Guli's Illness

However we were much luckier than many for at least we had a house and furniture in England given us, virtually. Shabby though it was it was to see us out a good many years yet. We did not have a car for many years after the war, but we were able to obtain a van which was then allowed to be converted into a sort of station wagon, in which we all used to pile in, dogs and all, and go on long picnics in the countryside. Cars like everything else were rationed, and we were not to obtain our first proper saloon model car until 1955, the very year in which my poor mother died, and she was the one who had been looking forward to having a proper car ever since the war.

I have already mentioned that my father was unable to get a job, but not only that, he had great difficulty in getting his pension out of Burma. As a former British colony now received of its independence it regarded itself as under no obligation to pay back the British colonial servants who had administered it under the British Raj, for their pensions and provident funds which had been invested in the country. I think it took my father about five years eventually to have some recompense, in other words a lump sum that he could invest to bring him in an income. Of course he was not entitled to an old age pension as he had not yet reached the age at which he would receive it, because he was only 50 when he was forced to retire.