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ASHBRIDGE FINISHING SCHOOL

STARTING SCHOOL AT 6 years old

I started s

chool when I was six in Mumbai ,which was then known as Bombay.it was a missionary school, and very elite and the teachers mostly Irish and muc

h given to hymns and sermons. We did the British curriculum and the same exams.At lunchtime our cars came with our ayahs bringing our “tiffin carriers” with hot cooked lunch. At four in the afternoon our cars came to take us home.In1949 Lord Mountbatten came to our school and we were all thrilled to see such a handsome figure. India was going through turbulent times fighting for independence.

After I graduated from college, my parents sent me to a “finishing school “in Hertfordshire called the House of Citizenship. Here they only took three girls from any country.
THE HOUSE OF CITIZENSHIP
This was an Elizabethan manor house, set in landscaped grounds in Hertsfordshire, with a profusion of rhododendron which in season in bloom were a profusion of pinks and reds. The house and grounds were often filmed for period settings, with underground passages and a great hall and even a ghost. The policy of the

school was to take three girls from each country. We had one Pakistani girl out numbered by the two Indians so she got the brunt of our disdain. There were also 3 Thais, one lone Brazilian and various South Africans, Norwegian and Scots. We took various subjects including economics, flower arranging, courtesy Constance Spry and the correct way to address the nobility. We also had outing to places of interest; the V&A, National Gallery, The Electrolux factory ( just to appreciate the architecture.) Unfortunately we had to learn French which we foreigners had to do under the stern gaze of Madomoiselle Grandperrin. Being foreign we were not deemed proficient enough in English to do the secretarial course.

The highlights of each day was breaktime when there were treats of tea and doughnuts. There was always a mad dash for those. Other meals were stodgy stews and pies and plenty of potatoes. We had all put on 10 pounds by the end of eighteen months!!

The principle was a very straight laced lady who always corrected our accents and our pronunciation. I shall always remember the governer of the institution who prefaced each with grace, "For food and fellowship give thanks," intoned in a sonorious monotone. He was Admiral Sir Dennis Boyd who I am sure had a hearty dinner when he went home to his lovely house in the school grounds.

At the end of the course we had to write a theses; mine was on Poetesses of India and the fun of this was the many trips to India House to do some research in the library (or so it was claimed) and to visit my sister who

led a very bohemian life as an art student in London's St martins School of Art.

It was with great sorry that I left Ashbridge as I had made many good friends who I am still in contact with today 2009. The reunions took place yearly until the demise in 1980 when the institution of Ashbridge folded up, although the house is still used for business seminars etc, I believe. Although Ashbridge and its curriculum seem to be outdated nowadays , at the time it was seen as a giving a good grounding for going on to university education.

India was too far to go for holidays so my good friend from Norway would ask me to go home with her. I saw large quantities of snow and went to lots of parties where my sari was a talking point. I was like something out of another world. There were very few Indian people there at the time. I NEVER SAW ANY. I also broke my ankle on my first skiing lesson. I was taken to hospital in a reindeer sledge and back in Oslo my photo was in ‘Aftenposten’ as Indian leg in Norwegian plaster.

UNIVERSITY AND MARRIAGE

UNIVERSITY AND MARRIED LIFE.
I wrote long letters to my friend in Geneva which were posted by

my parents driver(for a small consideration) and he wrote long fervent letters back, this went on for a longish time but time and distance proved too much and our correspondence petered out.

I met many young people and men but none were considered good enough by my parents until a young man from Calcutta arrived on the scene. He was a friend of my brothers and worked for the British Tea Company in Calcutta. Although at such a distance he came on many trips to see me as often as he could, he was aided and abetted by my grandmother who along with my mother thought he was perfect,

he was a very ardent suitor and vowed to erect a tent a lawn if I did not say yes to his proposal of marriage, after many months of this relented and we were engaged.

We got married in Bombay, as most of our families were living there, with much pomp and ceremony, my father was made Solicitor general to the government of India, the capital, and we moved to Delhi, we lived in a big bungalow, with large expanses of green turf, beautiful flower beds and shuttered windows and doors.Vinod and

I went on a honeymoon to Ceylon as it was called then, on a BOAC propellor Dakota plane to Colombo, which took six hours!!I did not have time enough to change my passport so I travelled as a “miss”this caused quite a few strange glances as this was the fifties and not , many people did that! Life began for me in Calcutta, Vinod worked as a tea taster in his company which was a huge colonial building with long wooden shutters and twenty foot high ceilings, this was where Warren-Hastings council met, this was the home of General Clavering. Vinod was the first Indian to join a wholly British firm and rose to become its chairman in 1963 this building was demolished and a new modern one was erected during the demolition they found an ancient Hindu statue which must have been from the twelfth or thirteenth century, this was kept and is still there in the office.

Pandit Nehru was asked to inaugurate the new building, and as Vinod was chairman, he showed him around and he was offered a good cup of tea which he enjoyed thoroughly. He died shortly afterwards (I hasten to add it was not the fault of the tea!)In the seventies we moved to Delhi, once again in a lovely house, which we bought and renovated, at this time

Vinod worked for the government of India in a very senior capacity, as founder of the urban and housing development society and from then in his second job he was chairman of the state trading company.

He came into contact with many different trading companies all over the world including Russia which was still behind the iron curtain. He travelled to many of these countries. In India he would meet with Mrs Gandhi and other notable political figures.



Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity
I joined Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity till I became pregnant, and she told me not to continue. She and her helpers would pick these dying and ill people in a van, to a big shed, where they had pallets of gunny bags and where they were fed clothed and medicated. Most of them were beyond help, but at least they died with dignity. In Calcutta social life was very hectic. Parties at various friends’ homes, cocktails and dinners, polo matches and the races on Saturdays, where we had our own box. The social life was at its most hectic, in winter, when visiting dignitaries and company big shots from overseas visited. I remember the visit of Queen Elizabeth to the racecourse with all the flowers in bloom and the army band playing! Mr Kruschev also made a visit to the city, but this was more a political one and there was no fanfare. Life went on like this for us till 1972,when we moved to New Delhi and another phase of my life started.

Two events that were significant in my life.

When I lived in Bombay as a school girl, our home was a villa by the sea and overlooking a large empty plot of land. Mahatma Gandhi used to hold prayer meetings there and as a child I sat at his feet with other children. At the end of the session he would give us his autograph for five rupees. (40p in English currency of the time!)

He was assassinated in 1948 and as my father was the prosecutor for the government, this meant living in Delhi for the six months of the case. I do not remember too much of the proceedings but it was very widely publicized all over the world. I only wish I had kept some of the signatures of both Mahatma Gandhi and the assassin Godse