We must have left for the Andaman Islands very late in 1946 or very early in 1947. My sister Barbara Anne had been born 5th November 1945 and was a toddler. My mother was pregnant with my youngest sister, Jean Heather, while we travelled to the Andamans and she was born in April 1947. So we lived there from about the end of 1946 to about 1949 when we moved back to Haddo. About a year later we returned to Calcutta at the end of 1950. I recall being on board quite a large vessel, subsequently identified as the S.S. Maharajah. I understand it took about 4 days to get there from Calcutta. My sister Barbara lost her little shoe over the side and seeing it float away on the waves of the sea I felt quite frightened. I've no idea how my father made the arrangements to go there. First we stayed in Port Blair (the capital of the island group) with a Mrs Deakes; she had a son called Harland who drowned in the well from which we used to draw water. He was about 8 or 10 years old so a good bit older than we were. Daddy had come into contact with some young men who I think had recently come out of one of the services and who likewise wanted to establish their own free holding. Now whether dad met them, in Calcutta or on the Andaman Islands, I do not know. The two who remained were Elmo Grey and Bill Belchambers.

PORT BLAIR

I remember Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman Islands, being a confusing place, it was a timber logging area with lots of timber around and what I now know to be sawmills. Our trip over to "our island" that we lived on is vague. Daddy built a shack for us to live in. The sleeping area was on stilts to give some protection from the invasion of the local wildlife, not always successfully as we shall see later. The trip from Port Blair to our home "island" was approximately half an hour if the tide was right or if against the tide probably nearer three-quarters. However if the weather was particularly bad then it was probably an hour's journey. The jetty we arrived at was very primitive. The boat came into a little inlet where a small landing stage had been built. We landed on a metal pontoon and then went from there on to a wooden walkway. Because this went out into deep water and the slats were set wide apart, I can remember seeing the sea lashing underneath the slats and feeling frightened that I would fall through and down into the sea below. Once on dry land, the road ran around the hill, on the right there was a beach that came up to the land and we had to walk up quite a steep hill to get to where our shack was. Half way up this climb, there were lime and lemon trees and when the fruit was ripe on them dad used to say "there's gold in dem da hills" and he would always yodel from that point to let us know he was coming.

THE TRAPPERS

At the bottom of the hill lived Burmese men who were trappers; they trapped mostly wild boar and dad who loved a hunt used to go out with them sometimes. They had to walk around the hill on what passed as the main road, at the top of the beach. There was of course no motorised traffic on it. It was the main route for accessing the forested and uninhabited areas. They used dogs that I suppose sniffed out the animals and also joined in the tracking, trapping and killing. One was called Laphew; it was a black and white dog and was very courageous and tough. There was the time when this poor dog was ripped open by a boar and I remember daddy actually stitching the wound that ran along his leg and thigh and the side of his stomach. We also had a dog that we had from a puppy; daddy had got it from a native man. We called her Choco because of her colour and I do believe she got killed in one of these wild boar hunts. One of the men was called Mompwa. He was the son of the older man. On one of our little trips with daddy exploring the jungle we came across a hole in a bank that was quite large and dad said we had better move on quickly as we could feel the heat from the body of a wild boar that was obviously in residence. They were quite fierce animals. It was on one of these trips too that I saw rocks that glowed a fairly bright bluey-green and dad said to be careful as it was poisonous - it was phosphorus. The forest was quite dense and dark so the glow of the phosphorus was quite noticeable. On one occasion having caught a very young boar alive it was hog-tied and slung around the shoulders of daddy or one of the other men on the hunt, Elmo Grey or Bill Belchambers. The poor little thing was frightened and uncomfortable strung as it was on their shoulders, and unable to hold his liquid any longer it wet all down the back of whoever was carrying it. I think it happened more than once during the trip so more than one person got anointed in this way.

