Visits "Home"

I wish I could remember all the names of the ships we came home and went out to Burma on. There were quite a variety of them, some very small from the Bibby Line, which was the local line plying between Liverpool and Burma, and some much larger such as Orient Line vessels like the Orcades, a particularly beautiful ship we sailed out on. There was also a Dutch ship that we came home from Ceylon in one year, which was quite the most splendidly magnificent ship I have ever been in.

Family visits home to England from Burma followed the pattern of furloughs established from the early days of the Empire. Soldiers, businessmen and government employees would save up their leave entitlement over a number of years in order to take a long break and travel back to the "mother country". Typically this meant taking a leave of 6 to 9 months every 3 years or so. (This included the time spent on board ship, which by the 1930s was about 5 or 6 weeks each way). Not surprisingly these voyages produced vivid memories.

The Penultimate Visit - 1937

The last visit home before the war was in 1937. Sheila remembered it vividly, and with good reason!

We had one more trip to England when I was 7. On this occasion it was planned to leave me at home in England with Barbara at boarding school, but I kicked up such a fuss and made so much of my miseries at the thought of being left behind that my parents relented and took me back with them.

Sheila does not provide any further details about this remarkable change of mind by her parents. Presumably both Barbara and Margery would have been anticipating Sheila's arrival. I imagine that Barbara in particular would have been eagerly looking forward to having Sheila's company at school. She would be able to show her the ropes, and generally be the experienced older sister. Suddenly and without warning all this was denied her. Perhaps it is not surprising that she still referred to this experience with bitterness at the age of 70.

On this particular occasion we paid visits to many family members, including the Great Aunts in Bristol, and we also went across to France for a holiday at St Lunaire in Brittany. But most of the holidays we spent at a very, very old mediaeval farm called Bowstridge Farm near Chalfont St Giles, which was fairly close to Gerrards Cross where my Aunt Margery lived in her little bungalow which was the base for all our family holidays for many years, and where Barbara always spent her holidays from school. I remember our trip to Bowstridge Farm particularly, because it was while we there that we heard the news of the abdication of Edward VIII, and I remember how distressed my parents were because they felt he was being pushed out by the establishment because he would not give up Mrs Simpson, the woman he loved, who was a divorcee. The abdication crisis loomed very large on that trip home and there was a great deal of discussion by the adults, who all took different sides in the matter. I remember my father was very pro the Duke of Windsor, as he became.

At the end of 1937 we went back once more to Burma on board ship. It must have been in 1937 because I remember that we went through Spanish waters during the Civil War there, and that all the watertight doors on board had to be shut. On that occasion my mother, Robin and I were on our way to the bathroom when the watertight doors shut, and we were locked the other side from our cabins and had to return, complete with sponge bags and dressing gowns through the first class dining room, where they had already started their meal. It was quite embarrassing, but my mother carried it off with her usual aplomb, sailing through ahead of us in her Chinese dressing gown with dragons on it, holding us by the hand, and with towels and sponge bags etc clattering along with us all.