An Anglo-Indian Childhood

India, the Jewel and the Crown of the British Empire. My parents were born in this romantic country of the Moguls, of Kipling, of tales of the Northwest Frontier, of the fabulous Taj Mahal, of stunning architecture, of colorful saris... and Kashmir, so beautiful and desirable that men, to this day, are dying to possess her.

The magnificent Himalayas feed the great Brahmaputra River which, in turn, connects with the holy Ganges and spills into the Bay of Bengal through her fertile delta.  In the west, the mountains sweep down to the plains and the River Indus with her tributaries, the Jeelub, Chenab, Ravi, Bias and Sutlege, flow into the Arabian Sea.

Further south is the Ran of Kutch and then the sub-continent slowly contracts, past the Tropic of Cancer, till her tip ends, separated by the sparkling Indian Ocean from a pear-shaped droplet which is Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

My father, Walter Gilbert Gifford, was born on a plantation in the Nilgiri Hills in Southern India.  His father, George Harrington Alcock, was an Englishman who, for property reasons, legally changed his name to Gifford.

             He came out to British India, the Jewel in the Crown, in the late 1800s to plant tea.  He married a  Mary Smith about whom we know very little.  It is suspected that the reason for this could be ignorance or outright subterfuge as she might have been Indian  or, at the very least, mixed.

The family also seems to  have been ostracized by the “proper”  English community and, eventually, George’s brother, who had married a Lady North with  evidently the “right” connections, wrested the estate from the family.

    Dad’s parents died at a fairly young age and the eight daughters and four sons, after being schooled by the nuns and priests in Ootacamund (or “Ootie” as it is affectionately called) and Coonor, eventually scattered throughout India.

My father became a Training Instructor in the Post & Telegraphs – an individual much-loved by his students and all who met him. A gentleman and a gentle man.  When he lost his temper (which was rare), the strongest expression we ever heard from him was, “Dash it all”.