, depending on how thirsty they were. The trick was to dismount at the gallop just before the horses halted abruptly at the troughs, and lowered their heads to drink, or one ended in the trough oneself.

Dick, and I both joined the Boxing Club, as we did not feel inclined to play in college team games, especially in summer. In the winter terms we went most evenings to the club which had very inadequate premises very close to Magdalene, which it shared with the fencing club.There we sparred and had lessons and took a lot of exercise. I never attained much eminence, but did meet my brother in the finals of the novices tournament, and boxed in the University team once or twice. In the aforesaid tournament, Dick being three inches taller, and with two good eyes beat me on points, and went on to be reserve lightweight for the Oxford-Cambridge meeting

The three years at Cambridge went all too quickly, and the time had come for Dick and me to think about what we were going to do to earn our livings. Dick had already made up his mind that he was going to join the Army, and had applied to be accepted into the Royal Berkshire Regiment and had been accepted, so went more or less immediately to their Depot. I had thought of joining the Royal Tank Regt, but enquiries made it plain that this was out of the question with one blind eye. I was determined that I would not work in an office, but out of doors, and preferably abroad. In 1932 there was a world wide slump, and jobs were very hard to find. Father then wrote to me and suggested that I return to Mexico to stay with him, and work unpaid with the Railway and learn some practical engineering until things got better. Naturally I jumped at the chance, and in due course sailed on the Cunard liner Scythia for New York. The ship was delayed a bit due to Atlantic storms, and we docked at Boston a few hours late in the early morning. My steward woke me up, to tell me that I must get up immediately, and pack, and disembark as the Railway Agent was on the Dockside waiting to put me on the train for New York. The Agent had realised that our late arrival would mean that I would miss the connecting ship for Mexico in New York, and had sensibly decided that I should proceed by train to N.Y. to save time, but had not been able to forewarn me. There was no chance that I could manage to get ready in the very short time available, and I arrived on deck in time to wave goodbye to him on the dock

As we approached N.Y. I was warned that I would be disembarking before we docked, and to be ready, and shortly as we approached the Docks I saw a launch coming towards us on which was the Agent. The Scythia hove to, and the launch came alongside, and I got aboard it down the gangway. The ship's passengers were lining the rails to see what very important person was disembarking, and a cheer went up when they saw that it was a young unimportant man, followed by, on the end of a rope, a pencil thick bag with four golf clubs in it. So we made our way across the harbour in the launch, which carried a Customs and an Immigration official on board, and soon came alongside the Ward Liner which had been waiting at dockside for several hours much to the fury of the passengers who had embarked much earlier. I embarked through a side portal and was led with great deference to the best suite on the ship which was to be my cabin for the voyage to Vera Cruz. Amongst the passengers was the Chief Engineer of the Mexican Railway and his wife, and they were especially furious when they saw it was I, and not Father for whom the sailing had been held up for so long, and their anger was by no means diminished when they found out what cabin I had been allotted. Later it transpired that the Ward Line officials too thought that Father was to be the passenger, he being an important customer as No 1 in the Railway and Vera Cruz Harbour and Docks .

Chapter 4

Mexico and London

I spent about 8 months with Father in Mexico. My cousin Joan Bright was also living in the house and working at the British Legation, having succeeded her elder sister in the job. In the earlier part of my stay I did work with the railway engineers, and did quite a lot of travelling about on track inspections, laying out new spurs etc, but it was clear that there was not enough work for a totally inexperienced unpaid assistant, so gradually I gave up the pretence of working, and concentrated on more serious pursuits such as golf, swimming, and social life. Father had a small Ford coupe, as well as his official car and he allowed me to use it as I wished. To do this I had first to get a Mexican driving licence, and this involved not only a test drive but also a medical examination. When the time came to present myself for this, I had, accompanying me, a person who would act as my interpreter and guide me through the various departments. Father had wisely decided that this was essential, as in the Mexico of those days it was necessary to ease one’s way through the bureaucracy by the judicious use of small bribes, and to do this one employed a "coyote" or jackal as such men were known, who knew what each bureaucrat expected, and would do it tactfully, and quietly. I duly took the driving, and oral tests, and passed these without question, but at the Medical test my blind eye was discovered and I was refused a licence. Unfortunately I had not thought to warn the "coyote' that I had a blind eye so that he had not prepared the ground. He was very upset at one of his charges failing perhaps because he only got paid if they passed, and then after a chat with Father in the office he arranged for me to take the medical again a few days later. This time it was a different Doctor, who held his hand over the same blind eye twice, and so I was able to read all the figures easily, and passed, and got my licence.

Eventually Father suggested, and I agreed that this carefree existence should end, and that I should return to England to get a job. This was no easy matter in those days even for university graduates, but fortunately Father was on good terms with a Mr Body who was a director of S, Pearson & Son, who owned a subsidiary Company called Whitehall Securities, which in turn owned and operated electricity companies in England, and in Greece. Mr Body's significance, as far as I was concerned, was that he was a Chartered Civil Engineer, and in order to become an Associate Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, it was necessary to be indentured to a full Member for three years. Mr Body agreed to take me on as his indentured pupil for this period, and as a start put me as a pupil assistant in to Whitehall Securities in its small civil engineering department at a salary of £120 per annum. So with mixed feelings I left Mexico after my 8 months holiday, by Ward liner for New York, and after two nights at the Biltmore Hotel sailed for Liverpool on a Cunarder.

As far as I can remember, my mother was then living in a flat in London, and to begin with I stayed with her, but in time she left England for a period, and I moved into a lodging house, No 7 Qeensgate Terrace in Kensington, with friends from Cambridge. I presented myself to Mr Body at his office, and he told me that he was trying to get me a position with a Firm building a dam in the Sudan. but that meanwhile I would work in the aforesaid Whitehall Securities.

So began one of the most boring and frustrating periods of my life as far as work was concerned. There was very little work to do, and what there was consisted of drawing lines on a map showing the future route of electricity lines. I had very little knowledge of electricity generation, and even less interest, and could not wait to get abroad into a proper job. Whenever the boss of the Firm building the Dam in Sudan returned to England, I got to see him, and asked him when he could take me on, but was always put off with promises. There were no other jobs then available for half qualified engineers so that I had to possess myself with patience. A saving grace was that I was living with very good friends, and with our very limited funds we somehow managed to enjoy ourselves in the evenings, and at weekends. Money was a very real problem as even in those days £12 a month was very little to live on in London or indeed anywhere, and I cannot remember that I got any allowance from Father, although Dick did in order to keep up appearances in the Army, rather a sore point with me.

Chapter 5

The Sudan

Finally, after a year or so, Mr Gibson, the man who was head of the firm building the Gebel Aulia Dam in the Sudan sent for me and told me that they were now ready to employ more assistant engineers, and offered me a job. This Mr Gibson had been Agent in Charge of the construction of the Nag Hamadi Dam on the Nile in Egypt and when that was completed had formed a consortium with a very well known Contracting Firm called Pauling & Co.to tender for the Gebel Aulia Dam to be built on the White Nile some miles south of Khartoum in the Sudan. The Consortium had obtained the contract and preliminary work had started the previous year, and all was now ready to start on the construction. I was offered a job as an assistant engineer at a salary of £420 a year with free living quarters, a free return passage, and an interesting job, so of course I immediately accepted.

After a week or so buying clothes etc. I flew from Northolt in an Imperial Airways Hengist or Horsa plane to Paris and then on to Brindisi where we were to change to a flying boat for the flight to Alexandria, and on to Khartoum. However the weather was too bad, and the sea too rough for the latter to take off, and we were stuck in Brindisi for a few days, in a small hotel, which was very frustrating for me, as I was anxious to get on. At last the weather improved, and we boarded a very small flying boat called City of Khartoum, which could carry only twelve passengers with the pilot and co-pilot outside the cabin in front in an open cockpit. The plane could not carry enough fuel to make Alexandria in one hop, and so we came down in Corfu to refuel, and while this was being carried out we were taken by bus to see the ex Kaiser's Palace on the island and I think that we remained on Corfu for the night. Next day we took off early and made Alexandria by early evening. On the flight after ours City of Khartoum ran out of fuel when in sight of Alexandria, crashed into the sea, and all the passengers were drowned, the pilots being in an open cockpit were thrown out and rescued unharmed. Ashore we were put up in the Hotel Cecil for the night, and told that we were to fly off in a larger flying boat to Khartoum at 6.30 am. I can remember that I did not go to bed that night but went out to a night club with one or two other passengers, and got back to the hotel just in time to shave,wash, and collect my case before the bus for the flight departed. Our new plane took off from the harbour, and the pilot flew low down the river southwards to Khartoum. I do remember that I had a hangover, and that it completely disappeared when we were airborne, a miracle that I have never experienced since. Aircraft were not pressurised in those days, and it may be that we were given oxygen, but I cannot remember. Flights were very informal then, and the pilot continued his low flying all the way to Khartoum, so that we had very good views of Egypt, its many Temples, and of the Nile cataracts.

We eventually came down on the river in Khartoum, and as I had to stay the night there before going on to Gebel Aulia, I stayed with Dick in the Mess as his Battalion of the Royal Berkshires was stationed there. All I can remember of that night was dinner in the open air with the Officers Mess, when both people on either side of me fell soundly asleep.

Next morning the Company , Gibson & Pauling, sent a car to fetch me and I was taken to meet the Chief Engineer, and introduced to other staff, and shown where I would live. This was the engineers' mess and there were 6 other " engineers" living there, a Captain in the Royal Engineers on attachment from the Army, a middle aged Hungarian architect, a nephew of Lord Cowdray with no discernible qualifications in civil engineering, a colleague from Cambridge the son of the M.D. of Pauling & Co, and a man called Robinson who was an unqualified mechanical engineer and finally a more senior and experienced engineer called Cleghorn. As far as I could see I was certainly not alone in having obtained the job by virtue of having had the advantage of meeting the right people!

Gebel Aulia, the place where the dam was to be built, was about 50 miles south of Khartoum, in a windswept shallow valley of a semi desert nature, on the White Nile.The two rivers Nile, the Blue and the White meet at Khartoum, and flow as one river to Egypt, and the Mediterranean, and Egypt and the Sudan depend absolutely on them to provide all the water they require as it seldom rains very much in either country. In fact when I once passed through Wadi Halfa in the North of the Sudan, I was told that it had not rained there for twenty years. Both rivers flood enormously during the rainy season in Ethiopa, and Central Africa, and a lot of this water ran to waste,as the White Nile was not dammed at all. The purpose of the Gebel Aulia dam was to hold back most of this flood water, and release it as required for irrigation and other purposes It was also proposed to bring a vast area of land below the dam into cultivation, partly to support the tribes who would be dispossessed of their grazing lands by the creation of the enormous lake upstream of the dam, and partly to enable the country to put much larger areas under cotton, one of Egypt's and the Sudan's major exports. Egypt was to pay the bulk of the cost of the work, as it was deemed to get most of the benefit by the evening out of the flow of water.

The dam itself was about a mile in length, with a granite masonry part in the normal river path, with 50 sluice gates, a fish ladder, and a lock for river traffic as well as a tarmac road on top with a rolling lift bridge over the lock. On the western side of the river there was an earthen dam, faced with sandstone, and with a deep concrete core down to bedrock, this being about 1/3 of a mile long.

At first I was employed on the masonry part, setting out, levelling,and generally supervising the gangs of Egyptian labourers, who had their own village headmen as foremen, each assistant engineer being responsible for a specific length of dam, or some particular part, and weekly we had to measure up the work done, and submit these measurements to the office,so that the subcontractors could be paid. The work was hard, and exhausting, 6 full days a week, and Friday the Muslim rest day would be taken up planning the next weeks work. What made it particularly exhausting was the climate, a very hot sun all day, with a continuous strong dry wind, so that one got completely dehydrated, and had to drink continuously lime squash with liberal amounts of salt in it. Work started at 6am and continued until 2pm, with a break for breakfast at 9am, then lunch,and a rest until 4pm, when we would return to the site to do the setting out for the morrows work while the site was clear of workmen. Friday was the rest day but as mentioned before this was taken up with office work, and in any case most of us were usually too tired to want to do anything, not that there really was anything to do.

I was unlucky in my first year, as I fell ill with acute sinus trouble, which was wrongly diagnosed by our local doctor, and so after a week or two in the sick bay, when my temperature soared, I was shipped to Khartoum General Hospital where the Surgeon immediately saw what was wrong, washed out my sinuses several times, and I thereupon recovered quickly. However I had missed at least a month of work, so that when the time came for work to stop because of the annual flood, I was asked to stay on during the flood season instead of going home on leave. I did not greatly mind as the work during this period was not arduous, being mostly of a maintenance nature.

