Indian Summer
The small village of Juhu, where we had our first taste of living in India, had it's own airfield those days. A tiny runway about six hundred yards long served the Piper Cubs from the flying club there. You can imagine the surprise when a brand new, giant Super Constellation actually succeeded in landing on the miniscule runway. Unfortunately Santa Cruz's main runway and Juhu's only landing strip were in line and the unfortunate, but brilliant Lockheed delivery Pilot had lined up on Santa Cruz and delivered Air India's latest acquisition to the wrong address. The whole aeroplane had to be dismantled and taken by road to Santa Cruz where it was put together again, as there was no way that it could take off from Juhu.
My contract with Air India was nearing it's end and I was approached by one of the many Companies that had sprung up in the newly independent India. The Americans had left DC3's and C47's all over India and these were seized by many Presidents of banks and quite a few Maharajahs. They then proceeded to form their own airlines and were always on the lookout for pilots. I eventually joined one of them who had a better reputation than the others. This time I was to really be a Captain and not an Instructor.
I must add that I have exceedingly fond memories of Air India who were a splendid company. I received nothing but kindness and consideration from such people as the incredible founder, J.R.D. Tata, Chief Instructor Biramji, the two Gazdas amongst others far too numerous to mention .
The annual pilgrimage of devout pilgrims to Mecca....The Hadj...was a lucrative source of revenue to the many airlines participating.
Still using the old workhouse Dakota we would fly empty from Bombay to Aden via a small Island called Masirah. It was a RAF base with twelve airmen and a Flying Officer C.O. The entire station, all thirteen of them , would turn out when we landed to refuel. They would ogle the Stewardess, if there was one, as there were no women on the island. The big thing for them was to show us a tomato plant which was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. We were told that it was the only plant on the Island and was constantly guarded by anyone unfortunate enough to be on "Jankers".
From Masirah we would fly on to Aden to pick up our passengers and then fly them on to Jeddah which was the nearest we were allowed to get to the Holy City of Mecca. The passengers were very interesting. They would file out to the aircraft carrying all their possessions, some of them on their heads and others with string bags, shopping bags and brown paper parcels.
Once, after landing at Aden, to pick up our passengers, I returned to the aeroplane to find a huge crowd of people ,some of them in the plane and others trying, vainly , to get in. There were people sitting in the aisle, on other passenger's knees, on suitcases together with people standing in the aisle beside the thirty seats that had been squeezed into what was , normally a twenty-one seat aeroplane. There was no way that I could even reach the cockpit and I soon found the local Agent who began crying with rage when I told him that, no way , was I going to take any more than the thirty seated passengers. "But Sahib, every Captain takes the extra people and we will share the money " was his outraged plea. There was near rioting when it became clear that I meant what I said. Once airborne on one of those trips I was startled to find that , whilst cruising along at about 7,000ft. the nose suddenly went up and I had to trim like mad to keep control. The Radio Officer told me that he would investigate and returned very quickly to tell me that a group of the women had gathered in the back and were cooking lunch over a naked Primus flame.
I flew fairly regularly from Bombay to Nairobi and quite enjoyed the different sort of life that I was now leading but Dora was pregnant and the heat of the small apartment getting us all down. Accommodation on the ships sailing to the U.K. was well nigh impossible to obtain as thousands of people were leaving due to the virtual state of war that had sprung up from the emerging independent Pakistan and India.
On New Year's Eve 1948 we had a few people for drinks in our apartment. One of them turned out to be the Captain of the S.S. Stratheden, which was sailing for the U.K. next day. He had left his Wife in our "Pension" whilst he went on to Australia and had called to pick her up for the return journey to England.
I said to him , half jokingly " I wish that we were sailing with you , tomorrow ". He replied "If you really mean it then I can fix it." I turned everyone out of the flat where we had just made our New Year greetings, and we started packing. Next morning we bought the classic tin steamer trunks, sold our beautiful Packard for the equivalent of £25 and were installed on the "Stratheden " when it sailed on January 1st.1949
We had no winter clothes for ourselves or the children but the first port of call was Port Said. We entered the harbour in total darkness at about two in the morning and then, suddenly, everything was lit in a blaze of lights and all the shops were open and the huge department store of Simon Aerts supplied us with all the neccessary clothes including two gorgeous camel hair coats for the children. They were Peter and Linda's pride and joy, survived many years and were handed on until they became heirlooms. They were identical sizes but Peter had had a nosebleed so his coat was always the one "with blood on the lining"
The six weeks voyage was great fun. The food was magnificent and there were fancy dress parties for the children who were all well looked after and we made many shipboard friends. There were two Australian girls who were going to Britain as schoolteachers on an exchange scheme and it was one of those incredible coincidences that one of them should turn up as a teacher at the school in London where Peter and Linda started their English education.