memorials

On the River Kwai

 Standing in one of the war graves cemetery in Kanchanaburi on a hot and humid Thai day. The water sprinkler was spraying. There was no one there. We had come by the Kwai river with the Bridge behind us.

Friend Carl.

With just the sound of the woosht, woosht of the sprinkler I wandered the rows and rows of the small metal plaques. The Suffolk and Cambridge regiments. The Royal engineers. The Highland regiment. A Dutch regiment.  Most of them 22 or 23. A few as old as 35. Some with just their names. Some with a bible passage or a line of poetry from Wilfred Owen. Some just what you would put on a postcard home.


" Best son ever." " Couldn't be more proud." " Thinking of you every day."

just one of thousands.

" love Mum  and Dad."














Such a weight on one's chest.

All those young men. And all their mums and dads and brothers and sisters.


Have read " The Narrow Road to the Far North."
Saw many years ago " To End All Wars."
Watched the night before heading west to Kanchanaburi, " The Bridge Over the River Kwai."

The Bridge over the River Kwai

But it is this acre of grass. One of many.








With little squares of metal and the engraved notes from home. And the books where you can read what street in Inverness or Hertfordshire, Melbourne or Darwin, Christchurch or Dunedin;  these young men left from, in a khaki uniform. And who sent them off. Probably waving.

etched into stone.

Later that day at the Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum,  which was started by an Australian POW who came back in 1984  determined to find the Konyu Cutting which they had all called  'Hellfire Pass.'





Almost consumed by Jungle, he found it and convinced  the Australian government to dedicate it as an historic memorial to all those who died while constructing the Burma Thailand railway.

Of the 60,000 allied POW's that worked on the railway, 12, 900 died there. Around 90,000 civilian laborers also died. from inadequate food, inadequate medical facilities and the brutal treatment of the guards.














There are no words for the enormity of standing on a piece of railway high up in the jungle that cost so much. No words.

Hellfire Pass today. with a tree now grown, where the tracks would have been.

a bowl made by an Australian now a potter, once a POW here at Hellfire.

So I leave it to Dr Kevin Fagan  whose words are engraved on a piece of stone at a clearing the far end of Hellfire Pass. Beside a small stream which comes down from the mountains.  With tall trees and a canopy of leaves with an occasional monkey leaping from  a branch.
All quiet now.

Orange in India

It is the brightness of the saris that I will remember. Not the ones being sold in stalls in markets. Or even those worn in the city of Jaipur for the festival of Dussera.
It is those worn by women walking along the streets with an enormous bunch of bamboo shoots on their heads. The women holding onto a cow or a water buffalo on the side of the street. The women far away in a field pulling something from the ground. Sitting on the back of a motorbike behind their husband. The washing lines of the shacks which had one flicking around in the warm air.
These saris were not pastel, nor white, nor black, nor gentle. They were vivid. Orange mainly. Or deep pink. Sometimes yellow. Occasionally red.
The men in pale blue shirts and brown trousers. In white dhotis or cream turbans. Sometimes they sat around. Sometimes they followed a flock of goats. But they trailed behind these women who threw their color out as a challenge to the difficult lives they were living.

men playing cards

women weaving a rug

woman with her dyed wool

Maharajas kept sections of their palaces for the women of their choice. who would all live separately and wait to see if they would be the one visited that night by a secret stairway. It was probably a lucky life.

the women quarters

The maharajah's quarters

a steep well inside a palace

Breakfast was porridge and baked beans. Waffles and white toast. chocolate milkshakes and muffins.
papaya and kiwi fruit. sambal and parathas stuffed with cheese and chillies. masala dosa and mango lassi. you must know which serving spoon I picked up.

man lying on the platform at Delhi station

girls piled into the back of a taxi in jaipur

three friends going to the Albert museum in Jaipur

men and their sacks on their camel.

went by train from Delhi to Jaipur. Saw slums and buildings unfinished but occupied. Saw fields and trees and cows and goats. went by car from Jaipur to Samode. went by car again from Samode to Ranthambore. Saw people piled up onto motorbikes. one, two, three, four, five. Helmets over bright head scarves. turbans flying in the wind. shoes, no shoes. everyone balancing and everyone in a hurry but swerving for all this hundred of cows who just lay in the road because it obviously seemed like the best place to take a rest.







Rode on an elephant. Rode on a camel. Rode in a jeep and held my breath as a tiger walked past me close enough for me to see if she had eyelashes.

spotted deer

Arrowhead. a three year old tiger. strolling by.

Ranthambore Park.

two guards at the amber palace

the pickle man in the market

wiring in the city centre

the spice man

the man who makes the stamps for the block prints

the woman sifting her grain on her rooftop

Chaotic. Glorious. Crazy. Wonderful. Filthy. Brilliant. Sad. Exciting.

You say to people, when they ask you when you will be back, " Next year."

sunrise at Ranthambore

sunset in the park.

breakfast of a Maharajah.

Masala Dosa. And a Pot of English Breakfast tea with a tea cosy.

