Last Week: Grandpa as a teenager, separated from his parents by the war, chooses his career, serves his apprenticeship, and works a 53-hour week – plus overtime.
TAPE ONE SIDE TWO
Me We’d just got to the stage where you accepted a job in India.
G There was no hope of getting a job in England on the Railways as you would have had to have been a pupil on the Railways. They recruited their own. A Locomotive Superintendent was a fairly senior job, and you would have had to have done your training with them to achieve this position.
Me How did you hear of your job in India? (We already have the answer to that – Stupid! This must have been the next day’s session. – ed). What happened after you went to the interview?
G I’d no idea of what kind of a job it was and I knew nothing about India. I imagined India would be a place where all of the interior would be jungle! As it was I arrived in Bombay where I was met by an office boy. We spent the night there and then left for Madras. We went up the ghats. (pronounced ‘gorts’ and meaning a mountain pass – ed) until arriving at a plateau about 1 000 foot high. You go up through very beautiful country, very steep hills, up a twisty railway and then you come to an enormous flat plain. The journey from Bombay to Madras took about 36 hours.
Me And how far was that?
G Probably about 5 or 6 hundred miles, I suppose. You go from Bombay to a place called (Wychort ?). In those days we went on the Great Indian Peninsula Railway which joined the MSM Railway which went from there to Madras. ——– went to Poonah where the MSM Railway had a metre-gauge connection which ran from Poonah to Bangalore, another large area of India.
Me Before we continue with the railways, what was your journey from England like?
G It was a three-week journey. You went by sea through the Bay of Biscay to Gibraltar where you stopped, and from there to Marseilles. Some people would travel overland across France and join the ship at Marseilles.
Me Can you remember the ship’s name?
G I don’t remember the first ship’s name. I remember the name of the ship I went to Africa in. It was 5 000 tons. I did so many journeys backwards and forwards that I’ve forgotten the names of the ships I travelled on.
You go from Marseilles to Naples and then to Port Said through the Suez Canal to Aden where you get ashore, and then across from Aden to Bombay.
Me Can you describe the train journey from Bombay to Madras, and the conditions at the time?
G We travelled First Class. In these carriages there were two lower berths and two upper berths and each compartment had its own washbasin and lavatory. There was usually a dining room on the train and if there wasn’t, the train would stop at a station for three-quarters of an hour while you had a meal. Taking 36 hours, if you left in the morning you arrived in Madras at night, and if you left at night you got to Madras early in the morning. There was no point in speeding up the train as you would arrive at your destination in the middle of the night.
Me The actual train itself. Did you have special facilities because you were railway staff?
G Not when you first joined the Railway. Later on, if you went touring on duty as a junior officer visiting the various stations, you had a six-wheeled coach in which you could take your servants. When I was older, when we were in Delhi and when I was Chief Mechanical Engineer, or later as Director of the Railway Board, we had a full-sized coach – bedroom, lounge, sitting room, your servants’ compartment and a kitchen where they could cook food. It was ——– in those days except there was no air-conditioning and it was hot.
When you went on tour to visit District Headquarters, you had to have somewhere to sleep as there were no hotels and this was your travelling home.
In the later years I’d go on a fortnight’s tour from Delhi to Bombay and Bombay to Madras. You took your stenographer with you and he planned all your trips. You’d say “I want to leave here at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning” and he would arrange with the Stationmaster to put your coach on a particular train and cut it off when you got to your destinations. You had a floating, travelling home.
(Grandpa told me that when he was Director of the Railway Board he had a silver medal with a map of India on it. This was his train ticket. It was immediately recognised by the Railway staff who quickly made sure all was in order and that he had a smooth passage.)
After my first year or so (on tour?) I spent about nine months at Head Office in Madras learning the ways, and used to spend every weekend travelling over the whole railway system to find out about it. Then I moved to Guntakal which was a place in the middle of nowhere. There, I used to spend three days a week visiting the different locomotive headquarters, inspecting the stores, making sure that all the repairs were being carried out properly and generally supervising what was going on.