As time went on and parts of the work were completed, Mr Gibson decided that there were too many engineers for the balance of work,and so that when my years contract was up, it was not renewed on the grounds that my health had not been very good, and the Doctor had advised him that the dry dusty environment might make the trouble re-occur.

On my return to England, I consulted a Specialist about my sinus trouble, and was advised to have what he described as a sub mucus resection on my nose, which was obstructed in the left nostril, probably due to boxing at Cambridge, and he warned me that returning to a dusty climate like the Sudan might well bring on the sinus trouble again if I did not have this done. Harold Jaques, my brother-in- law got me admitted to the private wing of the Middlesex Hospital, where I had the operation performed,and stayed a week or so, before returning to the outside world to resume my leave and look for another job.

After a few months of idleness,and having a good time, in between looking around for another contract abroad, I got a message that Gibson wanted to see me, and when I went to see him he asked me to return to Gebel Aulia, and work there until the dam was more or less completed. I naturally agreed, and after a very few days flew out once again to Khartoum On this tour at Gebel Aulia, I took charge of the west bank earthen dam,which while much less interesting technically, was easier work, and I shared a house on the west bank with Robinson, previously mentioned as one of the engineers in the Mess. It was a more congenial existence, as Robinson, although a bit of a rough diamond, was more or less my age, and I had got to know him well during the last year when we had messed together. Every evening we would take our guns, and go sand grouse shooting for the pot which would have been impossible on the East bank, crowded as it was with Offices, Houses, Workshops, etc and quite often on Friday afternoons we would go to Khartoum to see what it had to offer in the way of entertainment which was not much.

Eventually the dam was completed, and all staff started to go home at the end of their contracts. In the week or two before everyone left, a notice appeared on the Board to the effect that the Irrigation Department was looking for two qualified engineers to carry out work on the construction of major and minor canals and all ancillary work at a place called Abdel Magid some distance upstream of Gebel Aulia on the White Nile. This work was intended to provide several hundred square miles of irrigated land for the support of the people dispossessed by the Gebel Aulia reservoir. Each family was to have 18 feddans of land on which to grow cotton, maize,and beans, the idea being that the cotton would provide the cash, and the beans, and maize the food for themselves, and livestock. All was to be supervised by the Agriculture department, as a lot of the people were not farmers, but wandering tribes. In addition each family would be provided with a Tukl or thatched hut for Living accommodation. The Irrigation Dept was to be responsible for the construction of the whole scheme.

I and Robinson had no other work in view, so we thought there was no harm in seeing what sort of jobs were on offer, and arranged to meet the Deputy Director of the Dept . at Khartoum Railway station, before he boarded the train to go home on leave. At this meeting he told us that the contract would be for two years, twenty months in the Sudan, and four months leave at the end. When it came to the subject of pay, he said that as Robinson was two years older than me he would be offered £600 and I £550. I immediately said that I could not accept less than Robinson, especially as I was better qualified with a Cambridge Degree, and he then said "very well I will offer you both £650" We were secretly delighted and accepted with a show of reluctance, and shortly went off on three months leave our ourselves, secure in the knowledge that we had two years paid work ahead of us; not too usual a circumstance for contracting Civil Engineers in those days.

On my way home this time, I took the river boat from Khartoum to Wadi Halfa, and from there the train to Cairo,whence after a night at a hotel I flew to Sarafand in Palestine where Dick was now stationed with his Regiment. I stayed a week there seeing a bit of Palestine, living in the Mess, and getting to know Dick's brother officers, and in general having a very good time. After this I flew back to Cairo, and from there to London, where Mother was living. I again had a wonderful 3 months leave spending all my hard earned money in modestly riotous living.

This leave went all too quickly,and in no time it was necessary to start preparing for my third visit to the Sudan and this time it meant buying all equipment then thought necessary for a camping life in a semi desert, such as canvas bath,petromax lamp, rifle, mosquito net, sleeping bag etc, as I had been warned that to begin with I would not have permanent quarters provided for me, but that I would get a field allowance of about £1 a day as well as an allowance for a horse, and syce or groom.

And so I set sail once more for the Sudan, this time on an ancient Bibby Line ship, the S.S.Yorkshire which had one cigarette like funnel. Robinson also took this passage from Liverpool , the Sudan goverment being too parsimonious to pay for an air passage, for which we were duly grateful as our contracts started from the day of sailing, and we were therefore getting a three week cruising holiday before starting work. After calling in at Port Said, we eventually docked at Port Sudan, and took the train to Khartoum where we were met by an Irrigation Dept. official, and taken by car to Wad Medani on the Blue Nile, where the Headquarters were situated. We stayed there a few days, being introduced to various people, and being briefed on the whole scheme that we were to work on.

When all this was completed we were taken to Abdul Magid in the area of land between the two river Niles, which was to be our headquarters, and where we met the engineer who was responsible for carrying out the whole project, a most unimpressive fat individual called Fursdon, who had spent his career in the Irrigation Dept, mostly controlling the flow of water in the canals, with seemingly no experience whatever in construction work. This was largely the case with all the Dept. engineers, their main motivation being to hold on to a secure job until pension time came along. We were both quite glad at this as it meant largely that we would not be interfered with much, but allowed to get on with work we knew and were accustomed to.

I spent only a few days here, familiarising myself with the drawings, collecting quite a considerable staff of clerks, an assistant engineer ,chainmen,a cook bearer, and a camelman who would collect mail etc twice a week. During this time a double mud hut was being built for me out in the cotton soil desert, one hut to sleep in and the other to eat in, both joined together by a thatched roof. The cook or sufragi had his own hut nearby in which he slept and cooked. In practice in fact we slept ,ate, and cooked in the open air in the dry season.

I was provided with a Chevrolet pick-up truck, which was necessary for the longish distances we had to cover in a day's work with all the instruments needed for setting out, and also for the fortnightly visits I was expected to make to headquarters at Abdel Magid, which was about 50 miles away.

I had already bought a pony, a real slug and a bad buy from the local vet, a British old timer who obviously saw me coming. A pony was quite unnecessary for work, but was very welcome in the late afternoons, or early mornings for a pleasant ride. I soon got fed up with my useless animal, but luckily my assistant engineer a very fat Egyptian- Sudanese had an excellent animal which he could not ride, and kept only for the prestige, and horse allowance,and he allowed me to treat it as my own, but always refused to sell it to me. As time went on and we all got more settled in to the living conditions, I was able to arrange scratch games of polo with my staff which were great fun, if rather lacking in skill.

To begin with my living conditions were very primitive, there was of course no electricity or gas, and I depended for lighting on the petromax lamp using paraffin, the lamp having the great disadvantage of not only radiating great heat, but also acting as a tremendous attraction to every moth and insect for miles around, which reduced it's lighting effectiveness considerably. Very early bed was the general rule as we got up at about 5am in order to start work while it was fairly cool, worked until 2pm with a break for breakfast, and then took the rest of the day off. It was not too hard a life after the work at Gebel Aulia, the main disadvantage being that I had no one to talk to in my own language for a week or two at a time so that I was glad every fortnight or so to go to Abdel Magid and stay with the Doctor there an older man called"Lousy" Brown, a South African, with whom I had made friends. Water was drawn from a local well and was extremely brackish, and may have been the cause of my attack of jaundice. I had been feeling unwell for some time, and was subsisting on a diet of potted meat (now called paté) and whisky as I could not face anything else, and finally I decided that I must go and see Lousy and see what was wrong. When I arrived he burst into laughter and said "You look like a bloody Chinaman" and said that I had jaundice and must stay in hospital. So I did for a few days until I had recovered when I was sent on convalescence to the Sennar Dam on the Blue Nile, and had a very enjoyable stay in the comfortable Rest house there shooting both with gun and rifle, and fishing for the gigantic Nile perch just down stream of the dam which itself was situated in thick African jungle, a change from the desert like surroundings to which I was accustomed .

One of my first jobs was to start the building of a bungalow for the water control engineer who would eventually run, and maintain the Scheme, and in which I would live in until the work was complete and he would arrive. There was also to be a bungalow some distance away, where the Agricultural Adviser would live. The drawings for the bungalows had all been prepared beforehand, and the contractors appointed so that I had little to do on this work except to supervise the Greek contractor and see that he did not skimp too much.

The main work was the digging of canals, the construction of regulators to control the rate of flow of the water, and the extension of the major canals, which were minor rivers in size, to many minor canals branching off, leading to still smaller canals which in their turn fed ditches, which irrigated the individual plots. There were also the villages to be sited, and built in areas which would not interfere with the irrigated areas, but would be sufficiently near to them so that the cultivators did not have to walk too far to their plots. The building of the individual tukls or huts was left to the villagers who would occupy them, but it was my responsibility to see that they got the necessary materials,and stuck to the Government standard plan. This involved arranging for mud bricks to be made, and sufficient grass to be cut to thatch the hundreds of huts, a job that could only be done after the rains, when the grass had grown some miles away near the river.

The major, and minor canals were dug by dragline, and the ditches by gangs of labourers, generally West Africans, who were paid on piecework; thus the larger ditch was called "Abu Eshreen' and the smaller 'Abu Sittar' meaning father of twenty, and of six respectively as that was the amount in piastres that they were paid per chain length.

My main work was setting out all construction of the the various works and trying to keep ahead of the construction of them and generally supervising the numerous and scattered labour force which occasionally meant acting as a kind of unofficial District Commissioner in minor quarrels and disturbances as the District Commissioner had a vast area to govern and could only manage to visit about twice a year. The nearest Police post was at Abdel Magid, as the village Headmen acted as the local law keepers. The work was not wildly exciting but neither was it very demanding in ability, and so I had time in the late afternoons to ride, play polo, shoot sand grouse or cranes or fish in the canals with a seine net which I got quite expert in casting, although the fish I caught, usually Nile perch were not very nice to eat. As mentioned before it was a lonely life, relieved by my visits to stay with Lousy Brown. My office work was pretty minimal, as I had a Sudanese clerk and an engineer who looked after this side of things, and I simply had to check and sign.

Chapter 6

Wales

Eventually the work for which I had been engaged was completed and my Contract was coming to its end. The Director of Irrigation asked me to come and see him, and when I did, suggested that I stay on on the permanent establishment at the same salary,but with seniority according to my age. As I was younger than most of the engineers this would have meant pretty low seniority, and in any case I did not relish the idea of spending the rest of my working life reading water gauges and doing maintenance and truth be told rather despised people who worked in pensionable jobs, young and foolish as I was, so I politely declined the offer and started making preparations to go home. So very shortly I was on my way home by Blue Funnel line from Port Sudan, firstly to have the 4 months leave due to me , and then to start looking for another job.

After a few weeks in London living with my mother in her flat, and with my savings running out, I decided it was time once more to start work.

First I applied to my old employers, Pauling & Co. but they had no contracts needing engineers at the time, but they gave me an introduction to Edmund Nuttall & Son who had been awarded a very big contract to build 51 Tunnels for the storage of Naval ammunition in a narrow valley near Fishguard in South Wales. After the usual interview I was taken on as an assistant engineer for this work, although I had no previous experience in tunnelling. I had in the Sudan passed the final exams to qualify for membership of the Institution of Civil Engineers and had become an Associate Member, which carried a lot of weight when applying for a job so that my lack of experience in tunnelling did not matter too much. One of my reasons for finding a job in England had been to gain a wider experience of other techniques of Civil Engineering than was possible abroad,so that I was quite pleased to take the job offered although it meant a drop in salary. To begin with I was to work in the London office of Nuttalls in Grosvenor Gardens so I presented myself there.

