Health & Welfare

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Introduction

An overcrowded city in a tropical climate, lack of food, and a large transient population with a great deal of war-time and political violence thrown in; Calcutta’s health situation was on the brink during the 1940 and many of those who lived through those days had a tale to tell bout it. Many medicines familiar to us today were not available then and disease was much more frequent and more serious problem.

Overpopulation, hunger and a certain amount of carelessness amongst many newcomers led to further worries on this front.

On the other hand Calcutta had, for Indian standards, a well developed health system, which merits description.

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

not a citizen of Calcutta who need he without adequate medical attention

It is a city in which, from Charnock's day to the present, civic consciousness and responsibility have steadily developed. The evidence is before one. Leaving aside the great medical institutions like the Presidency General Hospital, the Medical College Group of Hospitals, The School of Tropical Medicine. The All-India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health and numerous other centres of research and treatment, the work of which is not only of national but international importance, the city is equipped with a chain of hospitals, district dispensaries, maternity homes and health-centres on a par with the best in the world. Today, then: is not a citizen of Calcutta who need he without adequate medical attention, entirely free of equal importance is the fact that, every expectant mother in the city is assured of medical attention, from skilled practitioners of her own sex.

The critic of 1780, describing Calcutta as an "undistinguished mass of filth and corruption," could hardly have visualised that it would one day be a city in which great medical institutions would conduct researches of profound importance to the whole world; and where, at the other end of the medical scale, several hospitals and charitable dispensaries would yearly administer free treatment to millions of indigent patients.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source page 2 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

The City's Health

Once upon a time the European residents or Calcutta gathered together yearly to congratulate one another on having escaped with their lives through another season of pestilence. Today every citizen, whether he is of the East or West, has just as much expectation of longevity in Calcutta, as he would have anywhere else. It is not that Calcutta is a health resort, but its rapid advancement in Medical Science, Sanitation and Health Culture, has brought the town into line with the healthiest cities in the world.

In the cold weather the climate of Calcutta is ideal. During this period people flock to it from East and West, Indian princes, nobles and notabilities make Calcutta their headquarters ; even the Viceroy and his staff visit the City, and Calcutta, in addition to its commercial importance, becomes a prominent social centre of India.

Inadequate as the foregoing sketch must necessarily be in a work of this description, enough has been said to show that Calcutta is one of the greatest and most progressive cities, and that it does lead the world in many ways.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source page 8 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

Grim Statistics

Two candid reports on health conditions in widely separated parts of the British Empire shocked Britons and Americans last week: one on India, one on England itself. Most shocking was a cabled report from Dr. John B. Grant, 43, who is on loan to the Indian Government from the Rockefeller Foundation's International Health Division. Slightly less shocking is Our Towns: A Close-Up (Oxford University Press), a study of British town children evacuated to the country in 1939.

Dr. Grant does not describe the smell of Calcutta, the Indian habit of throwing garbage and excrement out of windows, the children running loose with smallpox nor the more or less constant state of semifamine in some sections. But his criticisms are grim enough:

> For India's 400,000,000 people there are 42,000 doctors (two-thirds of them licensed) and 5,000 nurses. The 6,500 dispensaries last year treated only 35,000,000 old and new patients.

>In all India there are only ten university-affiliated medical colleges, not one of which fulfills minimum requirements for a sound medical education.

> In 1939, malaria killed 1,500,000 Indians; cholera killed nearly 100,000 (a death rate of 29.3 per 100,000 compared with a Philippine rate of zero to .01); smallpox killed about 50,000 (a rate of 16.2 per 100,000 compared with zero for The Netherlands Indies and the Philippines). Tuberculosis is spreading.

>Most Indians can afford only cheap carbohydrate food (starches and sugar), and are starving for certain food essentials.

> Bengal has only 6,000 hospital beds for its 50,000,000 people.

>Nearly half of the districts and three-quarters of the municipalities have no qualified health officers. Of 116 second-class Bengal municipalities, only 27 have a full-time health officer, 28 have not even a sanitary inspector, and eleven have no vaccinator.

>The government assumes almost no responsibility for industrial health, which is left up

to the factory owners.