WILD CAT

There was a fairly large wild cat that used to be on the "island"; in fact one was caught and killed. I suppose the cat was like an ocelot. It was much bigger than a domestic cat. It did have spots on it and was creamy in colour. Even though it appeared as though it was dead, when dad put a stick in its mouth to get a clearer look at its fangs, it snapped its jaws shut and pierced a hole right through the stick, dad was very glad he hadn't put his finger in its mouth. It was trapped near our shack.

THE SHACK

Our shack on our "island" was beside a very wide, open ride. It was a very green sward of grass that cut through the forest, I don't know how wide this was but it seemed very wide to me as a little girl. Our shack was built on the left-hand side of this green ride as you faced up the hill with your back to the sea. As I said previously it was built on stilts, at least the sleeping quarters were, and we had to climb a ladder to get to it. It was fairly primitive. The ground level was our living quarters and the top half of the walls were open on three sides. There was a kitchen and the kitchen range was built from clay and bricks. It was fuelled with wood, which would have been collected from the forest. I recall the unique flavour of the coconut milk we used to drink, and I can still remember the unusual taste when it was warmed before drinking and the smell off the smoky wood fire. The milk was extracted by first grating the coconut, soaking it for a time in boiling water and then squeezing off the milk. We used it for cooking and to drink and also in tea which had a very unique flavour. We had poultry in an open area behind our shack. On one side of the house was a little path through to the toilet area. The toilets were trenches cut into the earth, and as they were used then the earth was just filled back on top, so you can see life was very primitive on this little "island". Hurricane lamps filled with paraffin gave us light at night though we slept and rose generally with the daylight hours.

THE JARAWA NATIVE PEOPLE

On the islands was a race of people known as the Jarawas or the pygmies; they were wild. They lived in the forest and lived from the forest. They ate I think birds, snakes, wild boars, fish and anything that they could find, like primitive people do in these tropical countries. They were a very small race of people, short, very stocky, and very strong. The Jarawas were seen many times though I cannot say how many. My father did not sleep well and would often sit outside the shack at night. I was a wakeful child and would sit cuddled up on his lap and enjoy chatting or listening to the sounds of the jungle with him. As we looked up the ride we often saw the parties of Jarawa cross the ride, all in a line, coming out of the forest on one side, crossing the grassy ride and then disappearing into the forest on the other side. The time of night would have been between midnight and 3 am. Their crossing place was about 200 to 300 yards away. During the day when we walked up to the crossing point there was a well worn track about one foot wide that had been traversed many times. Seen in the moonlight they were small people and shapes and heights were distinctly different. They were carrying things on their side or back but just what was impossible to say. They seemed to have large bushy heads of hair but were too far away to tell if they were male or female. I recall that the leading individual would carry a small fire in front of him. If it was a moonless night then we saw the glow of a fire; if it was a moonlit night then we saw the smoke and their silhouettes. The moonlight was very bright and clear; you could read by it. We often saw them in late summer or autumn, before the monsoons came. They were usually in parties of from ten to twenty. Once we lost count and dad exclaimed, "that’s a lot". They travelled from South to North. Only once did I see them travel North to South and this was just before dawn. They moved in the forest very silently. Occasionally we heard voices very gently. They were a race of people whose language, I understand was never ever understood or deciphered. One of them was captured and was taken to Port Blair prison and was I understand imprisoned for about 5 years, he did die there in the end I suppose of grief, loneliness, and not having anybody to understand him and he must have missed his family too.

A DEAD ELEPHANT

As I say Port Blair was a logging community and they used the elephants for moving timber. I remember one elephant, after having been lowered into the sea from a ship, disappeared and was later seen dead on the beach of our "island". I recall going down to see its carcass. It was being gradually eaten up by birds and fish and general decay. I remember the stench as time progressed but we moved from the "island" before it was completely stripped so we never saw its bones.