At this time, when I had been only a day or two in the office, the Munich crisis blew up, and the British Government decided that there was a real risk of war, and that London would be bombed, and in a panic ordered that trenches should be dug in all London squares and parks as air raid shelters for the populace. They therefore collected every available large contractor, and gave each an area in London,to get the work organised and done . Nuttalls were given the job in central London, and I was told to be in charge of several squares in the Islington area. It was complete chaos, with no central organisation, and we were just given duplicate order books with which to order materials, and to get on with it as fast as possible. I therefore went to the squares that I had been allotted, and very shortly the labour exchange started to send men along to be taken on and start digging. Meanwhile Nuttalls sent along a lorry load or two of picks and shovels etc to each site. My first job was to appoint foremen, which was more or less a matter of guessing which of the men taken on had the authority, and qualities necessary for this, but I could not be too fussy as there was a sense of panic in the air. The men presenting themselves for work came from every conceivable occupation and it was obvious that many of them had never handled a shovel in their lives or indeed done any kind of manual labour. As time went on I weeded out the obviously unsuitable,and appointed a clerk and storekeeper for each site, and the work proceeded surprisingly well. I myself did not get to bed for the first two nights, snatching short kips in my car, and lived on sandwiches from the stalls that magically appeared. I cannot imagine what it all cost, and what swindling and thievery went on with the tools and materials that we ordered from whoever had them, but in very few days we had trenches dug round several squares, properly timbered and covered over. Then one day Chamberlain flew back from Munich with his piece of paper, and the panic was over, and work stopped as suddenly as it had begun. I do not know who cleared up all the sites, but we in Nuttalls just returned to the office leaving everything as it was. Before I went to work I treated my self to a dozen oysters, and an enormous steak, a meal I remember to this day, and I also had a good nights sleep.

Shortly after life returned to normal I was sent down to South Wales, taking my car and took a room at the Fishguard Hotel, which I occupied for over a month while I looked for somewhere to live. I was dead against lodgings with a landlady, and eventually found a small semi detached house near Newport on the coast N,E. of Fishguard, which the small farmer, who lived next door was willing to let to me, and his wife agreed to cook breakfast, and dinner for me. It had two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a sitting room,and dining room, running water from a well,hand pumped by the farmer, and was lit by gas. Needless to say there was no heating.

The work for which I had been engaged was in a valley south west of Fishguard called Trecwm, and would consist of 51 very large and capacious tunnels dug into each side of the valley and served by a railway that ran round the valley. There were also numerous buildings to be built to serve as offices, labs ,etc. Each tunnel consisted of an approach tunnel of about 4 meters diameter, which widened out into very much larger tunnels in which the Naval ammunition was to be stored. The whole area was very thickly wooded, and the minimum tree clearance was to be allowed. I was put in charge of 7 tunnels with a gang of Irish and Cumbrian iron miners supervised by a proper public works foreman called Gipsy Woods. Public works then attracted very rough and tough men, who spent their lives going from job to job,with seemingly no home ties, and who spent every penny of their earnings as soon as they received them,. The Cumbrians were not this kind, being mostly unemployed miners, but they were nothing like as good workers, and seemed unable to work to accurate lines, an important point as we, the contractors, only got paid for the material excavated according to the drawings. The local or indeed any Welsh were notable for their absence on the work, but most of the few clerks and draughtsmen were Welsh, as were the tree fellers. My fellow engineers were a mixed lot, one or two being men with whom one could talk sensibly, and who had worked on Public Works before,the others in general being very parochial with narrow outlooks. This had nothing to do with social class,but everything to do with whether they had travelled and seen a bit of the world outside of their own home environment.

In London I had bought a small Opel car which the Germans were dumping in England at very low prices, so I was able to get to work without having to rely on the company, and most week ends I would go to London, usually by train from Cardigan which was about an hours drive from my house. The main reason for my London trips was to see my current heart throb, whom I had met on the boat coming home, and kept in constant touch with. I even managed to persuade her to come down to Wales and spend a month with me, pretending to all and sundry that she was my sister as Welsh morals then were extremely strait laced at least on the surface. We did however have separate bedrooms, and the landlord and his wife got on very well with her.

The work was interesting enough, and I was learning tunnelling, and how to control rather rough and aggressive men, but in general life was dull, and the pay was not very good,and I was living, although modestly, beyond it. In addition, the climate was pretty dreadful, and the rain dripping off the rhododendrons depressed me terribly, so that I began to study the advertisements in the Daily Telegraph,and other journals, with a view to obtaining another job, preferably abroad. I had been about four months in South Wales and decided that that was enough. In time I noticed an advert from a firm called William Jacks in London advertising for a Chartered Civil Engineer with some experience overseas to join a Civil Engineering Contractor for work in Malaya and the Far East. This seemed to suit me exactly so I wrote, and applied for the position, and in due course was asked to go to London for an interview, which I did as soon as I could get away. At this interview I met the Chief Engineer of the firm in question, who was home on leave, and whom I immediately liked. He described the firm, which I learned was Gammon ( Malaya), and the kind of work they were engaged on, and the kind of living conditions that I could expect.Then after a few pleasantries he said that the decision as to whom they would engage would be taken by the Managing Director after he had made a report on his return to Malaya,which was imminent. I very much liked the sound of the job , and was keen to get it so that I had a week or two of anxious waiting, when one morning in the post the offer of it arrived with exactly double the salary I was getting, plus bonuses on profits,and a three year contract,with 4 months home leave at the end and also the prospect of further contracts when that was completed. Naturally I immediately accepted, and hurried along to the Agent in charge of the Wales contract to give in my months notice, which I may say was accepted only with great regret !

I left Wales when my notice was completed, and went to London to equip myself for Malaya,and to say goodbye to my mother and my friends,and had about two weeks to do this before I was due to sail. One thing that I had to do was to buy a car as my Opel was not really suitable, and I had been advised that it was better to buy one in England,and ship it out than buy in Malaya. I spent a lot of time looking at new,and second hand cars, and then after a convivial evening with friends made the big mistake of agreeing to buy a Bentley off an acquaintance called Orlik who wanted to change it for a smaller car. It was a pretty gigantic car,with a wooden framed body covered with leather, made by famous body builders called Weymann, and totally unsuitable for the climate in Malaya ; in addition it had a very difficult gearbox, and an immensely powerful engine that simply drank petrol, and gave out great waves of heat. I think that when I got it to Singapore it was the only Bentley there. Eventually I sold it to an Australian pig farmer for $100 Straits, and bought a tiny Morris 8, but by this time I was married, and Budge had had her own larger Morris sent out from England.

Chapter 7

Singapore

I sailed from Liverpool in S.S.Aeneas belonging to the Blue Funnel Line, and drove there with a friend who kindly offered to see me off, and after a night at the Adelphi Hotel took the Bentley to the Docks to get it loaded. While in the shipping office I saw a note on the counter addressed to Miss Eleanor Chance, and at once had the most peculiar feeling that I would marry her although of course I had never met her. It may well be that my memory is a form of hindsight, but I have always been convinced that it happened, and was a glimpse into the future. I duly embarked that evening, and we set sail,and all settled down to study our fellow passengers, and think what a ghastly lot they looked, but in a few days we were all lifelong friends,and looking forward to the 3 week voyage. Budge later told me that she,and Eryl Ransome, in their summing up of the passengers, had decided that I was a young man with private means, travelling for pleasure, and very standoffish. Nothing could have been further from the truth, as I had not a penny of private means, was going out to work, and the standoffishness was shyness with the opposite sex due to a single sex public school, and my lack of female company in most of my life abroad,

The ship called in at Marseilles, Port Said, Colombo and Penang, and somewhere between Colombo and Penang Budge and I got semi engaged she wisely refusing to make it a full engagement until she arrived in Singapore and met other people, and be sure that we both were not just caught up in a shipboard romance. What a lot people going to work abroad nowadays miss by having to go by air. We, old timers had a three week free cruise on full pay, met a lot of interesting people, had excellent food and saw the world, before having to start work

Budge was going out to stay with her sister Felicity, who was married to a Captain in The Royal Engineers called Frank Grazebrook who was stationed in Singapore on the Headquarter staff. She had travelling with her, Eryl Arundel, an old friend,whose intention it was to stay only a few weeks and then return home. As things turned out she stayed months with the Grazebrooks, before marrying a Dr Ransome who was in the Government Medical Service as a Consultant Neurologist.

On landing in Singapore, I was taken to a comfortable lodging in the house of a Lady Campbell a rather bedraggled oldish woman, the widow of some impecunious Scottish Baronet, who had been a tin miner or some such thing, and she had, I think, spent her whole life in Singapore. I lived there for some weeks seeing Budge most evenings, while we both decided on our futures together. Budge did not want to announce our engagement until her parents had been told and reassured by Felicity that I was not an adventurer. In due course we announced our engagement, and tentatively fixed a date to get married. I moved in to a Hotel called The Goodwood Park which was nearer the Grazebrooks and was very comfortable. We also started to get furniture made, and I made enquiries from Gammons as to the possibility of renting one of the many houses that that they owned.

When Gammon's Managing Director heard of my engagement to be married he was furious and said that he would not have taken me on if I had been married as he wanted someone who could be sent up country to fairly uncivilised places unsuitable for married people. I replied that Budge and I were quite ready to go anywhere and that lack of civilised amenities should not stop him from sending me wherever I was required, a perfectly true statement. I also said that if he wished he could give me a ticket home, and that I would accept this without demur. I knew that I was in a pretty strong position as the Company Secretary had told me that I had been selected from over 80 candidates. The M.D. was a rather shady character, and was later fired for using Company labour and materials for his own projects.

To begin with I was put in charge of building a long jetty for the servicing of submarines, at Loyang on the eastern end of Singapore Island on the north shore. The interesting part of this job was that the reinforced concrete piles to be driven were at that time, as far as we knew, the longest to be used anywhere,in one precast piece, being 110 feet long, and half of them had to be driven at an angle, not vertically; as far as I can recall there were over 100 of them. At the same time I was also given charge of a contract for steel oil storage tanks inside the naval base which had been completed but leaked, and this caused me more aggravation than the jetty before it was completed to the Admiralty's satisfaction. Both these jobs were handed to me a few days after landing, an introduction to taking responsibility, which was a very good feature of Gammons. Later when I had been with them a few months I was given contracts to estimate and tender for, with the knowledge that if we were awarded the contracts I would have to carry them out, and that any bonus I got would depend on the profit that ensued. This was the principle on which Gammons worked so that in a minor way we were our own bosses, with Gammon's consulting engineer, drawing office, and plant to support us. At the age of 27 I was very lucky to have such a chance to acquire knowledge, and self confidence.

Budge and I were married on August 17th 1939 at Singapore Cathedral by the Bishop of Singapore. Eryl Arundel was Budge's bridesmaid, and my best man was a Major Owen Steele of the Gordon Highlanders, although I did not know him well, he was a friend of the Grazebrooks and kindly agreed to act, when my original choice, a Major Vinden, withdrew because his wife, whom I had never met, had just arrived in Singapore, and objected. I cannot remember very much of the ceremony, a stranger amongst strangers as I was, but do recall that it pelted down with rain all afternoon, which rather spoilt the occasion. The reception was held at the Grazebrooks house, and there again most of the guests were total strangers to me. I had rented a house from a Chinese, into which I had moved the furniture we had had made, as no Company house was as yet available, and I had been living there for a week or two and was married from it. Budge of course remained at her sister's house. After the reception we caught the train to Kuala Lumpur and next morning collected our car which had been sent up by train, and drove up to the Cameron Highlands, where I had booked the rest house, to spend the week's honeymoon. It was very pleasant to get away from the enervating heat of Singapore to the temperate climate of the Highlands and to be alone with Budge, but there was absolutely nothing to do there, no hotels or bars, and the only attraction was to look at the trout farm. After a week we returned to our rented house in Scotts Road and started married life together. The street was extremely noisy, surrounded as we were by Chinese and Indian neighbours, constantly barking dogs, and endless processions of street vendors, so I stepped up my pressure to obtain one of the Company houses in the pleasant area of Bukit Tunggal, and in a few weeks was successful. We moved there with our furniture, our cook boy Ah King,and his wife and two children, and continued as the tenants until we left Malaya, sub-letting it when we were sent up country.

While Loyang jetty was my most important job the first year, I was given other smaller jobs to do as well, and one was advice and repair work on various Shell Oil jetties and wharves at their various installations, and this involved travelling to Pulao Bukom a British island off Singapore, which also contained many of the coast defence guns and also to Pulao Samboe, a Dutch Indonesian Island much further away. Another small job was the provision of timber piling guard fenders off Clifford pier, the main passenger landing stage for Singapore. I had a worrying and hazardous time, once when engaged on similar work off Singapore in the sound between the offshore islands. The tidal range in Singapore waters is something like 14 feet, and during spring tides the tide rushes out or in with tremendous power and speed. In order to carry out the work, I was using a barge with a 40 ft. pile frame on it, which when loaded with the necessary machinery and piles had only about 6 inches freeboard. To position this very unhandy craft I was using the company diesel motor boat, a very unreliable boat at the best of times. While positioning the piling barge, the engine suddenly failed, before we had managed to get any anchors down, and the tide was ebbing faster every minute, so that we began to be swept helplessly out to sea, and it was pretty obvious that once we got to the open sea we should inevitably founder in the waves. The gang I had with me was a small one, mostly if not all Bengalis, and a Malay mechanic driver for the boat. They were very good, and probably not half as frightened as I was, but they depended on me to give them directions, and all talked excitedly at once. We cast all four anchors as quickly as we could, but this only served to slow us down, and meanwhile it was getting dark, and I could see no sign of any other boats that might be able to help us, or at least take us off to safety, and I had just about given up hope when the mechanic got the boat started, and at the same time the tide run started to slacken, so we were able slowly to take the whole equipment back to a safe anchorage for the night. When I finally got home Budge was frantic with worry as she had not known where I was, which perhaps was just as well.

