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We were not there long however before my father was posted to Sialkot up in the Punjab, so this involved another three day journey across India. He went first, and then we followed, with much difficulty with transport I recall as the lorry we had ordered to take the luggage to the station did not arrive, and by then we were on our own because our father had already gone up north. Barbara managed to organise something and eventually we reached the station just in time. I think Barbara was still carrying a hot iron that she had used to iron her clothes in one hand as we walked down the station.
Staff at the I.E.M.E. Workshop in Sialkot
(Jack Eades centre)
Dr Jha, Jack, Sheila, Barbara and Robin
We took with us an Indian boy of about 15 who was designed to be our servant, but little good did he prove, as he was homesick almost the moment we reached Sialkot, and asked to be sent back.
Sialkot was about 100 miles from Lahore, on a dusty, dusty plain, flat as a pancake with the only relief the sight of the Himalayas shimmering in the distance. Beyond the Himalayas we knew lay Kashmir, and my mother had regaled us always with stories of her marvellous honeymoon up in Kashmir all those years before.
She kept promising us that some time during the heat of the summer she would take us to Kashmir and we would see the magnificent scenery green and cool all around us. However, that was never to come pass as by then we had moved on back to England.
I do not remember how long we stayed in Sialkot, probably no more than three months in all. [Jack was posted there from 25 March to 2 June 1945]. Once more it was desperately hot, we had constant tummy trouble, I had malaria and lost several stone in weight and went bright yellow from the drug mepecrine used to treat my malaria. My chief memory is of feeling ill most of the time, but in between we would be out in the evenings dancing, in constant demand as one of the few females on the camp for the hundreds of soldiers who were there incarcerated in wooden camps. There was very little recreation apart from this, although Barbara used to go riding quite a lot with a rather energetic cavalry corps officer, who gave her a horse far too strong for her to control. On at least one occasion it ran away with her. There was a very good deal of unrest in India and what later became Pakistan where we were, and a good deal of propaganda against the British, with "British Get Out" painted all over the town. From time to time the bazaar was off limits as it was regarded as too unstable politically. However no harm came to anyone as I recall, apart from the odd stone being thrown.
Shahpoo and Robin playing soldiers
While we were in Sialkot the war in Europe came to an end, and there were terrific celebrations for VE Day [8 May 1945]. We then realised that we were designed to be repatriated to England, and in due course [2 June] received our marching orders to go down to Deolali, the transit camp from which all shipments of troops and families home was organised. This has later been immortalised in a comedy series called "It Ain't Half Hot, Mum", on TV some years ago. In this production it is a team of ENSA actors who are posted to Deolali, but the environment and setting is very true to life.
While we there I remember a group of Italian POWs were detailed off to paint murals round the camp dining room, no doubt to give them something to do and us something to look at. They were sometimes crude (not in the sense that they were vulgar) and I can't even remember what the scenes were that they painted, but they were certainly colourful. Not much else happened while we were at Deolali awaiting our transport home. There were the usual swimming parties at the club, and drinks and dancing parties in the evening, all designed to keep the troops and families out of mischief, while the interminable wait for a troop ship home to England went on. We spent some time in the bazaars spending our money on trinkets and brightly coloured skirts. There was little else to buy except the native-designed and made clothes. Materials were very much in short supply and rationed I believe.
We had by then made some friends among the various army officers, and when the time came to move on we all found ourselves on board the same ship. The morning we were due to move off from Deolali I had all my underclothes stolen in the night. We had packed everything up, and just had the clothes we were due to put on the next day left around the beds. During the night somebody must have inched a fishing rod through the slats of the window and fished out my underclothes, because there was nothing there when I got up the next morning. I cannot quite remember what I did but it was too late to get the boxes back because they had all been packed up and sent off. I rather think I must have borrowed some underpants from someone!
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