i MOORTHY JUNIOR
It was Moorthy junior who led me to the Colonel. When I first met him in 1994, Moorthy was in his mid-forties. Almost exactly my age. I was in south India writing a travel feature for The Sunday Times and researching a book on Indo Saracenic architecture. Moorthy and his air-conditioned Ambassador were recommended to me by the Manager of the Standard Chartered Bank in Ootacamund, Ooty, more properly called Udhagamandalam, is a former colonial “hill-station” in the Nilgiri Hills. The Blue Mountains of south India.
I was cashing some traveller’s cheques and while I signed them, the branch manager of the bank asked me in a pleasantly nosy way what I was doing in Ooty. I told him and he immediately asked me if I would be needing a car. He recommended Moorthy who had, he explained, been the driver for a Colonel RA Willis, a retired Indian Army officer. I hired Moorthy and his car for a day. Six weeks later he dropped me at the station as I began my journey back down the mountain to resume my working life. We had become friends and it was an emotional farewell.
A couple of weeks after we first met, Moorthy invited me to his home. I accepted at once and paid him to drive me there mid-morning of the following day. I expected a small concrete-slab two-room box overflowing with generations of Moorthys. Instead we pulled up at a wrought iron gate in a high wall. The wall, unlike many in south India, showed signs of having been recently whitewashed. Moorthy blew the car’s horn and a child came running to let us in.
Moorthy’s house stood in a half-acre of neat gardens. The house itself had three bedrooms and deep verandas on three sides which effectively doubled the floor area of the dwelling. Anyone who knows the scarcity and consequent cost of useable land in the Nilgiris will, by now, be questioning the accuracy of my reporting.
Moorthy introduced me to his father, Moorthy senior, a hale sixty year-old with silver hair and beard, dressed in an impeccable white dhoti. Moorthy himself habitually wore khaki trousers and a khaki shirt of a military pattern with patch pockets and buttoned epaulets.
Moorthy senior had been the Colonel’s batman* and when he retired the Colonel had bought out the remainder of Moorthy senior’s service and installed him as chief steward at the house in Ooty.
Ray Willis had been an Indian Army officer.* He had retired from the Army in 1947. In retirement he and his wife spent their summers in Bournemouth and returned each autumn to Ooty for six months of warm weather. Here they lived life in a style that would have been familiar to someone of their skin colour and social standing in the 1930s.
During those years the Moorthy’s lived in the small, stone and plaster house that stood in a corner of the large garden that surrounded the Willis’ Ooty house. The other servants ~ Cook, Mali* the sweeper and Ayah* and the assorted “boys” who helped here and there ~ all lived elsewhere. They lived locally and could walk to work each day from their homes in the thatched or corrugated-iron roofed huts that lay half hidden amongst the tea. All except Cook who was provided with a bicycle so that he could go to the market early each morning and buy fresh produce for the day ahead.
From his command post sitting on the top step of the servant’s veranda at the rear of the house, his back against one of the square, red brick, pillars that supported the veranda roof, Moorthy senior managed the other servants and the house. When the Willises were in residence his days were full of people to manage and small bribes to service, for everyone paid Moorthy senior for his patronage.
When the Colonel and the Memsahib returned to Bournemouth each year the Ooty house was closed. The servants were put on six months of half-pay, slowly moving through the tasks of maintaining the house in an endless cycle of cleaning and renewal. This arrangement suited everyone. The servants were happy, for the fat months paid for the lean and in the summer months they earned extra cash through casual work. All except cook who had no family and was, by local standards, well-off. Cook spent the summer months fathering children on the married women in the villages around Ooty. In this duty he found the bicycle wonderfully convenient for making an early start when going to the market.
“A bad man” said Moorthy junior
ii THE LAWYER AND THE LETTER
As October approached the staff would prepare the house for the Willis’ return. On October 4th 1993 a Chief Inspector of Police accompanied by a lawyer called at the house unexpectedly and unannounced. The Chief Inspector and the lawyer arrived by official car, a black Ambassador, well-polished but, as Moorthy never failed to point out when telling this story, not as good as the Colonel’s car being of a smaller engine size and lacking the air-conditioning. A Mahindra copy of a Jeep followed the Ambassador driven by a policeman and with three further policemen as passengers. Each policeman was equipped with a military pattern, bolt action, 303 rifle.
As though by prior arrangement the entire staff assembled in the dusty turning circle overlooked by the front veranda. There was a moment of embarrassment. Clearly the visitors could not be entertained in the house in the absence of the Colonel and the Memsahib. And just as clearly they were far too important to be welcomed in the Moorthy’s house.
Moorthy senior took control and Mali and Cook were despatched to bring two upright chairs from the hallway and placed them side by side, like two thrones, on the red Mansion polished tiles of the Front Garden Veranda. The visitors sat down looking out over the garden which was, and was usually referred to as, the Memsahib’s pride and joy. The servants stood in a half circle at their feet. Moorthy senior stood to one side.