Budge had become pregnant shortly after we moved to the Bukit Tunggal house, but after about six months she began to notice that the baby was no longer moving about and kicking, and after waiting to see whether it would resume it's activity for a week or two, the doctors decided that it had died, and that a still birth would have to be induced. This was duly done at the General Hospital, and Budge slowly recovered from this heavy blow. She had already chosen a name for the baby, a girl, and was naturally terribly upset but showed enormous powers of control.

By this time I was becoming something of the Gammon expert on marine construction work, and so, when we were awarded the contract to build a main coastal wharf at Port Swettenham in Malaya, I was chosen to be in charge of it. By the nature of things in the contracting business it was never possible to give much notice of a move from one job to another, and we had to make hurried preparations to let our house, and find somewhere to live near the new job. Loyang was by now finished and taken over by the Navy, and I was not sorry to leave Singapore, and see some more of the country, and Budge too felt the same.

Chapter 8

Malaya

After a short period we left for Kuala Lumpur, leaving Ah King and family to remain in Singapore until we found a house. At first we stayed at the Station Hotel, and while Budge house hunted, I went daily by train to Port Swettenham to make preparations to get the work started. Port Swettenham was then a small village on a creek surrounded by mangrove swamps, and the tidal range of the creek was about 16 feet, so that a lot of the village houses were wooden, and built on "bakau" piles a tree with the peculiar property of being practically everlasting when under water, but rotting within a few weeks if dry . There were no shops, except the Malay and Chinese stalls, and the nearest town was Klang, and a pretty miserable town it was. We had decided therefore to remain in Kuala Lumpur, where we had some friends, and where Budge could occupy herself while I was at work. With the help of these friends she found a Chinese owned wooden house on the Ampang Road, backing on to a tin mine on the outskirts of the town, and we decided to rent it until we could find something better. It was reasonably comfortable, had a garden, and although not as modern as our Singapore house, was bearable, and the climate in K.L. was much more agreeable.

We spent some months in K.L.and I went to the work most days by train, sometimes by car. The work was fairly straightforward with very long, reinforced concrete piles being driven into the deep mud of the river estuary until the required set was achieved; that is to say that the pile would not penetrate more than a predetermined distance in 10 blows of the three ton steam hammer. The main difficulty, as far as I can recall was dealing with the railway representative on site, who, while he knew nothing of civil engineering, felt it necessary to justify his position on the work. His normal job on the railway, I learned was a traffic superintendent, and he was a most difficult man to deal with, the reason I suspect, for banishing him to Port Swettenham.

After a few months of this work, a lot of it was getting repetitious, and a visit from me once or twice a week, was usually sufficient to keep it going smoothly, so, on one of my visits to Singapore, I asked for additional work to keep me busy, and in due course an enormous bundle of specifications and drawings arrived for a tender to be made for underground fuel storage tanks at Port Dickson for the R.A.F. The war had been going on for a year or so by this time, and, although in Malaya we were comparatively unaffected by it, it meant that works for defence purposes got top priority, and were wanted as soon as possible. With the drawings was a letter from Gammons asking me to draw up a tender and submit it as soon as possible. We did not employ Quantity Surveyors, so that I had to do all this myself, before I could begin to calculate costs, and so I had a few weeks of concentrated desk work before I was able to send the draft tender to our head office for checking and submission to R.A.F. Works Dept. In due course we were awarded the contract; I cannot recall the exact figure it would cost but it was for several million Singapore dollars and the work was estimated to last about two years.

I was to be in charge of the contract, so once again this meant moving house to Port Dickson. We were delighted, as P.D. was a delightful little seaside village, a favoured holiday place, as one or two firms , the railways,and the government had rest houses there, and there were miles of unspoilt beaches. It was also the site of the headquarters of the Malay Regiment which had British officers. By this time Budge was pregnant again, but not advanced enough to make it unwise to move, and we knew that there was a very good English woman doctor living there,by name of Dr. Kibble.

We moved as soon as we could, and to begin with lived in a bungalow over- looking the sea about seven miles south of P.D. while I started preparations for the work, and also applied for planning permission to build a bungalow, in Gammon's name, for us to live in. This stirred up a hornets nest of petty bureaucrats,who for no valid reason, did not wish to give us a licence to build, and it took many months of arguing, until finally we got the R.A.F.to intercede using emergency regulations, and we got the licence. Bureaucrats of this kind permeated the Singapore and Malayan Civil Service and continued with their obstructive tactics in every way, completely oblivious of the fact that there was a war on.

The first job to do, before the work could commence, was to clear the site, and we did this by stretching a heavy steel cable between two large D8 Caterpillar tractors and driving them along about twenty yards apart, so that the rubber trees were pulled over, and left to be cut up by hand. It was a most satisfying occupation, and I, and even Budge, occasionally took the place of the tractor drivers.

After this was done we scraped out enormous deep holes, using large Le Tourneau scrapers, laid concrete foundations, and then assembled long steel tanks on to the foundations, which we covered with about 500 m/m of concrete. Back went all the excavated material on top then another meter of concrete, all to be completely covered with more earth, on which eventually trees were to be planted. All this was of course a complete waste of time as it turned out, for the Japanese invaded and captured the whole of the Malay Peninsula before the work was finished.

Budge worked as my secretary, unpaid, in the bamboo thatched hut that was my office as long as she was able to, but her pregnancy was progressing well, and soon the time came for Dr.Kibble to take her into her own house for the birth. We had engaged another Chinese young woman to be nurse for the first few weeks, and shortly Caroline Susan was born; September 10th 1941 being the red letter day, and after a bit Budge and the baby returned to our bungalow, which by now had been built.

Three months later the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour, and we in Malaya were in the forefront of the war. To begin with we all thought that Malaya and Singapore were so well defended that any attempted Japanese invasion would easily be repelled, and this sense of security was enhanced when the battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse arrived and sailed up the East coast to repel any attempt by the Japanese to land on the north of the peninsula. This sense of security lasted only a few hours, and I remember turning on the radio one evening and hearing the B.B.C. announce in an unemotional tone that both battleships had been sunk by enemy aircraft. It was devastating and we all suddenly realised that there was no chance at all of stopping an invasion,and that the only hope was that the enemy could be stopped on their way down the peninsula, which was for the most part thick jungle with few roads leading south.

It was not very long before we heard that the Japanese had landed in the north at Kota Baru in spite of resistance, and, as time went on, it was clear that they were coming south, although having to fight all the way. Lack of roads did not bother them as they did not rely on tanks or road transport, but came on down in small parties on foot or bicycle, got behind our defensive positions, and then attacked from all sides, and it seemed that nothing would stop them until they reached the Johore Straits separating Malaya from Singapore. By this time they had complete air superiority, our pre-war planes being no match for their Zeros.

Naturally I was getting very worried about the safety of Budge and Sue, or Piglet as she was then known, and with great difficulty persuaded Budge that they both should go to Singapore which even then we thought was impregnable. It was only Sue's presence that convinced Budge that this was the sensible thing to do, and so I one day drove them both there, and after a day or so returned to Port Dickson. The new amah decided that she would return to her family. Budge first of all stayed with the Ransomes in their house in the Hospital grounds, and meanwhile arranged for us to get our own house back from the tenants who had taken it.

I remained on in Port Dickson for a further period of some weeks,still getting on with the contract, but gradually the labour force was disappearing, as the Japanese got nearer. There never had been many Europeans near P.D., just a few rubber planters, whom we rarely saw, and who, for the most part had been called up to the Volunteers, the Police Commissioner named Jack Masefield and his wife Veronica, or "Big" as Budge irreverently called her, as she was rather large, and the Customs Official named Darby and his mother. We knew these well and what little social life there was centred on them. Veronica and her baby had already left before Budge, as also had Mrs. Darby who had returned to England, and soon only I and Jack Masefield were left in the area which was looking increasingly deserted. Then one evening, Jack called on me and told me that he had been warned to get ready to leave, and that I too should do so. We could already hear heavy gunfire, and rumours were abounding that the Japs were already infiltrating south of us, so neither of us was insisting on staying. Next morning, when I woke, I saw a large amount of smoke in the direction of Port Dickson village, and, on going in my car to investigate, saw that the Masefield house was ablaze, and of course, realised that Jack had set fire to it and gone. I returned quickly home; loaded up what possessions I could into our works lorry; put Ah King into it with whoever else of our dwindled staff wanted to leave; took Amah and the two small children with me in the Morris 8 and departed at speed. I had been warned that there were robbers on the road south taking advantage of the chaos to stage hold ups, but Darby had given me a revolver, so I felt safe, and in fact we met with no such trouble. However, some way south of Malacca, a flight of Jap planes came over the road, and we all got out and dashed for the ditch, and the bombs fell harmlessly in the jungle. The rest of the journey was without incident, and it was with great relief that we finally rolled over the Johore Causeway to safety as we thought.

Chapter 9

Singapore again

Soon after arrival, and having collected Budge and Sue, and settled into our Bukit Tinggal house, I took what papers and equipment I had managed to save to Gammons, and enquired as to what they had for me to do. To begin with, there was not much, except to bring the accounts of the Port Dickson job up to date, so that we could be paid. Even at this late date the Government was assuring all that Singapore would be held, and that there was no thought of surrender, or even evacuation of women and children, and rumours were flying around that massive reinforcements were on the way, both of aircraft and troops, and that the Japs would be driven back and then annihilated. However, it was not long before the Japs were in Johore and air raids became more or less continuous. Jap bombing was not all that accurate and one could always tell when the bombs were released, as the leading plane in an arrow head formation of 6 or 8 planes would fire a burst of from a machine gun, and all planes would then drop their bombs. The formations flew as low as they liked, as there was only anti- aircraft fire to worry them; the very few Hurricane fighters that had arrived earlier,and had been hailed as our saviours, having either been shot down or evacuated. During one of the daylight air raids,Budge was in the lavatory, and the nose cone of an anti aircraft shell smashed through the roof and landed at her feet. She kept it as a souvenir for some time, but must have left it behind in the evacuation.

Towards the middle of January, in great secrecy, all expatriate women were told to register their names and addresses and telephone numbers, and to hold themselves ready for evacuation. We, of course, did this and awaited events. Then one night when we were in bed and asleep, the telephone rang and Budge was told to report by midnight to a nearby house. This I think was one of the worst moments of my life. We both knew what it meant, and had no certainty or prospect of ever seeing one another again, but on the other hand there was a sense of relief that Budge and Sue would be safe. So we got out the car and drove to the meeting place in pitch darkness and there found a lot of other wives and children, and that is where we said good bye. Later we were told that all had been safely embarked, and had sailed, we knew not where. I was not to hear of them for several weeks, nor see them again for two and a half years.

By this time I, along with other Gammon engineers was busy supervising the digging of trenches and other defensive positions, on the north coast just west of the causeway, using any labour and machines that were available. These positions were to be manned by an Australian Regt. and by Chinese so called communist volunteers whom the Govt. had hurriedly called up, given rifles to, but no uniforms, and sent to the coast. On one of my trips to the site in my car a Mig fighter machined gunned the line of traffic that I was in but nothing hit me, and on the same day I witnessed a Jap bomber brought down by anti aircraft fire, crashing within a short distance of where I was. Of course we all rushed over,and some Singapore Volunteers drew their pistols in case there were survivors, but there were not, all the crew being quite dead. We all felt much better for this act of retribution.