India's health budget (less than $30,000,000 in 1939), like the national income ($20 per capita), is meager, but Dr. Grant says that disconnected administration and overlapping agencies prevent the Indians from getting even $30,000,000 worth of medical service. Dr. Grant believes that only a beginning can be made in a public health program at present (e.g., by establishing a few school health services), that real health progress must wait until India's 88% illiteracy rate is reduced, since much of India's bad health and insanitary practices are due to the ignorance, apathy and superstition of the Indians themselves.

British Untouchables. That the difference between Indian and British slum conditions is largely a matter of scale is revealed by Our Towns: A Close-Up. The insanitary state of the evacuated slum children was comparable to that of the Indian untouchables: about 20% of these children had head lice, especially the young ones and the older girls who never comb their hair in order to preserve permanent waves. More than a quarter of Sheffield's

school children had skin diseases (most common: the itch). Many children had never been fed a hot meal, never used forks or spoons. Bed-wetting was common. Since many of the children had never seen a bathroom, they used the hearth or any convenient corner of a room instead.

Our Towns: A Close-Up was produced at the behest of Britain's ultrarespectable National Federation of Women's Institutes. The British Medical Journal calls it "horrifying" and warns readers that they need "stout stomachs."

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Aug. 2, 1943)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

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The Climate

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

The climate of India

In a country where uniformity is rare, climate also varies. In the Himalayas it is moist and cold; in northern India it is dry with extreme heat in summer (up to 125 degrees), and extreme cold in winter (below freezing point in the Himalayan region). The climate is, however, equable in sorthern India.

India has three clearly defined seasons, the winter, the summer and the rainy season. The winter generally begins from November, the summer from March, and the rainy (monsoon) season from July. While Cherapunji in the Assam Hills has 460 inches of rain in the year, Upper Sind has about 3 inches only.

(source: “A Guide Book to Calcutta, Agra, Delhi, Karachi and Bombay” The American Red Cross and the China-Burma-India-Command. [1943]: at: http://cbi-theater-2.home.comcast.net/redcross/red-cross-india.html#INDIA)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Calcutta has a tropical climate

CLIMATE: Calcutta has a tropical climate - the maximum temerature being 106 degrees and the minimum 48 degrees. The monsoon months from June to October are not very pleasant with humid heat. The cold season from November to March is pleasant.

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Climate

The climate here is far from perfect; although any of you who have soldiered in Louisiana won't mind it much. There are three seasons which are commonly referred to as the Hot Weather, the Monsoon, and the Cool Weather. The Hot Weather lasts from March until the latter part of June. The first part of the season is not too unpleasant since it is very dry; after the first days of May, however, the humidity increases and it is very sticky. During the Monsoon there is a small drop in temperature, with the heavy tropical rains cooling the atmosphere; this rainy season (average rainfall 67 inches) last from the latter half of June until the end of September. From the end of the Monsoon until the Cool Weather begins in November it is hot and damp. Ah, the Cool Weather, with its days that are clear and warm and its evenings that are cool enough to permit the wearing of woolen clothing. Paradise! The Cool Weather in Calcutta offers what might be termed an ideal climate; the dampness and heat of the remainder of the year have evoked many less flattering descriptions.

Extremes. The statistically inclined reader will want to know that the highest temperature ever recorded in the city was 111.3 degrees on 31 May, 1924 and the lowest was 44.4 degrees on 28 January 1899. The humidity ranges from a minimum of 75% to a maximum of 96%. Happy?

(source: “The Calcutta Key” Services of Supply Base Section Two Division, Information and education Branch, United States Army Forces in India - Burma, 1945: at: http://cbi-theater-12.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-12/calcuttakey/calcutta_key.html)

ALIPORE METEOROLOGICAL OFFICE AND OBSERVATORY

Location :-At Duel Avenue, reached from Sterndale Road or Diamond Harbour Road.

Trams :—Alipore, Behala

Buses :—Nos. 3, 3A.

Although attempts to classify weather conditions in order to predict impending climatic phenomena in India were in evidence from the earliest times of British interest in this country, it must be admitted that these observations were very desultory, mainly owing to insufficient data. In Calcutta, it was not until 1840 that systematic observations commenced with an observatory at the Survey Office in Park Street, and to this, in 1854, facilities for a time-signal service to Port shipping were added.