The Chief Inspector introduced Chatterrjee the lawyer and the lawyer read aloud a letter from Truscott a lawyer in England. In the pale sunshine the Ooty lawyer waved the letter but did not offer to show it to the people whose lives it would now change forever. The Memsahib was dead. The Colonel Sahib would not be coming this year or ever again. A cry of despair went up from the assembled servants and all of them except Moorthy senior and Cook began to weep. Chatterrjee paused and Moorthy senior spoke sternly to the rest of the servants.
The sahib’s guns, the sporting guns and his military revolver, were to be handed over at once and the armed escort would take them away for disposal. The narrative stopped once more but no one moved. The senior policeman spoke brusquely to Moorthy senior in Malayalam though he knew that Moorthy’s English was excellent and almost certainly superior to his own.
Moorthy senior, who had adopted a haughty and insolent expression, slowly plunged his hand down the open neck of his shirt, one of the Colonel’s castoffs that the Memsahib had given him and for which Ayah had turned the cuffs and the collar. The shirt was thirty years old. Only one of the original mother-of-pearl buttons survived.
Now Moorthy senior pulled out the gun-locker key that hung, always, on a silk string around his neck. Without a word he walked into the house. The Inspector signalled to the little troop who had lined-up by the Mahindra and, leaving their rifles unguarded, they trotted after Moorthy senior their heavy chappals, soled with rubber re-purposed from car tyres, slapping on the veranda tiles. The guns were handed over. The reading of the will resumed.
Each member of staff was to receive, immediately, a small gift from among the Willis’ possessions and a cash gift equal to about six months pay. They would also receive a year’s salary paid in 12 monthly instalments. The lawyer would make all the arrangements.
The Moorthy’s got the house, the land, the two cars and all the Willis’' possessions other than those items listed in the letter which were to be packed and shipped to England. Moorthy senior would do the packing. The Lawyer would arrange the shipping. All together, when packed, the possessions, the winnings of a life-time, did not fill a tea chest.
When I returned to England I set out to find Ray Willis. It took me more than a month to track down the Colonel from the information that Moorthy had given me. It is difficult to remember that only a few years ago, before the internet, such a task involved tedious and slow research, phone calls and letters and waiting for replies which when they arrived necessitated more letters or phone calls. Eventually I was able to write to Ray Willis and tell him how the Moorthys were getting on. A week later I had a reply.
Ray Willis
Mount House
Manor Road
Bournemouth
7th April 95
Dear Mr Tibbetts
Thank you for your letter of 31st March. It was very kind of you to write and give me the news of Ooty and the Nilgiris. I am pleased to hear that Moorthy and family are well. Moorthy’s father, I had good cause to say, was a subversive influence. When he should have been an example for good to the young he was the opposite. I never had much of an opinion of him. Perhaps he has changed.
How is Moorthy’s mother? She was not awfully well when last I heard. And his many sisters? They must all be married now. Yes I did a lot for the family. They were in poor circumstances. My wife and I were in the fortunate position financially to help them recover to decency and self-respect.
I was interested in what you had to say about Wellington and the Gymkhana Club. We visited the club many times, a bit far from Ooty. It’s a pity it is so low lying.
I never met Craig Jones senior. Kotagiri I know well. But never visited Kodanad. I’m sure you enjoyed yourself there. Lovely, but what a peaceful life. Far from the troubled world outside.
We made a great friend of a Planter now living a few miles outside Ooty. He is in his 80s. Was a major in the Punjab Regiment, an MC, his name Richard Radcliffe, excellent fellow, still corresponds, I said you must be introduced.
My father settled in the Nilgiris after a military career. He was Paymaster Sergeant of the Royal Fusiliers (9th Foot) and was a founder member of Spencer and Co with J.O Robinson. Father’s foible? Whisky! It was a tragedy. He would have gone far. A clever man. He died in Ooty in 1933.
Mother’s parents came from Scotland. Her father was Master Tailor of the R.F. That is how she came to meet father. Mother is buried in the School Cemetery at Lovedale. I visited her grave several times when staying at the club. Father is buried in St Stephen’s Ooty.
My early life I spent in India. I was a pupil at the Lawrence School Lovedale. I was head boy when I left in 1925. Joined the Lancashire Fusiliers in Madras. I possessed the educational qualifications to get into Sandhurst, but had to get the necessary military experience, leadership, command, small-arms and field craft.
I eventually got a scholarship to Sandhurst in September 1929 Gazetted 2/Lieut Jan ’31. Served in N. Ireland then posted to 2nd Btn York & Lancaster Regt in Delhi. Married a girl from Croydon in ’36. In 39 was posted to N Africa Western Desert. On staff 7th Armoured Division rank Major served with Desert Rats ‘till end of 41. I was in the last battle where we cut off the remnants of the Italian 10th Army from their withdrawal to Tripoli thus capturing the entire army together with the High Command, the General Staff and over 400,000 men. I was returned to India. Posted on staff of 14th India Division went through Burmese campaign from its inception to its conclusion.
