‘After Aden, we had the fancy dress dance, which I enjoyed very much,’ wrote Maisie Wright. ‘My table companions came in kilts made from bath towels with sporrans of sponge bags and two dangling shaving brushes. But they were drunk by dinner time so I kept out of their way. There was a full programme of social events, with competitions for deck games, camp-fire concerts round an electric fire on deck at night, and a gymkhana.’
Nor did injury deter: on Lilah’s voyage a man had four teeth knocked out by a bat during a cricket match on board, although the occasional ladies’ cricket match was gentler, if only because the men all had to play left-handed. By the late 1920s and 1930s romping games like sack and potato races had all but disappeared, their places taken by deck tennis (quoits), housey-housey (bingo), sunbathing and swimming, in canvas pools that slopped about in rough weather; not until 1929 did a P&O liner – The Viceroy of India – have a built-in swimming pool surrounded by Pompeian reliefs (it also had a smoking room designed like the great hall of a castle, complete with hammer beams, baronial arms, a large fireplace and crossed swords on the walls).
Lilah shared her cabin with a friend: in the early 1900s there were very few single-berth cabins. By today’s standards it was Spartan: there was no heating or ventilation (if a cabin had a porthole and this was left open, water might sluice in dangerously on sleeping passengers). There were no bedside lights and the switch for the cabin light was by the door. The only furniture was a coffin-like upright stand that concealed a primitive basin and tap.
As there were no private bathrooms on P&O liners, passengers would scurry along corridors to ‘bath cubicles’ in their dressing gowns and, for women – as it was the age of long hair – boudoir caps to conceal their undressed coiffures. These caps were trimmed with lace or frills and the more frivolous ones had bunches of curls or ringlets – often made of real hair – at either side to frame the face. In the cubicles, Indian bath attendants filled the tub with hot sea water, for which a special soap was needed. Across each bath was a tray on which the attendant placed a large wooden container of fresh water with which the bather rinsed off the salt.
Passengers kept the clothes they needed in their flat-topped wooden cabin trunks, marked ‘Cabin’ and stowed beneath berths. Fresh water for washing clothes was in such short supply that many women who knew they were going to travel saved their most worn underwear and then discarded it overboard on the voyage leaving, one imagines, a trail of dirty, threadbare nightdresses and knickers across the Indian Ocean.
Ruby Madden, daughter of Sir John Madden, Chief Justice and Lieutenant Governor of Victoria, was one who took advantage of this custom, dropping her soiled nightdresses out of the porthole. Ruby, who had been invited to stay with her friend Jeanie, married to Lieutenant-Colonel Claude Hamilton, for the Coronation Durbar of 1902/3, wrote cheerfully that she had very little laundry to do when she arrived as she had ‘worn most of the rags and thrown them overboard’.
As evening dress was obligatory at dinner, for a long voyage women had to pack quite an assortment of gowns, some for gala evenings. One little girl, put to bed earlier, watched her seventeen-year-old stepsister dressing in one of these, a confection of white pure silk satin, its skirt caught up with bunches of artificial violets, kept uncrushed in her cabin trunk by layers of tissue paper.
Among garments not needed on the voyage were the special lightweight tropical stays women were advised to take, with shorter ones for riding – much of life could be spent on a horse in India – as in those pre-1914 war years no respectable woman could go without corsets, whatever the weather. Two other essentials in the trunk were a pile of knitted woollen ‘cholera belts’ and a supply of the long white kid gloves with tiny pearl buttons that were worn on all formal occasions.
It was a time when most women drank little. For men returning to India, there was the custom of the ‘chota peg’ – the ‘sundowner’ of whisky and soda or whisky and water, said to be medicinal in that climate, especially against malaria. (Until 1874 all drinks on board a P&O ship had been free – wine, beer, spirits, mineral water and champagne on celebration days like Sundays or landfalls – and the line was still famous for its claret. Many seasoned passengers took advantage of this from breakfast on.)