Interest in meteorology received an impetus after the great cyclone of 1864 which swept over Calcutta, and in which over 80,000 people perished and a considerable amount of shipping damaged. Weather phenomena became thereafter a subject of greater interest, and as a result, five provincial systems of observation came into existence during the period 1865-1874, the one for Bengal starting in 1867. Later, as the outcome of a Government scheme for an all-India service, which was launched in 1875, the Alipore Observatory was founded, where the work included the recording of observations of various meteorological elements. A very important project in this scheme, was the inauguration of daily weather reports: the first to begin in Calcutta was in 1877. Observational data were at that time collected by post and charts prepared at the Central Office. The droughts and famines of 1876 and 1877, made Government anxious for quicker weather information, and in 1878 observations began to be telegraphed in code to Weather Report Centres. Improvements were introduced from time to time, until finally the advent of wireless telegraphy ushered in an era of increasing usefulness to the shipping world.

As time went on, the meteorological work in Calcutta gradually grew in importance, and on the transfer of the Storm Warning Service from Simla to Calcutta, in 1926, the Alipore Meteorological Office and Observatory had developed into a firstclass weather observatory, pilot balloon observatory and seismological station.

Its activities today include: the maintenance of a series of observations by eye-reading and by autographic instruments registering pressure, temperature, wind, humidity, etc;

the forecasting of weather phenomena, for north-east India;

the publication of a daily weather bulletin and a report of storms in the Bay of Bengal; and the issuing of weather reports to airmen on the trans-India and Burma routes. Time-signals are yet another sphere of this Office's activities;

these are supplied by time-ball to Fort William, by wireless to shipping at sea, and by telegraph to all stations throughout the Indian telegraph and railway systems.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 56-57 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

Cycling through the Monsoon

October 22, 1945

Dearest Ritter, my sweetheart:

Imagine if you can, the hardest kind of downpour, such as we have occasionally in Ohio for 15 minutes during severe storms. Imagine that, then presume to think what the situation is here. There have been literally sheets of rain glassing the sky for 96 hours, with only short intervals of respite. At the moment, 9:45 p.m., it has been raining so hard that conversation could not be conducted for 45 minutes. And it has been raining like that all day.

Last night, while I tried to carry on as AOD (acting officer on duty), it rained desperately in spurts which came every 15 minutes and lasted about five or ten. Synonymous with the ringing of the phone for me to go out on a call would be the start of another downpour. Tonight we have lightning and thunder with the rain. It looks outside now as it did in the opening scenes of Bromfield's "The Rains Came."

This noon the water was over six inches deep behind the ward and over the road. Col. Peterson telephoned for transportation and an ambulance came for us. This afternoon I hit upon the idea of riding my bike through it, for the storm had let up a little.

But coming back at 5:00, I had to splash through about four inches, came out of it safely. The thin-tired bike makes it easily through the oozy mud of the lawns, which is something that our heavier ones would not do.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, October 22, 1945.

(Source: pp. 223 ff. of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

Clubbing and the Monsoon

At 6:20, one of those tropical cloudbursts smashed down on us, kept right on crashing until 8:30. About 7:45, Ruth and I decided that rain or no rain, we were going to get something to eat. So we started for our mess hall. The area at the back of the ward, though which we had to go, was completely covered in water. I know it fairly well, but Ruth doesn't, and despite my guidance, she fell in a ditch. But it wouldn't have made much difference, for we were completely wet through when we reached the Mess Hall. A group of officers were waiting, in raincoats, for the rain to let up, when we approached. Uninhibited Ruth yelled at them, "Sissies!" The Col. and Ann were inside and we dripped to their table, where the Col. blandly introduced me to one and all with, "All of you know drowned-rat Beard?"

One thing led to another, and it was spontaneously decided that we would make a party of four to go to the dance. I changed first, joined them at Ann's quarters, from which we got transportation to Ruth's, where she had been for us. Southern Avenue was flooded from curb to curb. After a crazy evening at the club, Ruth played drums in the orchestra and the Col. drank too much, and I presume that I did, and then the Col. decided that we should eat. We went back to the big general mess for coffee and sandwiches. I finally got back about 2:30, rather tired.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, October 13, 1945.

(Source: p.217 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

Pin-up girls in the wind

April 9, 1945

Dearest Ritter:

The frolicking wind blows wildly and irresponsibly through our compartment at this 5:30 afternoon hour. Our pinup girls are dancing on their heads or really kicking up their heels in wild abandon. Still no rain and so our lives are talcumed with dust at all hours of the day and night.