When the families had all gone, I stayed on in the Bukit Tunggal house and was joined by Gordon Ransome and a man called Henry Stokes who was the Times correspondent in Singapore, and Ah King and family continued to look after us. Stokes as a guest, had the dubious advantage for us of knowing exactly what was going on, and none of it was in the least hopeful. Gordon and I were determined not to be taken prisoner, and so began making preparations to escape when the time came. Gordon kept a small pram dinghy at the Singapore Yacht Club and so we stocked this up with a few tins of food and some water, hoping to be able to sail to Sumatra, and not really giving any thought as to what we should do when we got there. By this time the Japs were in massive strength in Johore, and shelling and bombing Singapore day and night. Finally they landed just where my trenches were, and got a foothold. Later that morning, while Gordon and I were having breakfast, a mortar bomb landed in the garden, and Ah King came in to us, and said that he could not stay any longer, and was taking Amah and the children in to town. He had been marvellous and I gave him all the money I had, and said a sorrowful good-bye. Stokes had left for Australia a day or two earlier, and that morning Gordon got a summons from the Government to report for departure along with other Hospital staff, so I was on my own and wondering what to do, when a call came from our Company Secretary for me to go immediately to a certain dock, taking only what I could carry. I hurriedly packed a few shirts and pants, got in the car and drove to the docks while an air raid was in progress. At the docks I met Fancott, the secretary, and he told me that we were being evacuated by the Navy, in return for some of our staff having demolished the oil refinery equipment and set fire to the oil tanks, and I got the impression that Fancott had driven a hard bargain! I parked the car and handed the keys to a nearby Chinese docker and said that he could have it and we embarked on a small fleet auxiliary, H.M.S. Francol. When on board and cast off, we learnt that it was carrying petrol and explosives which was not very encouraging, but we were so glad to get away on anything that it made no impression on us.

Chapter 10

Escape

The ship was very crowded, so we all stood or sat where we could, and after a few hours heard the sound of a flight of planes which we knew could not possibly be ours, and sure enough the Tannoy sounded an air raid alarm with an order for all passengers to get below. Everyone would much have preferred to have stayed on deck, but of course we could not, and so crowded down into the very narrow passages below decks, which, I noted with horror, were a mass of steam pipes, and I thought that if a bomb splinter punctured one of them we should all suffer the most horrible death. The one gun on the stern started firing, and we blessed the gun crew, as it kept the planes from coming too low to machine gun us, or to bomb accurately, and then we heard the familiar burst of machine gun fire,and knew that the bombs had been released. A very short time later we heard we heard the explosions, and knew that we had not been hit. The planes then flew away and we were allowed back on deck , and the gun crew told us that there had been eight planes; all had dropped there bombs together, but all had fallen well to starboard of us. There were no further alarms, and soon darkness came to shelter us.

We had not been told where we were bound for, and we all thought Australia or India, but we were wrong, for as soon land appeared, it turned out to be Java, and before long we entered the port of Batavia, (now Djakarta), and docked. We were not allowed ashore and remained on board Francol for two or three days, while somebody decided where we should go next. Meanwhile we had heard that Singapore had surrendered, while we were at sea, and realised that it would not be very long before the Japs came and took Java, as they already had, as it was rumoured, taken Sumatra without resistance, and Java had no means of defence, having relied on the British hold on Singapore. In addition the Javanese population were only too keen to get rid of the Dutch, and were already robbing and killing Europeans in parts of Java. Some passengers managed to wangle their way on board a ship bound for Australia, mostly either Australians or New Zealanders, but the rest of us were not even allowed ashore, and had not the slightest idea where our families were or even if they were alive. We did hear a rumour that a ship had been sunk carrying a lot of women evacuees which later turned out to be true, the women evacuees, for the most part being nurses bound for Australia. Eventually we were ordered ashore to board a Dutch ship, the Oranje, which we gratefully did, firstly being screened to make sure that we were not deserters from the armed services in Singapore, as there had been ugly scenes on the dockside when Australian soldiers had tried to force themselves on board our ship and other ships before us.

On Oranje I met up with Gordon Ransome, and one or two others with whom I had lost touch, and before long when the ship was completely full, we set sail. There were quite a few women on board, Dutch and British, who had been hanging around in various ships for some time, so that all cabins were full, and there were still a lot of women without cabins. To begin with we just went to sleep on deck where we could, but soon the Dutch sense of propriety asserted itself, and all men were ordered to sleep in one of the holds, and the women in another, and we were provided with straw filled palliasses.

We set sail as soon as all were on board, still not knowing where we were going, but as usual rumours were rife. Sailing time was so arranged that we should pass through the Sunda Straits between Sumatra and Java in darkness, as that was where Jap submarines, if any, would lie in wait, but we went through without even an alarm, although we had to keep our life jackets on at all times, which did not make for comfortable sleeping, Once out into the Indian Ocean we could all relax, and everything became quite jolly. Food was fairly short, as the ship was carrying twice its normal number of passengers, and we had one main meal a day, which we queued for and ate standing up, and I personally lost a stone on the voyage. Eventually we arrived at Colombo, but were not allowed ashore although one or two did manage to disembark to join their families in South Africa. If I had known then that Budge and Sue were already in Durban, I might also have managed to get off. Soon however we sailed on to Bombay.

Chapter 11

India

We were struck, on landing at Bombay, by the peace time atmosphere prevailing. Customs and Immigration were as fussy as usual, and those who had lost their passports had some trouble in landing, but fortunately I had mine with me so went through quickly enough, but was stopped by customs, although I only had a few shirts and shorts in my small case, and had to surrender the small pistol that Darby had given me in Port Dickson, although I got it back later. Gammon's manager in India met us, and took us to places where we could get a bed, and Gordon and I got a small flat with another Gammon man called Thomas, who seemed to live on Valium, and was known as Blob.

I had left Singapore about 24 hours before the surrender, probably on Feb 11th 1939, and referring to my old passport, I see that we landed at Bombay on March 9th, and I was not commissioned in to the Army until April 1st. I had heard through my father, soon after landing that Budge and Sue were all right, and that they were in Durban in South Africa, and that was a tremendous load off my mind. We had heard many rumours that many evacuee ships had been sunk, and of course I had been frantically worried that they might have been on one of them. However I did not get a letter until well into April and so knew very little of their general well being. Later it emerged that Sue had been very ill on the ship, losing weight rapidly, and that therefore Budge and Eryl, who was with her, had decided to disembark at Durban, instead of going on to England. Once ashore Sue quickly recovered, and a photo I received, showed her blooming in health. They soon moved from Durban to Umkommas, and later to Greytown, where they rented a cottage, and remained there until July 1944, when they joined me in Ceylon, but more of that later.

After a short time I went along to Army Headquarters to join up, but after studying some files, they told me that I was in a reserved occupation and was earmarked to go and build bridges right up in the north east corner on the border with Burma, in the area where the retreating Army were crossing back into India in dribs and drabs. I learned that Gammon himself had somehow arranged this without consulting me; indeed I had never met him as he rarely visited Malaya but looked after the Indian side of the business. I was furious, as, after my experiences, I was determined to join the Army, but nothing I said made the slightest difference to officialdom. However, one morning Blob arrived back at the flat and said that he had just been accepted in the Indian Engineers, on the Transportation side, which he said had absolute priority in recruiting, so that afternoon I rushed along to their headquarters, and was interviewed by a Col. Langley to whom I explained my difficulty, and how much I wanted to join the Army. He said that there would be no problem, and recruited me on the spot, and told me to await written orders. These orders arrived in due course, and I was told to report to No 1 Transportation Training Centre at Deolali. Enclosed was a railway warrant, and an extract of a Part 2 order to the effect that I had been commissioned as a Captain in the Indian Engineers. There was also a short note to say that although a Captain, I should only wear one pip while at the T.T.C.

The T.T.C. was just a basic training depot for learning the most elementary military necessities such as drill, compass reading, arms drill, simple tactics, etc. and as I had had all this taught both at school and at Cambridge, it was no surprise to me when I passed out top at the end of the course, as most of the other trainees had had no such training, and a great many of them thought it all a great waste of time. Deolali was a desolate place and there was no outside amusement whatever, but one could get occasional leave to go down to Bombay, which I did once or twice, as some of my friends from Malaya were still there, awaiting ships for wherever they had permission to go to, so all in all I was glad when the course was completed and we could all disperse to our final appointments. In general, most of the trainee officers came from jobs connected with the loading or off-loading of ships, and so most were posted to dock operating companies,then being formed, but to begin with I was posted in command of a Dock Maintenance company but this was only done to give me the rank of Major, and I never served with it, if indeed it ever existed, although I was it's C.O. for about 3 months. Eventually I was posted to command 220 Port Construction Company, and remained in that position until I was demobilised in 1946, and felt no desire to leave it, although while in Calcutta, before the invasion of Malaya, I was offered a position on the staff at Dum Dum, where the planning took place, which meant promotion, but having seen the staff at work I refused it, preferring to go into Malaya with my Company .

I raised the Company in Bombay, occupying a large block of flats in the Colaba district with other Companies being raised , and there we received raw recruits whom we had to train. I was given a 2i/c, a Captain Sandy Mills and two subalterns Jimmy Dodds and Jimmy Milne, both Scots and both incipient alcoholics, and older than subalterns normally were. This period was pretty dull, and we occupied ourselves with drill, route marches, and weapon training in the morning, starting at 6 am reveille, and had the afternoon off, except the duty officer who was one of the subalterns. Every so often I would have to act as duty field officer for the whole group. I joined the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, where occasionally I would dine in lone splendour, as no officer below the rank of major was permitted to enter its sacred portals, but more often I would go out somewhere with Sandy Mills, or the man I shared a room with, a fellow major. At last this boring period ended at any rate for us, and the Company was sent to a place in the Ghats ( or hills ) where there was a river,and we were to train in bridging, building wharves and general construction work. All the men posted to the Company, with the exception of a few sweepers and drill instructors were supposedly tradesmen, such as carpenters, welders, mechanics and even divers, although it was obvious that some had obtained their certificates of competency by bribery or other underhand means, All were paid different rates of pay according to their trades, the trade of diver being by far the highest, and well above what any of them could possibly have earned in civilian employment, so I decided that, as I was empoweredto regrade, we ought to trade test most of them before we had to build things in earnest. Most of this went smoothly enough, and we learned the capabilities of each man fairly quickly some being up graded and some down. My main suspicion was of our two divers capabilities one being an overweight Anglo-Indian who I was pretty sure had never dived in his life, so one day I ordered him to don his suit and dive. After a lot of excuses, he finally did, with help, get his suit and helmet on with an increasing look of panic, and was put in the water, sinking like a stone; the pump men started pumping, and shortly the diver shot to the surface on his back with the suit fully inflated, unable to get at his helmet valve with his outstretched arms. We hauled him ashore and got him undressed, and he then confessed that he was not a diver at all, but a shopkeeper, who had seen the opportunity of earning good money in the army, and had somehow got his trade certificate, how I did not enquire as I knew I would not get at the truth. He was grateful to be regraded as a store keeper at a greatly reduced rate of pay, and we trained our own divers later from the more intelligent tradesmen

We remained at this camp for some weeks, with an interval at a delightful place close to the sea, which in peace time was a week- end resort near Bombay, and there we trained in combined operations, which mainly consisted of getting on and off landing craft. At this period we were the only Port Construction Company in the Indian theatre of war, so it was fairly obvious that if and when an invasion of Burma or Arakan did take place we should be on it, and I remember thinking that whilst my men were good tradesmen for the most part, they emphatically were not fighting soldiers,with the exception of a few ex regular Indian Army, such as the Subedar Major, Havildar Major, and a smattering of N.C.O,s who were with us for discipline and administration. Finally a movement order came, to the effect that we were to move to Chittagong, in West Bengal, and as usual in the army we were given very few days to pack up, and move to Calcutta by train. We sailed from Calcutta on a troopship, and a short time later docked at Chittagong, a God forsaken place at the best of times but made much more repulsive by the effects of the famine that was raging in this part of India. There were dead and dying in the streets, and corpses frequently floating down the river which bordered on our quarters. At first one was shocked and horrified, but it did not take long to become used to it, and to be quite callous.