To illustrate the necessity, I visited one place where I had to measure the coal stacks to check with the storeman that the vouchers matched the amount of coal delivered. It as the same with the oil that had been issued for the engines. On one of my first visits, they had a large dipstick that you put into the tank where you could measure the number of gallons of oil in the tank and check with the vouchers that nothing had been taken. I was rather suspicious. The dipstick was meant to be 6ft long but found that this one measured 5ft 6ins but had been carefully divided up into feet and inches and half inches and eighths of an inch. It must have taken ages to do it! It meant that every time you checked, there was a percentage missing. That was a lesson to me in my very early days.
Guntakal was just a Railway Headquarters. There were about seven officers and an assistant – I was an assistant then. As Assistant Officers we shared a bungalow. To begin with there was no bungalow. We had rooms over the station and a couple of us lived there.
Quite recently on television they screened Great Railway Journeys of the World and showed a trip from Bombay to Madras. The BBC man was in a carriage with some Indians and he said “What’s this place?” They said “This is Guntakal.” He said “Oh, I get out here.” They said “You can’t get out here, there is NOTHING.” But they showed us a picture of Guntakal station where I had lived for 18 months as a bachelor.
But life there – you were out travelling three days a week, you played tennis, and took it in turns to gather at each others’ bungalows to have a drink or something like that. There was no radio or anything like that. That was the life and everybody was quite happy there.
Me How big was the community at your first station, which was Madras, wasn’t it? And Perambur?
G Madras was a huge place. Perambur was a Railway Colony where the Railway Works were. (I think Perambur was about 7 miles from Madras. I can remember addressing letters from school in England to “Mr P Morris, Chief Mechanical Engineer, Perambur, Madras, India. That was after 1946. – ed) There was another part of Madras where the railway officials lived. the Railway owned all its own houses and your house went with your job. You paid 10 percent of your salary as rent.
Me Can you remember your first salary?
G My first salary was 500 rupees a month which in those days was considered very good. (£37-50). With a rupee at 1/6d we were considered very well paid.
Me You were able to save on that amount?
G You were able to save a certain amount. “Overseas Pay” of £15 was paid into a bank in England. An Indian Officer didn’t get this. Before I went out, I had no money at all and I had to kit myself so my brother lent me £100. It took three years to pay back.
Next week: Grandpa describes the status of servants, socialising in India in the 50’s, and the disappearance of whites from the Indian Railway Board
Hey Dusty!
This is SO fascinating. It’s incredible that your mother had the foresight to record these interviews and wonderful that all this history has survived.
Thanks for the feedback marijayn. I’ll tell my mum, she’ll be really chuffed!
This sounds like the script to a block buster move, Dusty….I am enthralled. Do you have some photos of your grand dad at the time? It would be great to place a face into the picture….
Love this Dusty please keep them coming. I find it fascinating.
Nossie – it is starting to feel a bit like an epic, I must say! Pics of Grandpa will start soon. Unfortunately, none of his own remain from that time.
Vapour – thanks Vaps, will do. There is more to come, believe me…
very cool
Hectic awesome Dusts. And last night was laaaank fun! Tx.
Sshh. Not so loud.
erm…beg pardon….last night????
possum, come and join us. Tonight, after the navy boys…
can I bring the navy boys with?
You won’t need them. Believe me.
hmmm….which brings us to an interesting point…the differene between need and want
difference*
Need – check.
Want – check.
So what’s your question?
what is going on here??? I want in!!!
so you’ve forgaotten about me already? *snif*
“forgotten”…sorry about the typo’s…*tries to think of a plausable excuse other than the usual*……no, can’t think of one you would believe..
Hey nossie! Long time no see, girl! Check you mail…
navy boys??? where??? when???
will do…see you later then…
Hey dusty is that steak cooking already, and did you pour us a drink, hey chick get that ass moving.
Hey maybe arbchick can cook, i’ll ask her, HEY WOMAN!!! can you cook without burning it.
This place is worst than a graveyard, fuckin shame LOL.