Pamela Horsfall (18.11.1934 - 13.6.2009)

I was born at Khargapur. Bengal, 70 miles or so south of Calcutta.  

[My family] had been there for several generations  - my great-grandfather, my grandparents – both sides, mother and father’s grandparents … first of all army, then my grandfather came to the Bengal-Nagpur railway, and my father and my mother met in Khargapur.

Childhood – fantastic, very happy childhood, no worries in the world, private education, and then when I was 10 most of the children were sent up to the hill stations to get away from the heat, and then I went up to Darjeeling to school.

Oh, a couple of days or so on the trains … I didn’t travel very well … I was always sick as a dog … we would go up in March and come back in December, so we were away for 9 months from our families

Khargapur was a very very large railway community.  I think it was the largest railway workshops certainly in India, and it was very much a railway town.  90% of the employees of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway were based in Khargapur …they had the schools, the clubs, everything, the housing, all provided by the railway.

English, only English, and Hindustani to the servants.  Our servants were Bengalis on the whole, but Hindustani got you through.  I understood a little bit of Bengali … but when we went to school, with Partition coming, we had to learn Hindi as a second language, which was a bit difficult … I had to have private tuition.

All sorts of things … he was a manager on the railways …he had about 300 men working under him … he used to be called out - I know that he was in charge of doing the check-ups if there was a railway crash.

No I hadn’t, until 1947.

I had no idea about there being a war … the war never touched any of us in India, so we lived a very comfortable and easy life, a spoilt life really.

Well bungalows mostly and very nice gardens.  And in the back of the houses were the servants’ quarters … open verandas

Six, a cook, a bearer, which is like a butler, my ayah, a sweeper … a dhobi, a mali, which is the gardener, that was average.

Yes, mostly.  Our cook and his family, my ayah was his daughter, and the bearer was his son-in-law, so they all kept it in the same family – they were all Christians, Roman Catholics … the others were Hindus … they did everything for us, right down to plaiting one’s hair and tying one’s shoelaces.

No.  My parents were very close to me, being a beloved only child.  I spent a lot of time with my parents.  I had very sporty parents and Khargapur was very well known for its sporting things.  The ladies’ hockey team won the All-India championships twice.  My mother was a gold-medallist runner – hurdles and 100 yards – my father played all sorts of sports.  I was not sporty.  Everything was European, European clubs, European schools … and we all knew each other, all brought up together.

No.  There were Anglo-Indians and they worked on the railway, unfortunately they didn’t have the best jobs … I felt very sorry for the Anglo-Indians because they suffered as a result of Partition.  They were entitled to come to the European schools.  We never mixed with any Indians.  The only Indians we ever encountered were your servants, and the hospital doctors were Indians.  We lived 200 yards or so from the hospital.  

There was a big proportion of Roman Catholics – mostly the Anglo-Indians … the Catholic church was very powerful out there and we had Church of England where my mother sang in the choir and I sang in the choir later on – a beautiful church, European.

My father was fluent in Hindi, and my mother too … you had to speak to your servants, and if you went into the market or anything you had to communicate with them.

Perfectly alright with ourselves, but there …was no mixing at all with Indians – I never knew any Indians other than the doctors …other than that no communication at all with Indians

Yes, a European school, no Indians at all – the only Indian person was the Indian teacher who had to teach us Bengali.

Treats for us … it was like going into London, we used to go to Calcutta which was a fantastic place, it had lovely shops.  The Harrods of Calcutta was Whiteaways and you went to Ferbows[?] which was the famous place for tea and lunch, and there were 2 superb Italian cake houses - we used to go to Arizonas or Ferrazinis – it was a big treat for little girls … it would only take a couple of hours up on the train.

You mentioned that the war didn’t really affect you ..

Not at all.  Only once.  We had the American 20^th Bomber Command based just outside Khargapur and we Europeans entertained the American soldiers … we had a few of them over for Christmas Day, and all of a sudden they all shot to their feet … there was an alarm going off, they shot into their jeeps and shot off and the Japanese had for the first time come over from Burma to bomb the 20^th Bomber Command … it was all over in a matter of an hour or so – we didn’t know what was going on until the Americans told us … that was my only knowledge of the war.  

But they all joined up.  My father was a captain and he trained all his Indian soldiers.

When I went up to school [in Darjeeling] I put my foot out to have my shoelaces tied and they said ‘What’s that?’ and I said ‘to tie my shoelaces’ and they said ‘no, you do that yourself when you come up here’ and I had never ever plaited my own hair – I had long hair – because my ayah used to do it, and they said ‘no, you learn to do it yourself’.  It was hard work actually at 10 years old, never having done anything for yourself ... it came as a shock, going up to school.

And in the mornings when the bell went you were expected to get out of bed and make our own beds – I’d never done that in my life!

I don’t remember at all.  English history, and Indian history as it came nearer 1947 - we had to learn a bit of Indian history about the Taj and the Moghuls.

No.  We were away from everything in Darjeeling … when there were riots and things and endless problems between the races my father was obviously involved, being on the railways because he used to tell my mother about these trains coming in with everybody killed on them, and they were very very concerned because there was no communication between us and Darjeeling and for all they knew we could have been slaughtered up there.  He wouldn’t let my mother come up on the train to see how we were so he sent up his clerk to make sure we were all OK, so he came up with a letter to the headmistress, and I was summoned to the headmistress’s office and I thought ‘oh dear, what have I done?’ but it was because my parents had sent a letter to enquire how we all were, so he took back the information … and that in a way was partially instrumental in my being taken out of Darjeeling and being brought home on holiday in September 47 with a view to possibly settling in England.  And we stayed for about 6 months, and then went back and tidied up.  