When a liner reached Port Said it was all change. ‘At about 7 pm we got into Port Said,’ wrote Lilah in her journal on 18 November. ‘The most extraordinary thing seemed to me how marked a difference there suddenly was between west and east.’ Here the ship’s officers changed into white and double awnings were erected over the decks. Everyone went ashore, chiefly to the famous store Simon Artz (which prided itself on opening for the stay of every passenger liner, at whatever time of day or night) to buy topis* – never white ones, which were considered bad form, but the oblong khaki-brown ones, sometimes known as Bombay bowlers – and any other tropical clothing needed. Here, too, was ‘Baggage Day’, when all the luggage marked ‘Wanted on Voyage’ and containing hot-weather clothes was brought up from the hold and exchanged for that marked ‘Cabin’.
In later years, Port Said was often seen as a behavioural Mason-Dixon line, with husbands or wives temporarily on the loose casting off the inhibitions that had shackled them on the earlier, cooler part of the trip. As one demure young woman remarked: ‘The fun started when they hit Port Said. And then the Red Sea became very hot in more ways than one.’
After Marseilles, Aden was the next port for coaling, a long process during which passengers were sent ashore, to amuse themselves in various ways. Some drove the few miles to the botanical gardens; Fishing Fleet girl Marian Atkins and her mother went to see a well, known for one extraordinary property. Those who looked into the water in its depths, even at midday, could see the stars reflected, even though they were invisible in the clear blue sky overhead.
On board, all doors and portholes were sealed and the coal carried up the ship’s gangways by porters bent under the weight of sacks or baskets. Twenty-one-year-old Violet Hanson, travelling to India with her Aunt Mabs in 1920, recalled the scene – when they got back to the ship it was dark and the ship was lit by flares.
‘Up the various gangways came almost naked black figures, walking in a constant progression intoning a long loud and monotonous chant, carrying on their heads baskets of coal which they then threw into the hold, only to return for more, chanting unceasingly. They looked like creatures from hell, covered with coal dust, illuminated by the orange glow of flares.’
The mid-Victorian habit of keeping a small farmyard on board and slaughtering pigs, cows, sheep and hens as needed (then, there was no refrigeration) to serve the copious meals demanded had long passed but seven-course meals were still the norm, with beef tea or ice cream at 11 a.m. Service, too, had become more stylish and elaborate: after the soup had been served the head waiter would walk round and, when he thought everyone had finished, beat a gong. In would rush the stewards, pounce on the empty plates and then, as one man, serve the fish.* The same procedure would persist through the rest of the courses. In rough weather, ‘fiddles’ were placed on the tables. These were mahogany frames with walls about two inches high, divided into little squares in each of which was room for a plate, tumbler and wine glass. Dishes and bottles were placed in the gap between two rows of fiddles.
Precedence reigned supreme, with the most distinguished people – generals, aristocrats, Indian Civil Service* commissioners – sitting at the captain’s table, and the rest grouped as nearly as possible with their social equals (meals for the passengers’ children, accompanied by their nannies or ayahs, were served in a separate dining room). Most ships were full of British officers returning to India after eight months’ leave, businessmen in tussore silk suits and, invariably travelling first class on the top deck, the ‘heaven-borns’* – governors, commissioners, Residents, judges, often with their wives and chaperoned daughters.
Even with the shorter travelling times after the opening of the Suez Canal, partings could still be for a matter of ye
ars rather than months. Maisie Wright left England in November 1928 on the RMS Rawalpindi. ‘When we arrived, rather late, we found the Rawalpindi towering above the P&O dock, with black smoke already billowing from its funnels. After a tearful farewell with my family, knowing that we should not meet again for four and a half years, I found my Second Class cabin. My cabin-mates were a middle-aged Scotswoman, returning from leave to her husband, and a Bright Young Thing travelling to visit relatives.’