This morning, after coming back from my ride on a jeep into the Ranthambore Park to look for wildlife ( more of that another time ) And after giving two pomegranates to Lakshmi, the elephant.
I went to have breakfast in the dining room where a man sat on the ground and played a sitar.
I could have had waffles. I could have had a bowl of porridge. I could have had toast and marmalade.
But, when in India.... I picked up the "Times of India" and ordered a Masala Dosa. It didn't come with any utensils. So I had to ask for a knife and fork. But I managed pretty well with just my right hand and the napkin on my lap.
I read the "Times of India", as I pulled the Dosa apart piece by piece and dipped it into the tomato, the coriander, and the coconut chutneys.
Apart from the front page, which had mention of Donald Trump, the death of the King of Thailand, and Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize; these were the headlines in the following pages.

Page 3. Four of family die as bus hits bike on highway in Kota.
A bus hit a bike that had four people on it.  As per traffic rules, only two riders are allowed on a bike. The bus driver, who said he had lost control of his vehicle, ran away as the villagers of the nearby area, blocked the road and set the bus on fire. 
The streets are awash with motorbikes and scooters. weaving away like some kind of high speed cat's cradle. There is occasionally just the driver, sometimes with a helmet. But mostly there are two, three, four, five, six. Whole families, sliced together. Sari's flying, turbans unraveling, dhoti's hitched up, shoeless feet, packages wider than a house tied onto the back. All  traveling to somewhere with their only protection the horn which they use wildly.

Page 4. Neil Nitin Mukesh is now engaged.
NNM has got engaged to Mumbai-based girl Rukmini Sahay. It is an arranged match.
Talking about his daughter-in-law to be, Neil's father, Nitin Mukesh, says that the family is ecstatic that neil is finally settling down. " Neil is quite old school in his ways, and left the decision of finding his soulmate in his parent's trusted hands."
It doesn't say what Neil does for a living or the life he led before he decided to settle down. But it's good to know his parents are so happy.

Page 6. Docs told donor his kidney would regrow.
Mumbai. three doctors and a social worker told a kidney donor his organ would regrow in 18 months. he was given the example of blood, which regenerates after donation. Jatav ( the donor) was not convinced so they brought him in to meet Dimple to whom he would donate his kidney and put photographs of them together to show them as close relatives.
Apparently he was told he could clear all his debts and have all his organs too.....

Page 7. Locating Loos via GPS
At present people have no information about the toilets they can use. the new facility will be of great help to women, who face the most awkward situations.
Thank you India. Yes, we do. Not sure whether you know what they are. but thank you anyway.

Page 8.  27% of Punjab cop aspirants found doping used marijuana.

police recruitment process has found 1,775 of the 6,558 aspirants tested positive for drugs. Marijuana was the most commonly used substance. 

Amphetamine was found in 1672 candidates. 

1372 had used benzodiazepine, 388 had traces of heroin and opium. 

Women candidates did not have to take the dope test.

Phew! Lucky for us girls. ...Makes you worried about all those boys though.

So that was my breakfast reading here in Ranthambore in the state of Rajasthan .

This is Lakshmi after her pomegranates.

And this is sunset over the hills this morning.

I am out of the heat of the midday sun.
I may be a little mad, and I may be a little English. But however much I love dogs.....

Alors. Le weekend en France

 Bonjour.

The market in Ruffec. Honey. Mushrooms. Figs. Tiny strawberries. Celeriac.

My relationship with France began when the family would drive up and down it's autoroutes on our way to and from our tiny flat in Catalonia. We wouldn't always stay on the autoroutes, where France was just a series of green signs and toll booths. We would also drive the scenic route with three children in the back of the Mark 2 Jaguar, to little towns and villages where my father had found a hotel in his Michelin Guide that had one bed ( for luxury of bedrooms) and four knives and forks ( for luxury of the restaurant). My memories of France were
 1. Chasing a Citroen in our Jaguar, with all of us screaming at my father to slow down and him laughing at our inability to know when a game was a game.
2. waiting for days in a small town somewhere near Dijon, when the alternator had died in the Jaguar, and we had to wait for parts from Dagenham or wherever. And the french mechanics would wander around in their overalls saying ( in french) that Citroens were better cars.
3. Eating baguette and cheese with apple juice in a stolen part of a vineyard as we stopped for lunch on a July day.
4. My father, a man with a temper, throwing the Cine Camera over the stone wall into the ravine at Rocamadour.
5. Having this lunch in Corbieres. eating an omelette aux fines herbes. And a simple green salad.


Then my relationship with the house called Val Honoux in a tiny village in Normandy, close to Lisieux. Closer to Camembert.
Surrounded by cows and apple trees.
In the place where the imprint of the second world war was so strong.
Where I played table tennis and pumped the harmonium. Where we cooked with cream and calvados. Sat in the twilight and watched the bats slip out of crevices in the house and out into the evening air.







This last weekend I went to an area called Charentes. I flew into Poitiers...( there was a knife and fork stopover in my distant past ). Lovely friends of mine, who I haven't seen for oh-so-long, have bought a barn down there. She speaks french, he has a couple of words and a lot of charm. Another friend came on her way to places further south. Once we were in this TV series about the fashion industry.
Now, there were grown children and academic degrees and different careers.
There was gossip and breakfast and stories and lunch and laughter and supper. we walked around the roads through farms. We picked vegetables from the garden and ate apples from the trees.
It was a golden time.

the "barn"

early morning

late evening

No one makes french bread like the French.

Or french dressing.
Or a vegetable soup.
And they don't have cows anywhere else like the french. who lick your  hand with their big pink tongues.

C'est toujours un plaisir.
Merci.

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