DIFFICULT TIMES

Now, though dad tried to run a poultry farm I think he had some difficult times. There were things that were happening to do with the government and he was not able to get a grant or permission to continue to farm. Every day mummy used to take chickens and eggs with her to the mainland to sell. This helped with finances for us. But when the government would no longer allow a licence to continue the only alternative was to leave. The other thing that contributed to our going back to Port Blair after having been in the Andamans was that these pygmies were reputed, rightly or wrongly, to be head-hunters. They used to travel between the various islands by canoe. As a child I thought that they just lived on our "island", but apparently not. They had began to get a bit curious about our shacks, and as they grew accustomed to us they began to get a bit more bold and get much closer to us in the night time. Our dog Choco and possibly Laphew, and one or two of the other hunting dogs we borrowed from the men at the bottom of the hill would point out where these people were in the forest. The dogs would stand growling very deep very low, their hackles all standing up and their noses pointing in the direction of the natives’ movement. Once they had gone far enough away and the animals felt safe again, then we all returned to sleep and peace. This happened many times in the nights and as we were a very small and young family, I think this was enough in the end to frighten daddy into moving us all back to Port Blair.

BACK TO PORT BLAIR

I recall how very sad we all were when dad had to give up and sell his poultry and return to Port Blair, because the mainland was much more busy after living more or less alone on our "island". We stayed with a family; I don’t remember who they were, while daddy built another house for us again on stilts on an unforested side of a hill but this time we overlooked the sea. I understand it was the district of Haddo. There were lots of open areas. I suppose because those islands were really quite small you were not very far from the sea anywhere. We could sit on our top stairs, and look out of an evening over the sea, and see the boats coming and going all lit up which was very pretty at night with the moonlight dancing on the waves as it glistening on the sea.

THE NEW SHACK

This was a much smaller house than we'd had before, and because it was on the side of a hill this time we had our living and sleeping quarters upstairs, and the kitchen and toilet/bathroom were on ground level. Again there were two rooms, one for dining and sitting in and one for sleeping in. The furniture and furnishings were very primitive; the cooking facilities were again a brick and earthen range. Toilet facilities were a little less primitive than a hole in the ground. This comprised an oil drum cut in half with a wooden seat put on top for comfort and a loose lid that covered it when not in use. We used a very strong disinfectant diluted with a little water, it smelt a bit like Jeyes fluid but we knew it as ‘Phenyl’. There was an open tin of this mixture in which a friendly bullfrog came to grief. He used to sit in the corner of our little toilet and croak, dad would croak back at him and they used to have a little conversation in there. I suppose it helped you to know somebody was using the facilities. Water was stored in a tank and had to be kept disinfected. We used Condees crystals, which are purple crystals (of permanganate of potash) that served the purpose. And I still recall the taste of that too from my childhood.

ANOTHER CREEPY-CRAWLY

Again on another occasion when all were asleep dad woke to the feeling of something crawling around near his shoulder. One of our heads would have been not very far away and wanting to avoid putting us in danger he decided that the best plan was to roll over on to whatever it was. Hoping to pin it down with his weight, at least until mummy had a chance to light a lantern so that he could see what he was dealing with. Unfortunately he got every bit of it but it's head, it turned out to be a very large centipede and bit his shoulder several times injecting a lot of poison into him. Now my father was a large man, strong and healthy but I remember him being very ill with that bite and suffering acute pain from it. There was somebody who when he got word of it brought some sort of medication for daddy to sniff. He did apply medicine on the bite as well but he got relief from the pain by sniffing this stuff. This was a fairly nasty incident because had that creature bitten the child lying near daddy I think it may well have had a more serious outcome. The centipede was hung upside down and the poison that had dripped out of it onto the wooden floorboards left a burn-like mark from the strength of its venom. The poison was a milky opaque substance.

CONCLUSION

There were so many happy and life-enriching experiences and I recall those years with great fondness. I would really love to be able to go back there and experience it all again.

Spring 2001.

Footnote: Although the author refers throughout to "our island" she is speaking of Port Blair. The family first lived on a peninsula of Port Blair Harbour. The area was Mitha Khari and was across the harbour from Haddo the main populated area. To a very young child this seemed like an island in its own right.