In the 1930s, though, partings became more like parties, with cocktails in friends’ cabins until the last minute, families lining the quayside and waving, a band playing and long coloured streamers floating from ship to land as the liner edged away in stately fashion. By now, deck quoits, sunbathing and swimming had become favourite deck pursuits – barred to those who had left the necessary smallpox vaccinations until the last minute.
‘My vaccination, red and swollen and at its worst, prevents me from swimming in the pool and from taking any exercise apart from the daily promenades round the deck,’ wrote Margaret Martyn. ‘I soothe my arm with boracic powder several times a day and wear a protective wire frame.’ These vaccinations were quite painful: instead of the usual needle and syringe, the smallpox vaccine was given with a two-pronged needle, dipped into the vaccine solution, then the skin was pricked with this several times. It usually left a scar, so thoughtful doctors would do it on the legs of women rather the upper arm, where it would be seen in evening dress.
Even as late as 1934, sailing across the Bay of Biscay could still be terrifying. Bethea Field, aboard SS Mantua (a P&O ship of just under 11,000 tons) and fortunately immune to seasickness, ran into a storm so bad that she was one out of only twelve – the ship’s full complement of passengers was 600 – who made it to the dining saloon; but when she returned to her cabin she found it impossible to climb into her bunk, the top one. ‘I changed into nightclothes and dressing gown and rested for a time on the floor. The ship was being battered from every side and there was a wild shrieking from the rigging and crashes.
‘Next morning it was wilder than ever. Sofas and armchairs were sliding about the saloon in every direction. Even the grand piano joined in the dance. The dining saloon was deserted and I heard that an order had come down from the bridge that all elderly passengers were advised to stay in their cabins – in their bunks. We found refuge in the divan room, a narrow saloon that ran from port to starboard of the ship. There were wall seats on three sides on which some people were lying – others were sitting on the deck holding onto anything that seemed stable.
‘The deck steward came in and enquired for breakfast orders. As so few passengers were about, the dining saloon was closed. I think I said “buttered toast and an apple”. A few other orders were taken but most kept their eyes shut and shook their heads.’ The ship was rolling so alarmingly that the returning steward crashed with his loaded tray, watched by passengers clinging to upright supports. Those who wanted a drink had to haul themselves to it hand over hand along ‘storm ropes’ lashed in place by the crew. ‘I ordered a “horse’s neck” [brandy and ginger ale]* and that, with apples and sandwiches, became my main sustenance for the next three days as the cooking galley was closed,’ wrote Bethea.
Until stabilisers finally came,* finding one’s sea legs was always a problem. One early authority, pointing out that ‘chloroform taken in water is one remedy’, added ‘I think no one should ever embark without a few bottles of the very best wine that can be procured; champagne has been known to allay seasickness when all else failed, and in the weakness and depression which invariably follow, good port wine is quite invaluable.’
2
‘Happy hunting-ground of the single girl’
The Women Who Went Out
‘The Fishing Fleet would come out for August week, and the chaps would go along to the Galle Face Hotel to look them over as they sat on the veranda,’ said former tea planter Mike Waring, describing the arrival of some of the girls in Ceylon; others sailed on to the ports of India.
‘There would be around fifteen or twenty of them, and they came in stages. They would be asked for a dance at the Galle Face, which might be holding a rugger night. The girls always wore long dresses and the men mostly dinner jackets or white sharkskin. There were also tea dances. There were quite a lot of romances and marriages.’
August Week, which began in 1890, was the great social week of the year for the tea and coffee planters with estates in Ceylon; at the beginning of August, it fitted neatly between the end of the south-west and the start of the north-east monsoons. The girls who came to try their luck with the eligible bachelors who had come down to Colombo for the annual festivities were the more adventurous contingent of the Fishing Fleet, if only because marriage to one of these men generally meant a life spent on an isolated plantation.
Others were more like nineteen-year-old Katherine Welford, who viewed her invitation to stay with an aunt in India simply as a chance to see the country and have fun. ‘I felt I was too young to marry and I don’t think I wanted to live in India.’ Katherine, born in Toorak, Melbourne, was an only child; her father owned a sheep property in New South Wales, where he spent much time, with another in Western Australia. Her aunt, who thought Katherine would enjoy an Indian ‘Season’, had met her own husband in Colombo.