We did not stay long in Chittagong, but soon got orders to proceed to a small settlement called Cox's Bazaar further south down the coast. I, with a small advance party,went ahead by coastal steamer, and saw to accommodation, and the rest of the Company with vehicles and equipment, followed. Cox,s Bazaar was on an estuary surrounded by creeks and deep in jungle, and pre-war had no doubt been a small trading post for rice etc, but had now become the principal port to supply the army in its hoped for advance into the Arakan, which had been overrun by the Japanese the previous year. We were not to stay long there but were to go on down to a jungle clearing known as Tumbru Ghat, to prepare to advance further into the Arakan, when the Maungdaw - Buthidaung area was recaptured. At Tumbru there was not much for us to do except keep the men busy and trained, and we built a small wharf on the creek. I had managed to acquire two outboard motors, together with two infantry assault boats, folding canvas affairs with flat wooden bottoms, and I made frequent trips down the creek to see if I could get an idea of the site where we were to build the forward small port. These trips were always good fun as, if one got the balance right, the boat would plane at a very good speed, and there was always a slight risk of running into a Jap patrol, although I never did. At Tumbru we had our first casualty, albeit self inflicted, when, just as I was leaving to visit Cox's, I was called back to some commotion that was going on in the camp. When I got back to my office I was confronted by a sepoy with a notice hung round his neck to the effect that he wished to fight the Japs. He was on guard duty, and was armed with our only tommy gun which he was certainly not supposed to have. I tried to keep as calm as possible, and sent for our Subedar an enormous Sikh, to come and deal with the man, and find out what was troubling him, when suddenly the sepoy, first pointed the gun at me, and then held it to his chest and pulled the trigger, blowing himself to pieces.

We remained at Tumbru Ghat for some weeks,waiting for the Maungdaw area to be recaptured, and then we got the usual sudden order to move up. The supply of our forces in the forward areas depended on water transport, as there was not as yet a road to them suitable for all the heavy transport, and it was to be our job to build a port on the river, on to which food and ammunition could be off loaded. I had already indented for the necessary timber and ironwork that I thought would be necessary to build two wharves at different levels to suit the tidal range, and this was starting to arrive, and I had also obtained the plant additional to our own war equipment. So, as soon we were settled in to our camp on Maungdaw Island we started work. It was an island only in name, being separated from the mainland by a small muddy creek The Japs were only a short distance down the river, so we had to keep alert. Every now and then two Zeros would come over and sometimes strafe us, but never seemed to do any serious damage, the Indian Air Force having air superiority meant that they did not stay too long on any strafe.

Maungdaw was in India, right on the Burma boundary, and, on the other side of the Arakan hills was Buthidaung in Burma, and there was a tunnel joining the two areas. The whole area had been first captured by the Japs, and then, in the year before our arrival had been recaptured by the British, who had then been driven out again. This latest offensive on our part was aimed at the port of Akyab on the tip of the Arakan peninsula, which, once captured and working would open the way to the invasion,and reconquest of Burma. In fact, as things finally turned out, the Japanese forces were so completely defeated by our separate offensive from Imphal, that Akyab was left undefended and the final conquest of Burma took place through Rangoon, but that was a year away.

The Japs put up a tremendous resistance round Buthidaung and there seemed to be a virtual stalemate in the Arakan, while the Imphal offensive was being prepared. We were a bit worried when the 2nd Indian Division was withdrawn to be replaced by the 5th. We came under the one Division on the front for administration only, as we were not Division troops, being an independent company. I had an occasion to go to Division H.Q. at Buthidaung for some purpose or other one day, and next day heard that the Japs had infiltrated round the Division, and cut it off from it's support forces during that night. They had attacked a field hospital by the road and slaughtered all it's occupants, and had occupied the tunnels. On my way back to the company I had come across a stranded 15cwt truck whose passengers were trying to manhandle it out of a stream it was in, and with my 4 wheel drive weapon carrier had pulled it clear. While we were thus engaged a shell or mortar bomb had fallen on the road nearby, but we just thought it was an occasional round that the Japs had loosed off, and went on our way, How wrong we were, for the Japs were across that road that evening and cut us off from our rations supply base. This so called siege lasted about two weeks before it was broken by our troops with the rout of the enemy, who by then were in a pitiable half starved condition as they had not managed to capture the division supply base. We in Maungdaw had no infantry or fighting troops near us and had had to organise our own defense in case we came under attack, and we dug trenches and dug-out Bren gun posts and put sharpened bamboo stakes round our camp, and every night fully manned these defensive positions. Fortunately the Japs never came for which I was very grateful, my main worry being to keep the sepoys on guard at night awake in the defensive positions, which meant that one of us four officers had to patrol the perimeter continuously. We were certainly not fighting troops.

Some time after this , a young Lieutenant from an Indian Regiment arrived at our camp and asked to see me alone, and then in a very secretive manner asked me whether we could build small bridges over the streams on the other side of the Arakan hills, but was very reluctant to tell me what sort of bridges he was talking about. After a bit, I dragged out of him that they should be capable of carrying light tanks. I replied that I could not answer his enquiry unless I had a look at the sites myself, and so he gave me some map references, and I agreed to go and have a look. As soon as I could, I took my driver and our Havildar Major, Jokhey Singh,who was the only Gurkha in the company, and easily the best soldier and shot, and drove up the Naugedok pass (known as Nockidock) through the tunnels towards our objective. On the way we saw a Sikh company advancing across an open space intent on capturing some objective in the jungle, and a little later came across a small group of officers sitting in a hollow. I enquired of them if it was safe to go further forward and one of them replied that it was O.K. if I did not mind being shot, but they did not try to stop us, and thinking it was rather a weak joke we pressed on, only to find a bit further on a few Gurkhas crouched in a ditch looking very alert. Fortunately, having Jokhey Singh with us, he was able to talk to them, in spite of their shushing signals,and we learned that there was a body of Japs a short distance in front. We retreated to our transport as quickly as we could, and I never did see the site I was asked to inspect, and heard no more about it before we were moved elsewhere.

Our work at Maungdaw was now completed, and there did not seem to be anything more that we were likely to be asked to do. We were ordered to return to Tumbru Ghat, and hold ourselves ready for a further move. We had been in the Arakan as long as most troops, and hints had already been dropped that we were likely to be withdrawn from this theatre of operations for a rest. Before we left Tumbru we had our second self inflicted casualty. A sepoy on guard duty deserted his post with his loaded rifle, and an immediate search was started, as we knew that he could not get very far without transport, and that he had none, but were alarmed as to what he might get up to. Eventually he was spotted some distance away, standing by the road. The Subedar ordered him to return to camp which he refused to do, and he threatened any who approached him. At this stage I was sent for, the idea being, that he might obey me, and in any case I was the boss. Before I approached him I got Jokhey Singh to lie down and cover him with his rifle with instructions to shoot him if he showed any signs of shooting me. Although he was at least 100 yards away I was confident that Jokhey Singh would not miss. I then walked up to him as calmly and quietly as I could,and started to talk to him, asking him what the trouble was and offering home leave. He listened quite rationally for a bit ,and then suddenly raised his rifle, pointed it at me, and said " If you don't go away I'll shoot you ". I could do nothing but obey him, and turned my back on him, and walked away. We still had the problem of preventing him from leaving the area, and while we were pondering what to do a jeep with two British M.Ps drove by. I stopped them and asked whether they had any tear gas,or some such thing and explained the circumstances, whereupon one of the idiots jumped out of the jeep and marched towards the man ,drawing his pistol as he did so. This tactic might have worked with a British soldier, but made the sepoy put his rifle under his chin, and blow the top of his head off. The M.P. nearly fainted in shock, and I berated him vehemently for his criminal stupidity.

Chapter 12

Ceylon

We soon got our orders to move, and learned that we were going to Ceylon for a rest and some leave for the troops, and so we returned to Chittagong and embarked on a troop ship with all our equipment. There were few other troops on the vessel so that I was OC ship and had the best cabin, not that it was a stateroom. It meant that I had to do the rounds of the ship every day with the captain, which helped pass the time. To us, who had had a ration of one bottle of whisky and three bottles of beer a month for the past year or so the cold beers and decent food were heaven,and the voyage to Colombo seemed to last no time at all. We disembarked at Colombo, and the Company moved into a transit camp, while I stayed with our new Director of Transportation,as I had to be briefed and given orders for our next job. We did not remain more than a day or two in Colombo, but went by special train to Trincomalee on the north east coast, reputed to be the finest natural harbour in the east, and a major Naval Base.

On arrival there,we were put into a camp of bamboo huts, and spent the first week or so checking our stores, sending men on leave and doing a small amount of work, building a slipway. Life certainly was not too strenuous,and so we had time to practise a bit of diving, but without the cumbersome suits. We experimented using army gas masks connected to an air compressor with a crude filter of cotton wool in the air line. This was very successful for shallow dives, and we continued using it for all our underwater work, saving a great deal of time. For leisure times there was a very good Officer's club run by the Navy, and there was even female company in the shape of Navy nurses and a few Navy wives. For the men there was a Naafi also run by the Navy and a very great improvement on the Canteen Services (India), which we had had in Deolali. There were also many other units stationed there and one could meet new people to have a drink with, instead of the same three faces.

When we were in the Arakan an Army Order had been circulated to the effect that officers and men who had wives and families,and who wished to bring them out to India and had living accommodation for them, could bring them out to live with them when serving in a non operational area. This order specifically excluded those officers serving in operational areas and was clearly meant to benefit Staff in Calcutta or other peacetime areas. When I had received this Order,I had written a strongly worded letter and had had it forwarded to Army H.Q.through our Brigadier who had wholeheartedly agreed with me. Army H.Q. must have had a flood of such letters as very soon the Order was rescinded, the only condition now being that the person concerned must have accommodation available for his family, of course, outside an operational area, This at least meant that one could see one's family when on leave. European accommodation in Trinco was practically non existent, or not vacant, but fortunately a fellow officer who had his wife with him in Trinco, having been working in Ceylon before the war, was shortly to be posted away, and his wife was going to India. They were living in a ghastly little native house in a back street of Trinco, and I seized on the chance to rent it as it gave me the chance of getting Budge and Sue to join me, if only for the limited time I was likely to be in Ceylon. When I left they could go to Ootacamund, a very lovely hill station in India, with a perfect climate. I rented the house and made application for them to be allowed to leave South Africa for India, which was granted far more quickly than I had feared, and very soon they were on their way.

A week or so before they arrived, I got notice of when the ship was likely to dock at Colombo and applied for a fortnight leave and was granted it. I also booked a room at the hotel in Nuwara Elyia, a hill station, for a week after they had landed. The main difficulty was finding any accommodation in Colombo, even for one night, as it was absolutely full. However, Fancott, the Gammon Company Secretary, was living in Ceylon at the time, and offered to put us up for the night, so I felt all was arranged. Unfortunately he fell ill just before Budge's arrival and his wife cabled me that they could not have us. I was desperate, and on the day before the ship docked spent hours looking for somewhere for us to sleep. and finally got two camp beds and a cot in a kind of convent run by nuns, as a great concession

I waited feverishly for the ship to appear next day in the harbour; and when it did, cadged a lift out to it, a fellow officer in the Army being port commandant, a job he had had in peacetime. When I got on board and found Budge and Sue, of course I was overjoyed, but Sue pointed at me and said " That's not my Daddy ", little beast, but she looked angelic! However in our joy at being together again we ignored such remarks, and even put up with our uncomfortable lodging happily, and next day took the train to Nuwara Elyia. As soon as we got there we asked the hotel manager to find us an ayah, and very soon a minute little old Sinhalese woman presented herself with good references, and we engaged her for the week. I cannot remember much about the place except that it was very beautiful, and I think rained a lot, and also there were more flies about than in Egypt or the Sudan, as it was a peacetime horse racing centre. Clearly the horses were stabled near the hotel and peacetime standards of cleanliness had slipped. We were very careful to see that all Sue's food and drink was sterilised.

Chapter 13

Cocos Islands

When the week was up we took the train to Trincomalee, and settled in to our rented hovel, taking with us the little ayah who wanted to stay with us and did indeed until we left India for demobilisation. I still of course had my job to do and resumed it with the Company, the only difference being that I no longer lived in camp. By this time we had transferred to a different site on the harbour frontage called by the rather romantic name of China Bay, and there we were building a permanent wharf in concrete for future naval use. When this was nearing completion, I got a signal to present myself in Colombo as soon as possible, which I did, fearing the worst that it meant a transfer, and separation from Budge and Sue after such a short time. When I reported to Colombo I was told that I was to be one of a small party to survey a proposed site for an airstrip in the Cocos and Keeling Islands, which lay just over half way between Ceylon and Australia, and that we were to leave in a day or two. The other members of the party were an American Airforce Colonel, my C.O. a full Colonel,and a Brigadier from Mountbatten's HQ,and it was all most terribly secret, so all I could tell Budge was that I would be away for a few days. In a day or two, we five went by car to a stretch of water near Galle on the south coast, and embarked in a Catalina flying boat and were flown to the Cocos, a flight of about twelve hours. We had a minimum crew and as I was the most junior officer, I had to sleep in the gun blister, a most uncomfortable place. We arrived early in the morning over this most picturesque group of coral islands and came down in the lagoon. Some Malay boats came out and ferried us ashore on to Home Island,and we had a rations breakfast. The group of islands consisted of Home Island, Virgin Island,and Long Island, in a circle round a lagoon of the clearest possible water. There was only one entry for larger vessels to the lagoon, and this had a rocky bar, and was only navigable at certain stages of the tide. The lagoon teemed with fish, and there were no sharks in it. As soon as we were ready we took a walk round the small island, and were introduced to some of the people, and also visited the " palace" which was an ugly large villa built in white glazed lavatory bricks, and when we saw inside we got an insight in to Clunies Ross's life style, as he had evidently left in a hurry, and nothing had been touched. Another interesting item was that all the garden paths were kerbed with upturned bottles, most of them antique in that they had rounded bases.