[…]

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, April 9, 1945

(Source: page 140 ff of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

How did we cope with the heat?

Since it gets hotter in Missouri than in Bengal, the heat didn't bother me too much, personally, but it was a problem in processing photo film. Development chemicals work best at 65-degrees F, so ice was used to pack around chemical storage jugs if necessary.

But, one way we coped was by going strictly non-military with clothing while working. Normal work attire consisted of cut-off miltary issue long pants, no shirt and Indian-made slippers instead of military-issue shoes. We didn't look much like "sharp soldiers," but we were comfortable. This went for our tech personnel and the officers, too. We were basically a "laid back" outfit with a job to do. We did it to the best of our ability and I think we probably saved a batch of 14th Army lives with the intelligence we provided.

Please remember, now, I was in a quite different kind of outfit from the vast majority of American men assigned to CBI.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)

what we can laughingly call winter

The climate, whilst tolerable from a month or two, during what we can laughingly call winter is decidedly hot for the rest of the year and in the five monsoon months is VERY hot, a "prickly heat" difficult to avoid.

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Barrackpore,May/June 1942

(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages 85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The climatic problems of planes

Later I was sent to Calcutta in eastern India to help fight against the Japanese. The climate there is always very hot and humid […]

One day some Mosquito aircraft arrived at the airfield from England to start bombing operations against the Japanese in Burma. Unfortunately their water-cooled engines overheated and many crashed on take-off. Then some of the glue began to come unstuck (due to the high temperature and very high humidity ?) and the airframes started to crack. I lost several pilot friends in planes I may have helped to make. But my job was to help keep our planes flying at all costs, It was a nasty experience and I fell ill and was sent home.

Jack Boswell, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A4050163 Smugglers or Spies ? at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

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Insects and Wildlife

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

A vulture

A vulture feasting on some meat, as seen and photographed by my Father, Sgt. Philip Roy Gallop, during his service in Calcutta in the Royal Air Force.

Sgt. Philip Roy Gallop, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, mid 1940s

(source: A8613010 Vultures at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Buffalo herd

This buffalo herd's movements seem to be guided by whim alone and are typical of the complete indifference to traffic control by man and animal alike. this is Old Court House street, one of Calcutta's busiest. In left background is Great Eastern Hotel, Calcutta's best, used by U.S. Officers as a billet.

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

(source: webpage http://oldsite.library.upenn.edu/etext/sasia/calcutta1947/? Monday, 16-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of David N. Nelson, South Asia Bibliographer, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania)

Lt. Daniel Bursch

Seymour Balkin, USAAF 40th Bombergroup. Calcutta, 1944

(source: webpage http://40thbombgroup.org/indiapics2.html Monday, 03-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of Seymour Balkin)

Snake Charmer

Robert Sanders , USAAF 40th Bombergroup. Calcutta, 1945

(source: webpage http://40thbombgroup.org/indiapics2.html Monday, 03-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of Bob Sanders)

Cattle out for a Stroll

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta,

(Source: Elaine Pinkerton / Reproduced by courtesy of Elaine Pinkerton)

Oxen market somewhere near the Zoological Gardens

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Oxen market, B027, "Oxen market somewhere near the Zoological Gardens, Calcutta" seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

Oxen market somewhere near the Zoological Gardens

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Oxen market, B028, "Oxen market somewhere near the Zoological Gardens, Calcutta" seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

how the bugs change in kind and character from one season to another

Now that it is definitely warmer and rain is threatening, our friendly pests, the bugs, are back. It is interesting to observe how the bugs change in kind and character from one season to another. At the moment I am being particularly annoyed by a brown bug, about a half inch across, through, and deep. It infiltrates through the bamboo lattice works and goes careening around the room. I've already killed a half dozen of them. The ever present mosquito is here, but I've seen very few of those small blue bugs. Just as I was about to write that the huge, inch long, half inch wide beetles hadn't been seen recently, I heard a buzzing by the door, and sure enough, there was one, appearing for all the world like an overloaded bomber struggling through the air.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, February 9, 1945

(Source: page 128 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta____________________

Schoolboys and the Animal Kingdom

The covered walk past the gym towards the Day Bogs was supported by heavy timber uprights and horizontal rails and for some reason these spaces were favourite sites for large spiders to spin their webs. This allowed us two diversions. One was to bend the top of a supple twig into a loop, then collect webs over the loop, until it became a miniature tennis racquet that could be used to bounce a small pebble. In the second one, moving a spider to the next web left both creatures believing their patch had been invaded by the other.