England was always referred to as ‘home’, although we knew nothing of it, but we knew all about it because we all followed the Royal Family.

We didn’t know much about it … we just carried on our normal life up there [Darjeeling] … it was pretty horrendous in places like Calcutta … the Bengalis are a very intelligent race and a lot of the clerks and the people who ran the banks and who worked for my father, a lot of them were very intelligent, and they were very much into this Partition business and that caused a lot of trouble.

Well only what I’ve heard from my parents and what we used to hear on the radio – Gandhi and this ‘Quit India’ business, and they all used to have their Gandhi caps.  A lot of trouble in Calcutta.  We knew nothing about it other than what I heard from my parents.

We came ‘home’ with a view to settling, and just looked around – I didn’t like it.  Anyway we went back and my father had decided he was finishing anyway, so we sorted everything out … it was very difficult to get out of India because the Europeans were flocking out and places like P&O, the ships were absolutely jammed, great long waiting lists, so we were on a waiting list and P&O rang my father and said ‘we’ve got a cancellation, any good to you?’  Well, he had finished – this was 1950 – and he said ‘yes, I’ll come’, and this is why we came into Leicester because he came to a brother in Leicester and we followed 3 weeks later and settled in Leicester, which I must confess I hated.  

London.

Ooh, I loved it … to see all the lovely places, the Tower, Buckingham Palace, I even went to the Queen’s wedding.

It didn’t worry me particularly … there was a possibility we might have gone to Australia … my father’s family on the whole went to Australia …one family went to America.

I think they would have stayed.  But my father decided he did not want to work under the Indian government.  We had a very good social life … it was hard for them when we came here – my mother had never boiled a kettle in her life, so to come to England and have to do everything for herself was very, very hard … and my father, who had a nice job, had to start looking for employment here.  He wouldn’t work on the railways here because with the unions he would probably have had to start off as a porter or something, so he went into engineering.

It didn’t matter, it was railway property so when you finished, you just packed up and left.  We didn’t own anything there.  My grandparents owned property.  When they settled in Bangalore, my grandfather bought 3 houses, lived in one and rented 2, like an income, really, beautiful houses, a magnificent city …

My grandparents were too old to decide to come back to England.  They decided in the first place they were going to settle in Bangalore, when my grandfather retired … my grandfather died there, my grandmother subsequently came out here and died here.

I don’t think there were many problems in Bangalore, it was a very military town, you see and … my mother’s 3 brothers were all army people so they stayed out.

From the railway point of view, every time there was a European coming back, they were replaced by an Indian, in the better jobs which the Europeans had.

We had to learn the Indian national anthem and sing it on that day … and had the day off [from school]  …none of us liked it much, but we had to do it and also then India had decided we were not to be taught second languages in French or Latin, we had to be taught an Indian language and in the local school they taught Hindi, and much to my bad luck when I went up to Darjeeling they started to teach Bengali.

f the life was as we used to have it … I would not have wanted to come home.  

I was very lonely and I hated Leicester – I found it very unfriendly mainly because I didn’t know anybody.

P&O liner, all the Straths … Strathmore … about 3 weeks via the Suez Canal.

You had to leave your home behind, leave an awful lot of stuff …you couldn’t bring a whole home-full … all my toys, all the sports’ equipment … very sad really.  I was able to bring a doll which I carried on to the boat with me – still got it.

I think I regretted my life, really, - our servants were very close to us, they all wept when we left India and they all came to the station to see us off on the train and they said ‘Memsahib, who is going to look after us when you go?’ … I often wonder what happened to them.

Ghastly …well I didn’t like anything … I was just about to take my finals [in India] and there we took all Cambridge exams and my mother wanted me to go into grammar school, but we had to wait for a term so they said ‘why don’t you send her to the Tech?’ , so I went to the Tech to finish off … which I loathed in comparison with the discipline of a boarding school … there was no discipline  … you were more or less left on your own … so I was glad to take my finals and finish.

We bought a house in Mere Road a big house … a very nice house.  We used to go to St Peter’s Church.

No.  We ate European food in India …and I hated curries!  I like them now.

Well, I felt above it … I didn’t feel they were my types … but I made friends.

Yes, she had to go to work.  She went to John Bull … and then from there she went to the Electricity Board … and then my father went into engineering, started with the BU  

Well my mother had never had a job in her life, but she took to it.  My father didn’t like it, having had a job where he was the top dog … but he was a very adaptable man, very easy-going … he never complained … realised that there was nothing else to do.

My parents kept in touch with people we knew from India … the hockey girls all kept in touch with each other.

Any thoughts about returning to India?

None at all.  I wouldn’t mind going back to India to see places that I’d never seen, but not anywhere that I knew.  I wouldn’t like to be disillusioned … it would not be the same after 50-odd years.

Only in the last 15 to 20 years … I’ve never considered it as home.  I’ve got used to it now.  I’ve got very good friends.

Well I have to think of it [Leicester] as home now.  I have no affiliation to it.  

No, not at all – no desire to be connected with it at all.  I’m glad I had the upbringing I did have, I had a very privileged life.  I consider myself very fortunate that I can still remember it … but it was a slightly false life … when you come back your feet have got to come back on the ground.

I don’t think the Indian communities will ever live happily together – the Muslims and the Hindus just do not gel and even today in Leicester … [there’s] really no desire to mix.

Cups won by Pamela Horsfall's parents, Lorna and Leslie Meade, in India, for hockey and football.  They were both talented athletes.  Leslie played football, rugby and snooker for the Bengal and Nagpur Railway teams.  Lorna won 2 gold medals in the 1920s in the All India Games, for the hurdles and the 100 yards.