The islands belonged to a Clunies Ross, who somehow had become the ruler, and had been populated by a small number of Malays, who all lived on Home Island and grew copra on Long Island,and also built beautiful small boats. No money was allowed and the inhabitants got in exchange for their work and produce, tokens from Clunies Ross. Every few months a ship would arrive to collect and pay for the copra, and bring whatever goods and food had been ordered. Clunies Ross retained the cash , and sold the goods to the inhabitants in exchange for the tokens. It sounds like slavery, but it was not and most of the money that came to the Island was used for the benefit of the Islanders with their simple way of life. Certainly when we arrived they all seemed very happy, but Clunies Ross was not there, having left just before the Japs arrived on their one visit to the islands.

When we had finished our tour of inspection of Home Island, we were taken by boat to Long island, leaving the Brigadier behind to explain to the islanders what we were about, and to have preliminary talks on compensation, as it turned out that he was a Malayan Civil Servant in peacetime.On landing, to my great surprise, we were met by two bearded Americans, who were very surprised and happy to see us, and it turned out that they had been there some months operating a radio station that listened in to Jap broadcasts and transmitted them to their own HQ. They had been there when a Jap patrol had visited the islands and had concealed themselves in a well camouflaged dugout they had built, but fortunately the Japs had not bothered to call in at Long Island, but had concentrated on Home and Virgin Islands, and the islanders had not betrayed them.

On Long Island, my CO and I concentrated on taking soundings and making a short survey for the building of a jetty, while the American colonel did a similar sort of job for the siting of an airstrip.By the time that we had finished this work, it was time to leave to return to Ceylon, and once again we boarded the flying boat, taking the two Americans and their equipment with us. This increased the weight being carried, with the result that the Catalina had great difficulty in taking off, and for some reason we were all ordered to stand as far forward in the cabin as we could. Just as I was convinced that we would run ashore at high speed on Home island, the plane gave a tremendous lurch upwards that made our legs buckle, and we ended up on the floor, but at least we were airborne, and had an uneventful flight back to Ceylon.

By this time I knew that I would be put in charge of the building of the jetty on Long island, and so started to prepare for Budge and Sue to go to Ootacamund in South India, a delightful hill station where I had once spent a very welcome leave when stationed at Deolali. Budge was by now pregnant, and I knew that she would be well looked after there, as it was a very popular European station and very close to Wellington, which was an army peacetime HQ. At that time I only knew that I would be going to the Cocos for a comparatively short period, and hoped that I would be able to get leave later when the baby was due.

Not very long after, I got the orders to take only the men necessary to build the jetty and administer the detachment to the Cocos, while the rest of the Company went back to India. When I got these orders I arranged for my batman, a Madrassi, to escort Budge, Sue and the ayah to Ootacamund by train and ferry, which he was delighted to do, as I gave him a bit of home leave as well, and instructed him to report to the Company in India when his leave was up. I and my detachment then boarded a ship in Colombo and sailed for the Cocos.

The design of the jetty was not my responsibility, and I had simply to choose a site and see it built. This was not much of a problem as it was entirely of steel joist construction and simply needed bolting together, but much of this bolting had to be done under water, where our rather crude diving methods, of which we had had a lot of practice in Trincomalee, proved invaluable. It was a pleasant life with permanent sun, wonderful beaches and fairly easy work, and we were all very happy there. Unfortunately it did not last very long , and after a month or so I got a signal to return to India to rejoin my Company alone, leaving the detachment to follow as shipping became available. A cargo ship was lying in the lagoon preparing to return to Madras, so I embarked on it as the only passenger. Then followed one of the most boring journeys that I have ever had, about ten days of nothing but waiting for the next meal on a small steamer with hardly any deck space and nothing to occupy me. I was thankful when we docked at Madras and I got on to an R.A.F. plane and flew to Calcutta. After a night or two there in a room shared by four other majors, I made enquiries as to the whereabouts of the rest of my Company, and was told that they were in Burma, somewhere north of Rangoon. I collected a Jeep and my batman, who was in a transit camp in Calcutta, and prepared to set out to drive there. I was already not feeling very well, and had begun to run a temperature, so reported to the military hospital where I was told that I had bronchitis and must stay in hospital. I spent about 10 days in the hospital, and my batman called in every day to see me. When I was discharged, I went to the hospital car park to collect the Jeep and found that the battery had been stolen. It took two days to get a replacement , with reams of red tape, loss statements, enquiries etc., but finally we were free to go and set off for Burma. It was a most interesting drive, north east to begin with, then turning southwards and crossing the Irrawaddy and numerous small creeks. It was a well marked road by this time as the army supply line had been using it for some months, but some of the bridges were a bit frightening, being simply two steel cables stretched between the banks with boards laid across them. I confess that, when it was possible, I drove through the streams , rather than over them.

Chapter 14

Burma again

I eventually tracked down the other half of my Company, or so I thought, but found that only Sandy Mills was there with most of them; the two subalterns having been left behind with the rest in Calcutta transit camp to collect the Cocos half. Mills and his detachment had done some small job, what I cannot recall, and were preparing to move to Mandalay. I do remember that we heard of V.E. day while we were eating our dinner in this outlandish place in the Burma jungle. I then had to go to Rangoon, leaving Mills to take the detachment to Mandalay. I spent only a few days in Rangoon, then flew by R.A.F. plane to Myktina ,and was met by one of our drivers and taken to our quarters in Mandalay, by which time Mills and his detachment had arrived there. I cannot remember that we did anything very important,except clear up the mess that the Japs had left and do a few repairs to the riverside wharves, but we were there only for about a month when we were ordered down to Rangoon again to be despatched back to India. Altogether it was an interesting interlude,but not of great significance for the war effort. I had seen the famous Shwe Dagon pagoda in Rangoon, and was very unimpressed, as it was filthy dirty and crowded with beggars, and while there, had also seen a cage where the Japs had kept some war prisoners in inhuman conditions, the cage being too low in which to stand up, and not long enough for lying down. I had also visited Maymo, a pre-war hill station, and found it almost totally deserted.

Chapter 15

India again

` We drove in convoy down to Rangoon and were put on board a ship and taken to Calcutta, where we were put in a transit camp and at last the rest of the Company joined us. We spent a few days there and were then sent on to Ranchi, a town west of Calcutta, where we were to await the projected invasion of Malaya. I remained in Calcutta, staying at the Grand Hotel, a misnomer, as it was pretty squalid, having been used as an officer's transit camp for a couple of years. The reason I remained was that I was required to attend at DumDum, the army HQ., in order to assist in planning our likely requirements in plant and materials for the work of getting any damaged jetties or wharves in working order again. This was the time when I was offered a position on the staff as a lieut- col. but the atmosphere so appalled me, after the freedom that I was used to, that I hurriedly declined.

After a week or two of this, I rejoined the Company at Ranchi, where we remained for about two months, and took the opportunity to send most men on leave and demobilise others. We also had all our vehicles waterproofed, and accumulated more and different plant for use in Malaya. I cannot recall going on leave myself at this time, but I suppose that I must have, especially as the time was drawing near when our second child would be born, and indeed while still in Ranchi, I heard that Eryl had been born on June 22nd, and that Budge and the baby were both well.

About the middle of August we got orders to move back to Calcutta, preparatory to embarking on the ships that were to take us to Malaya. After another short stay in the transit camp we boarded a ship , together with many other units, and as soon as we sailed I was given our orders,and learned that we were to land at Port Dickson, and would be ashore on day 1 and h+1 which meant that we were to follow the first troops ashore in 1 hour. We had by now heard of the dropping of the atom bombs, and of the surrender of Japan, but no one seemed quite certain that the troops in Malaya had surrendered, so that the invasion was to go ahead as if resisted.

Chapter 16

Malaya

It was an impressive sight as we neared the coast of Malaya with what appeared to be most of the Navy lying offshore, including two French battleships and fleets of other ships. Landing started immediately and must be confessed was a shambles. What it would have been like if resisted does not bear thinking about. Fortunately there was none. Some landing craft discharged the men and tanks too far out so that one or two of the latter sank out of sight, and we ourselves dropped into water up to our shoulders,so that it was quite difficult to wade ashore with all our equipment on us, and we would have been in no condition to fight our way up the beach if that had been necessary. On shore there was a harried beachmaster, trying to get everyone off the beach into the woods, and we finally formed up on the road, hoping that no Japs would shoot at us, and began a long march towards Port Swettenham which was to be our destination. On the way, we came across several units of Japanese troops, formally surrendering to our forward units. We had no trouble with them at all , so we were finally convinced that the war was over. When we arrived in Swettenham, we moved in to empty houses,of which there were many, so that the whole Company was well accommodated. Later I inspected the docks and found nothing damaged and, in fact, saw that a few finishing touches had been made to the wharves that I had been building before the war and had not had the time or labour to finish. To begin with we did not have much to do, and I was able to pay a visit to our old house at Port Dickson, finding it quite undamaged, and was most surprised to meet my old office clerk living in it. He was even more surprised to see me, and somewhat embarrassed. I surmised that he had collaborated with the Japs, but could not blame him, as he was a burgher from Malacca, which means that he was a Dutch Eurasian, not really accepted by the Malays or Chinese, and would have found it hard to get work. He told me that Jap officers had been living in the house, and he had only moved in to protect it when they moved out.

Eventually we were given jobs to do, the most interesting being to build ramps for Dukws to run up from the water, Dukws being amphibious lorries used extensively for landing men and materials over beaches or where there were no port facilities. These ramps had to cope with a tidal range of 16 feet so we made them hinged floating jetties and as they were urgently required we had to work 24 hours a day, which involved diving with our makeshift gear in pitch darkness and a tearing current. However the men were wonderful and did it all without complaint.

Demobilisation and extended home leave was now in progress, but I was not yet eligible for either, because I had not joined up until April 1942, and was well down the list for demob, and as for home leave, as I had joined up in India I was not entitled to this either; however with Budge and Sue in Ooty I did not want it.

Most of the men were quite happy to stay on in the army,as long as they got leave occasionally, but for the officers it was a different story,and all were all too keen to get home now that the war was over. We lost Mills on demob and Dodds, our elderly subaltern, and several of our British warrant officers, on home leave. I was sorry to lose two of our WOs who were excellent. Milne became 2i/c, and two young subalterns, fresh out from Britain, joined us

When there was no more to do in Swettenham, we got orders to entrain for Bangkok, which we did, and found that we were to travel in open goods trucks, which was rather a nice way to see the country, as we had our bedding with us,and a portable generator to provide light when we needed it; for food we relied on American K rations. As far as I remember, the journey took two whole days ambling along slowly , as we were not a scheduled train and there was no hurry. My date for demob was approaching,and I knew that I would not be long in Bangkok, but as yet I had had no hint as to who would be my successor, and I thought it quite likely that we would be disbanded. I was most anxious to get away as Eryl had been born on 22nd June and I had not seen her.

Chapter 17

Siam & India

I cannot recall a lot about Siam, or Thailand as it is now known, but I do remember it as a very welcome change from our previous stations as it seemed to have been completely untouched by the war. A disadvantage was that it seemed a lot more humid than Singapore or Malaya. We were quartered in a block of flats that had been used as barracks by the Japanese and our work was to supervise Japanese prisoners of war in the repair and reconstruction of bridges over the river. This was not an onerous job as the Japs were very well supervised by their own officers,were very well disciplined, and very polite; the only difficulty was the language problem. Shortly after we arrived my relief arrived to take over the Company, and so I quickly became less and less involved in the day to day business and more involved in arranging my own travel arrangements back to Ootacamund.

