NigG (#222),
Your Grandfather certainly bore a charmed life at Mons in WWI (he was one of the "Old Contemptibles" - the Kaiser had referred to our 1914 Expeditionary Force as " a contemptible little Army"). But what a harrowing story !
...I got a bullet through my haversack – for seven hours we were bombarded continually – a fine baptism of fire indeed. Every time any of us showed our heads a shell screamed over at us – we were in line [of sight of their guns]. One shell burst on the ground 18 inches behind the trench – we thought of all our friends at home – all of those we loved – of our past lives – death seemed near – it was our Baptism...
Kipling wrote bitterly about our unpreparedness for that war in "
Natural Theology":
"Progressive"
"Money spent on an Army or Fleet
Is homicidal lunacy. . . .
My son has been killed in the Mons retreat,
Why is the Lord afflicting me?
Why are murder, pillage and arson
And rape allowed by the Deity?
I will write to the Times, deriding our parson
Because my God has afflicted me".
Ring any bells today ?
Now I thought I knew a fair bit about Indian geography, but "Mount Abu" had me stumped. Went to dear old Google; a look and all was made plain. Not very high, 2600 ft, it looks a lovely place, up on the North of the old Deccan Plain, that old cooled lake of prehistoric volcanic lava akin to the Canadian Shield - but now I'm trespassing on the territory of our
Yamagata Ken! Buoyed up by success with Mount Abu, I went in search of another Hill Station which I had always thought to be a figment of Kipling's imagination.
"The Ballad of Boh Da Thone" has a couplet (and the rest's worth a read, too):
"But the Captain had quitted the long-drawn strife
And in far Simoorie had taken a wife"
Now I know of a "Mussoorie", but could never find a "Simoorie". Now we have a good candidate in the shape of "Sirmoor", seems to be in the foothills of the Himalayas, not far North West of Dehra Dun and would have much the same (pleasant) climate.
...Regarding my visits to the British Indian Hill Stations, my various mini-adventures aren't really up to being described here... an expedition into the hills here, a dose of malaria there, etc...
Let us be the judge of that ! The devil may be in tne detail - but the charms of a story lie there, too. How did you come to be wandering round the subcontinent in the first place ?
...But I recall the enchanting British bungalows, with traditional, Mediterranean-style tiled roofs, verandas and servants' outhouses...
They tried to recreate ideal Surreys in a foreign land, with mock-Tudor mansions, Malls, gardens, churches, Public Schools (many religious in ethos), Convent Schools and English names to the roads, to give an allusion to a home five thousand miles away which they would not see for years (or ever).
Enough already !
Danny.