The voyage from Australia, in 1932, took a fortnight and the fare on Katherine’s one-class ship, the Mongolia, was £30; she had a cabin to herself but no bathroom. At the start of the journey she was plagued with seasickness (‘the Great Australian Bight is as bad as the Bay of Biscay’), after which there was the usual fun, games and dancing. ‘There was a canvas swimming pool on board and we used to play deck quoits. You changed into a long evening dress for dinner. I had about a dozen evening dresses. My favourite was a gorgeous gold colour one with a cowl neck that was backless – you couldn’t wear a bra but one was very firm in those days. Backless was very fashionable then. I don’t think I drank at all until I got on the ship and then I would have one before dinner. Every night there was dancing after dinner, to which one was escorted by some chap.’
At Colombo, where the palm trees and spicy food made an immediate impression, she was met by friends of her aunt, with whom she stayed for a few days. ‘I was taken out to the Galle Face for dinner, and to the races, then up to Madras, which took two days, where my aunt and uncle met me.’
Others of the Fishing Fleet were simply returning to their families after an English education. In the eyes of those who served the Raj, there were compelling reasons for sending their offspring home to England.
To begin with, medical advice was uncompromising on this point. In 1873 Sir Joseph Fayrer, whose decades of service in the Bengal Medical Service had rendered him an expert, had declared: ‘It has long been known to the English in India that children may be kept in that country up to five, six or seven years of age without any deterioration, physical or moral . . . But after that age, unless a few hot seasons spent in the hills should enable parents to keep their children in India until a somewhat later age, to do so is always a doubtful proceeding. The child must be sent to England, or it will deteriorate physically and morally . . .’. As with many pronouncements from renowned doctors, it was a view that echoed through the years (in this case, until well into the 1930s), despite the fact that child mortality was actually greatest in the under-fives – British cemeteries in India are scattered with little cholera graves.
There were also pressing social reasons. By the twentieth century, there were excellent boarding schools in India – but in English eyes, they had one fatal flaw: the accent of their alumni. Many of the pupils at these establishments were Eurasian, the children of Eurasian planters or of the railway community, who spoke with the sing-song Eurasian accent, commonly and derogatorily known as ‘chi-chi’. The fear that a British child might pick up the accent of – or become too friendly with – Eurasians was very real in the India of the Raj. (When Iris James attended All Saints College in India
for a few months to complete her education, her mother was so anxious lest she ‘pick up the accent, like some unpleasant disease’ that she was not allowed to join her schoolmates for curry lunches but had to sit on the hillside by herself eating hotel sandwiches.)
Such apartheid had not always existed. In this hot climate where life expectancy was low and to which few white women travelled, what Robert Clive’s great rival Joseph Dupleix* called ‘la rage de la culotte’ meant that marrying or cohabiting with Indian women was accepted as perfectly natural for men who were likely to spend their entire lives in India. Many of their offspring were sent back to Britain to be educated, often marrying there.*
Then came the Regulating Act of 1773, which created the post of Governor-General of Bengal with administrative powers over all of British India. When Lord Cornwallis – the man who surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown in 1781 – was chosen for the post in 1786, these powers were enlarged and he immediately began a programme of edicts that would eventually result in the impassable barrier between British and Indians during the Raj.
The first of these diktats, issued almost at once, banned the children of British men and Indian wives from jobs with the East India Company. At the same time, it was forbidden to send such mixed-race children home to be educated. Five years later, an order was issued that no one with an Indian parent could be employed in the civil, military or marine branches of the Company (though at this point, as ‘Indian’ rested largely in the eye of the beholder, the light-skinned still slipped through) Finally, all jobs paying more than £500 a year were reserved for British men born and hired in Britain.*
The Fishing Fleet Page 4
