ABSTRACT

INTERVIEWEE NAME: Kate Garrod/ Margery Hall COLLECTION: 4700.0576

IDENTIFICATION: Britons in pre-Independence India

INTERVIEWER: Frank De Caro, Rosan Jordan

PROJECT: British Voices in South Asia

DATES: 2/1/78 FOCUS DATES: 1930s

Tape 840, Side A

beautiful Indian girl died of tuberculosis; British women worked in hospitals in WWII; male patients doing needlework in bed; man in hospital who thought his wife had gotten pregnant from a darker man; very dark woman with dark, useless daughter; British soldiers, lack of women; Britons who shouldn=t have come to India; dark, useless girl got pregnant by British soldier; padre talked man out of marrying her, said she wouldn=t fit in at home; Margery went to England as a nanny; terrible thing to not have a country or gender; how it felt for British families to be so far from home; enjoyed life there; easier without children; story of child=s death in India; India isn=t a good place for European children; playing bridge; famous Lawrence family in India; health risks in India; missionary=s views on natives; acquiring a house from a Muslim who took forever packing and leaving house; refused to return to husband=s remote desert post; man at desert post had gone mad; troops that committed suicide; difficult journeys through India, especially with children; great affection for Indian people; had 22 useless servants, like having 22 extra children; bad qualities of Indians today; difficulties of preparing vegetarian meals for Indian visitors; her arrival in Poona, husband in signal school; major they met, his pay; Indians he=d like to emigrate to England; Sikh=s happiness at marrying off his two daughters; friend who was ill with dysentery; group of old friends from India that still get together; effects of living so far from home, people do things they=d never do if close to family; mothers who ran off with other men in India, abandoned their children; India bred eccentricity; pathetic little man she knew there; Europeans in terrible clothes full of moth holes; Hall=s memoir.

being educated and brought up in India; snobbery; cruelty of the elite; Margery only had two pairs of shoes; senior lady who snubbed her; finger bowls; girl who got so flustered by dining protocol she ate her napkin; Margery learned to value everybody; ladies should always extend kindness and courtesy; similarities between all people; mem-sahibs not known for their kindness; Indians know when you are being patronizing; discussion of Philip Mason, novelist; BBC portrayal of Anglo Indians; elite people in services; mixture of classes of people who went to India; services were snobby but not corrupt; radio broadcasts about life in India; different expressions used in parts of India; description of man on horse in India; soldiers hunting jackals, wearing uniforms; snobbishness of westernized Indians; friend who served in Delhi; Kate rejects snobbery and concept of class; protocol; rivalry between branches of service; class of people sent to India, to Borneo; admittance to clubs in India; women had to keep British men in line, make them be polite to Indian servants; people in India understood breeding; British going to India now are not the gentlemen they used to be; early British women who went to India and trained servants; endless seduction and romantic intrigue; inferior services C post office, railway; anecdotes about her friend Charlotte Rose, who was repeatedly snubbed by people whose husbands were in better services; Charlotte=s children excluded from swimming pool;