At last the day for my departure arrived, and a farewell parade had been arranged without my knowledge to present me with a hand carved tablet and a teak chest made by our own carpenters. I had served with most of the men for 3 years and I was most touched to see how they seemed genuinely to regret my going, but in spite of this I had no desire to stay. I was driven to the airport in a small convoy and boarded a Dakota of the R.A.F. which was to take us first to Comilla, whence we would go on to Calcutta. There were a few other passengers including some nurses, going back on leave or demob, and the seating was the usual uncomfortable benches longitudinally on the sides of the plane with baggage etc. in the middle. After we had been in the air for an hour or two, the pilot announced that there were thunderclouds forming ahead which he would not be able to fly through, and that he was changing course. Very soon after this announcement, he again came on the Tannoy to say that the thunder clouds were all around us, that it was impossible to turn back, and that he would have to make a forced landing. We were told to put our heads between our knees and our arms over our neighbour's shoulders while he prepared to come down into what looked like thick jungle. I think that all of us thought that we would not survive, but there was no sign of panic. Presently we felt a tremendous crash , and a horrific scraping as we skidded through a paddy field and through the bunds around and the plane came to rest. We were ordered out as fast as possible in case it caught fire, and when we had run far enough away to turn round, saw that the plane was facing the way we had come in, and had lost an engine and broken a wing. The pilot, who was about 20 years old, told us that he had radioed base his position and that we were landing, but that he was not certain that his signal had been heard as there had been no acknowledgement, so he also left an automatic bleeper on in the cockpit. After a bit , while we were wondering what to do, and also a bit apprehensive that we might have to defend ourselves from hostile inhabitants, some villagers started to appear, and we saw that they were unarmed and apparently friendly, a relief because I was the only person with any arms , and that was the old pistol that Darby in Malaya had given me. We learned that we were deep in jungle apart from a few scattered paddy fields and some distance north of Tavoy on the Tenasserim peninsula, amongst tribes that had never given in to the Japs, or indeed to the Burmese central government. They were pretty primitive and poor, but took us to their village a short distance away, and put us all up in their huts. The pilot made them a present of the plane's compass as a goodwill gesture, which they seemed pleased with, although what possible use it would be to them I cannot imagine. Later they brought us some eggs, so we had something to eat. It was by now getting dark,and we all settled down to sleep, the men taking it in turns to keep watch as we did not know whether they were really friendly. Next morning after an uneventful night, tortured by swarms of mosquitos, we wandered about the village, and awaited rescue. When none came the pilot tried to raise a reply on the radio, but in vain and we were discussing who should set off through the jungle with a guide to try and obtain some help when we heard the sound of motor vehicles, and shortly afterwards a detachment of Gurkhas came into the village. They were astonished to see us all alive and unhurt, as they had been told that the plane was a total loss, which of course it was, and that there would be no survivors. They had even brought along a truck full of petrol in order to burn our bodies. They radioed their base for instructions and were told to bring us all out to the nearest air strip where a plane would be laid on for us to continue our journey.

Then followed a long uncomfortable journey in overcrowded trucks on abominable tracks made worse by the torrential rain that had started. however we arrived eventually at a grass air strip where we found another Dakota awaiting us. The crew were a bit doubtful about taking off in the heavy rain from a waterlogged field, but as it was getting late, and there was nowhere to spend the night , they decided to attempt it. We were all very nervous at the prospect of another forced landing or crash but were also very keen to get away and there were no protests. In fact we took off without any trouble and soon got to Comilla where there was a proper military air field.Once there we all sent telegrams to our families or friends that we were all right, as we were told that all relatives had been informed of our deaths. Later I learned from Budge that she had never received any such telegram, knew nothing of our mishap, and was rather surprised at the wording of my telegram.

I do not remember the journey from Comilla to Madras, but I remember well the train up to Ooty, a little rack and pinion steam train fired by wood that had to be collected en route, and even more do I remember Budge and Sue meeting me on the platform, and the feeling that at last ,after all that we had been through, we were to be together again, and this time for good. Sue was very excited,and on arrival at the cottage which Budge had rented , insisted on dragging me through into the new arrival's room without any time to put down what I was carrying, and there I saw Eryl or Pooh as she was later called, and who, at that stage of her life resembled a very small and cheerful Buddha. I was delighted to have such beautiful daughters, and have been ever since.

My demobilisation papers had come through and all that remained was for the army at Wellington, a short distance down the line,to arrange a passage home for me. Meanwhile I could enjoy Ooty, the marvellous climate and scenery, and being with my family. Time went on and no word came from Wellington, and meanwhile India was becoming not a very comfortable place to be with a family, as partition had been decided on. There were riots and massacres taking place all over the country, and the British army and Civil Service were withdrawing. Ooty was reasonably peaceful as by far the majority of the population were Hindus, with a minority of Christians, but there were disturbances in the Indian part of the town, and one never knew whether some agitator would persuade the crowds to start attacking Europeans. Eventually I decided to go down to Wellington to see what the delay was, and insisted on seeing the senior Movement Control officer, a Major like myself. He sent for the W.O who looked after the paper work, and it was discovered that that idle individual had entirely omitted to put our names down for repatriation, and we had missed several drafts. After this things moved quickly and we soon got orders to proceed to Deolali to await embarkation. We did not have long to wait and very shortly boarded a ship at Bombay bound for Liverpool. I believe that it was the Duchess of Bedford, a Canadian Pacific liner, but it was packed to capacity. and Budge had to share a cabin with the children and some other family, while I was in a cabin designed for two, but with four in it. No one minded however as we were going home to civilian life. We all had our meals at long communal tables, sitting on benches and Pooh was kept from falling off by means of a scarf fixed into Budge's belt and into that of a very kind black woman, wife of a regular sergeant who was returning home.

Chapter 18

England

The journey took three or four weeks and finally we docked at Liverpool. Geoffrey Chance and Bennett, the gardener, chauffer and handyman, were there to meet us. Budge had not seen her father for 5 years and I had never met him, so it was an emotional meeting. Bennett took the luggage in one car, and Geoffrey drove us three back. I remember well admiring the open countryside after the jungle and the arid Indian plains, and then later, when we got to Stourton Court, the Chance house, the rose garden and lawns.

I had several weeks of demob. leave due to me, and the thought of work I pushed to the back of my mind. My mother came down to stay for a few days looking much the same as when I had last seen her. She had stayed in London for the whole war, being at one time the only occupant of the block of flats near Lowndes Square where she lived and was the air raid warden for the block. She had also been burgled twice, and had lost all her more valuable possessions. After a short stay at Stourton I went up to London to see what friends had survived, and to present myself at Olympia for demob. and there with hundreds of others got a civilian suit, a hat and a pair of shoes and then departed, a civilian once more : later I got a cheque for £104 as a war gratuity which I put into the P.O. savings bank and used as an excuse for minor extravagances, although I did not in fact draw it out for many years.

We now had two problems; the first to get a job and the second to find somewhere to live. I had been offered two jobs, although offered is probably too definite a word, before I left India. Hugh Chance, then deputy Chairman of Chance Bros. had asked me through Geoffrey whether I would be willing to return to India to manage some proposed branch they were contemplating out there. I had turned this down out of hand as I had been abroad, except for a few months, for 12 years, and, in any case did not want to work in India, and Budge would have hated it. The second "offer" was from a man I had met on the boat coming home. It was to join him in Rhodesia, to run a copper mine that he owned; he was a much older man than I,and said that he thought that I was just the sort of person he was looking for. He gave me his address, but I never followed it up.

Finding somewhere to live was much more difficult. We were living with my in-laws who were kindness itself, not a good arrangement for either family, but building licences were impossible to obtain,as all house building was concentrated on council houses of a maximum size of 1200 square feet, and there were no houses for sale. The Chances had lived in Kingswinford in a large house called Greenfield, now a pub called The Swan, and early in the war had bought Stourton Court and moved there; when they moved the Admiralty had requisitioned the house and used it as offices. After we had been living with the Chances for about 3 months, the Admiralty gave notice to leave and the house was vacated. Geoffrey then most kindly gave it to Budge and we moved in. 1947 was one of the coldest winters for many years, and on leaving, the Admiralty had omitted to drain the central heating system with the result that every radiator was cracked, and the house flooded. Replacements were unobtainable and we spent the coldest few months of my life until summer came.

Geoffrey one day suggested that I join him at Himley Brick. I was not at all keen for two reasons, the first being that manufacturing one product struck me as being a very boring way of making a living, as I was used to constantly changing work that one gets as a civil engineer, and the second was that a nephew of his, Norman Forbes was already working at Himley and had been there since he had left school, and I could not see that there could possibly be enough work to occupy us both. However Geoffrey said that I was to think it over and let him know when my leave was over; he also said that he was most anxious to retire from full time work as he was tired out after the difficult war years at Himley. Eventually I said that I would give it a try for three months or so, and we agreed on that, and at the end of my leave I started work. To begin with my fears of not enough to do were justified, and I made enquiries as to other jobs more in my line, and was quite happy at the possibility of going abroad again and Budge too did not demur . Then Norman got married and his father-in-law found him a job as a company secretary, which he had qualified to be when a prisoner of war, and he told Geoffrey that he would be leaving; Geoffrey then told me that this was most providential as he had intended to make me managing director of Himley, and was wondering how to put this to Norman. So I stayed at Himley.

Meanwhile Budge had become pregnant again, and one day while I was digging in the garden at Greenfield, Dr Murphy came out and said that we had a lovely little girl. I was a bit disappointed at first at not having a son, but after seeing Jinny was so no longer, and since then have never regretted for one moment at having three daughters.

Eryl Ransome had divorced Gordon and was without anywhere to live, so Budge had offered her a flat in the house, but quite separate. She had been living there for some time, but after a bit decided that she would like a house of her own, and bought one on the canal at Kinver. We too had decided that Greenfield was not really where we wanted to live permanently, as the area was getting increasingly built up, and the house was cold, and we wanted to move into a more countrified area. Owen Grazebrook owned an old and broken down farmhouse at Stourton, where the tenant had just shot himself, and he had decided to put it on the market by tender. We inspected it and saw that it needed a tremendous amount doing to it but that it was in a good area with very good views, and a very short walk from Stourton Court. We therefore put in a tender of £4750 for the house and 6 acres, and after a week or so, were told that we had got it, which, pleased us enormously. Budge then put Greenfield up for sale, but it was still a buyers market and there were no sensible offers, until one day our agent played golf with a director of a Wolverhampton brewery and suggested to him that it would make a good hotel, and so after an inspection the brewery bought it for £6750. Then came the interminable business of getting licences to repair the Stourton house, finding materials and a competent builder, and getting the work done. All of this took a year, and we moved in in 1951.

Sadly at about the same time Geoffrey suffered acute pains in his abdomen, and was admitted to hospital for examination, where it was found that he had cancer of the colon. He was discharged to home but lasted only a short time before he died. He was greatly mourned by all as he was a very well respected and greatly loved man. I personally felt his death very keenly, as he had been most kind to me and Budge. In addition to this I was left in sole charge of Himley Brick, and had only been there for a comparatively short time, and had no previous experience of the brick trade, or indeed of commerce. Geoffrey's widow Evelyn, took his death very hardly as she had been totally dependent on him, and it fell to Budge to deal with the emotional side, and I the financial side, and we had a most difficult few months. Evelyn was convinced that she would be penniless, and yet was most difficult to persuade to move to a smaller house, as Stourton Court was far too large for one person, and needed servants and a gardener and a great deal of heating and maintenance. Evelyn herself was a semi invalid, and could not walk far, nor do any normal household work. Eventually with the help of the doctor we persuaded her to agree to move into a small rented house nearby, and got builders in to make it ready for her occupancy, but just a few days before she was due to make the final move she was found dead in bed one morning. Two doctors diagnosed that she had had a heart attack, so that no inquest was necessary.

There is not a lot more to be told. The family grew up, and went to school and eventually got married, Sue first, to a distant cousin Hugh Chance, then Eryl to a Frenchman called Geoffroy Lefebure and lastly Jinny to a budding solicitor Geoffrey Shore. In due course nine grandchildren were produced, all of whom have been a great pleasure to me. Also in due course all three marriages ended in divorce. Lastly my dearly loved wife Budge contracted cancer of the breast in 1958, and although it was kept in check for thirteen years, I am convinced by her great courage and cheerfulness, in the end it beat her, and she died on Nov 11th 1971. A remark by the specialist who attended her in the last few months is worth remembering, it was " I have never known a patient who complained so little. Her first words to me were always to enquire how I was, and I had to drag out of her how she was feeling"