My wife returned to the UK in January ’40 with our two sons. I was granted two months special leave by Bill Slim in November 45. I was a colonel at age of 35. After two months in UK returned to Malaya. Joined by my wife in ’46. Returned to UK March 47 for six months long leave. Felt I had had enough & retired. My age 38 years. Never took another job though offered many. Have been my own boss ever since. Gambled on the stock market and in property development, made good money. Have been very fortunate in my life. Perhaps without conceit a King Midas. You will see that in just under 6 years I advanced from Capt. to Col! From Fuselier (Private) to Col in 19 years. In that period Comdg a Regt; though only for a short period.
I have written a longer letter than I intended. I trust it has been of interest and that you will forgive any egotism!. My writing is not very good; But for one in his 88th year not too bad – a bit shaky
Sincerely yours
Ray Willis
PS.
My wife died in ’93 – 5th September, 84 years. We were born on the same date, same month, Jan 22 1908 – Jan 22 1909. I was a year older! One in a million.
iv READ THIS! REMEMBER ME!
I planned to go down to the south coast and pay my respects to Ray Willis. But I found other things to do and when I did find the time to go to Bournemouth and present myself, the Colonel was dead. I was unprepared for the sharpness of my feelings of loss.
A few years later I had other reasons to visit Bournemouth. I stood on the pavement looking at Mount House ~ a property of considerable scale and character, appropriate as the private dwelling of a gentleman of means which was now a nicely turned-out private care home ~ and kicked myself.
I keep Ray Willis’ letter in my desk drawer. It has lain there since I first opened it half a lifetime ago. I have it in front of me now. Large sheets of crisp blue paper. I love the address, Mount House, deliberately or unconsciously misleading. The Colonel might be spending his last few years in a care home but there was no reason to admit this to himself or advertise the fact to others.
I love the spidery handwriting, the Colonel’s implacable need to be heard, the letter’s distillation of a huge life into five and half pages of wobbly scrawl and, above all, I love Ray Willis’s unassailable confidence that long after the final whistle has blown, the game is still afoot.
Until that first reading of the Colonel’s letter I had absolutely no intention of writing a memoir of my own. I was happy to read, from time to time, about the lives of others. I liked memoirs by travellers and the children of monstrously egotistical parents who had lived to tell the tale. I balked, however, at the thought of writing a memoir of my own, even one as cryptic and as short as the Colonel’s.
There are quite enough memoir writers, I thought, and quite enough memoirs, what with the panoptic views of the rise and fall of empires, the self-serving lies churned out by recently failed politicians, the self-aggrandising memoirs of those who are entitled to be heard by nothing more than an accident of birth, the ghost written bollocks from rock and film stars and the sycophantic musings of writers who are writing about writers who soon will be writing about them”.
I almost certainly would have left the memoir writing to others and settled for a quiet decline from obscurity to oblivion had not the Colonel strode forward and into my life, friendly but commanding.
“Pay attention Tibbetts! Read this and remember me!” says the Colonel in his letter. His life, part fact and part fabrication, as all lives are, rebuked me for my lack of courage and enterprise and my failure to accept that, as an officer and a wannabe gentleman, I had a duty to keep the record up to date.
So, if you are looking for someone to blame for all this ~ yet another sycophantic, self-serving, self-aggrandising memoir ~ blame Ray Willis and yes ….. read this and remember me!
-o0o-
* Batman In the British armed forces commissioned officers were assigned a Batman: they carried orders from the officers to the men of lower rank, they were drivers and valets caring for the officer's uniforms, they brought in the shaving water in the morning and the whisky bottle and soda siphon in the evening.
* The Indian Army and the British Army in India were separate organisations. The Indian Army was permanently based in India, while soldiers of the British Army was only there for a tour of duty. The Indian Army was made up of Indian soldiers and European officers, while the British Army was made up of British units posted to India.
* The Ambassador was made in India, by Hindustan Motors. Morris Motors of Cowley in Oxfordshire sold them the rights, the tooling and much of the production line of the Morris Oxford, in 1957. The Ambassador was in production in India with a few changes to the design and the engineering, from 1958 to 2014. Many would argue that none of the changes were improvements.
* A Bearer was a sort of butler, the Ayah – amma in Latin, ayah in Hindi, aia in Portuguese and yaya in Tagalog - was a girl or woman employed as a domestic servant to look after the children of the family and do other domestic tasks including mending clothes and washing the Memsahib’s underwear. By the time the children no longer needed an Ayah the were often so loved and so relied upon that they were kept on becoming the Memsahib’s maid.
* Madras the capital city of Tamil Nadu the southernmost state in India was renamed Chennai in 1996