Beetles were also collected, and tradition demanded that anyone brave enough to take a bite on a finger became the new owner of that particular beast. Stag beetles bites were considered “easy”… one from a rhino was a more serious undertaking, especially when the present owner enraged the prize by stroking its head just before the challenger’s finger was offered up.

A proven way of preventing the dormitory matron from inspecting your locker was to keep at least one harmless yet impressive grass snake in there. This meant collecting ladybirds each day for the snake’s supper.

John Gardiner, boarding school pupil at Victoria School. Kurseong 1939-1946

(source: John Gardiner: Memories of VSK (1939 – 1946) on website of Victoria & Dow hill Schools Kurseong at http://www.orbonline.net/~auballan/J_Gardners_VSK.htm)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Gardiner)

The mosquito above

What with the hum of the mosquito above, and the bug in the bed below, I am regularly humbugged out of my night's rest.

Harry Hobbs, Piano expert. Calcutta 1930s

(source: Harry Hobbs: John Barleycorn Bahadur. Calcutta: Harry Hobbs 1943.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Harry Hobbs)

Being bugged at the Cinema

In the cinema […] you always sat on your coat because of the bugs.

Joyce Taylor, nurse with Air Force Nursing Service Reserve. Calcutta, 1944.

(source Pat Barr: The Dust in the Balance. British Women n India 1905-1945. London: Hamish Hamilton 1989)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Pat Barr)

The crows

But the adjutant crane seemed to have been ousted by an army of carrion crows. These were the chief scavengers and I was often entertained by their impudence, as when one of them filched a slice of papaya from my plate at breakfast.

Harold Acton, RAF airforce officer. Calcutta, early 1940s.

(source: page 116 Harold Acton: More memoirs of an Aesthete. London Methuen, 1970)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Harold Acton)

Breakfast with Kite Hawks

Following about one and a half hours dozing in the coach at Barrackpore, it was about 4 in the morning when we finally arrived at our correct destination to be greeted by some not so friendly cooks who had been awakened to give some breakfast.

This was when I learned my first lesson about life in India. As I carried my mess tin of porridge and Soya bean bangers, the plate was suddenly smashed from my grip to land on the ground whilst the bangers were in the possession of a Kite Hawk ( although that wasn’t exactly the name they were given), as it perched up in a tree enjoying half my breakfast. I had learned the hard way not to leave food exposed to these scavengers.

Jim Homewood, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, May 1942

(source: A5760281 My War - Part 3 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The Elephant in the Road

One of my first sights was an elephant on the pavement. I've no idea what it was doing there. No one seemed to be responsible for it or tried to move it -- they just walk round it.

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Calcutta, 29^th April 1942

(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages 85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

thieving monkeys

There we boarded a very slow train to Calcutta stopping at station restaurants for food and we had to be aware of thieving monkeys or kite birds that swooped down and grabbed food out of our hands.

Leslie Brazier, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1943

(source: A3935432 War Service Abroad as a Wireless Operator at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

One old stager warned me "keep your food covered when you cross the yard"

Our destination was La Martiniere School off Louise Circular road where we were stationed at 221 Group HQ. Settling in was bewildering. Different ways of doing things at work, and outside, a city that was different to anything we had seen before and so large and crowded that we had great difficulty finding our way around. Different did I say? Well, I hadn't expected to have to defend my dinner before I could eat it. One old stager warned me "keep your food covered when you cross the yard". The food was collected individually from a kitchen -- then we crossed the small yard about 12 feet across and ate our meal in what had been a classroom. After collecting my first dinner I set off across the yard, ignoring the "line shooting" of my new friend. Whoosh!! And I looked in disbelief -- my meal had gone, leaving just the veg. Apparently the "Kite Hawks" as we called them, were experts at this sort of thing. I made sure it didn't happen again.

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Calcutta, 29^th April 1942

(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages 85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

It looked alright till we went ashore later.

We arrived at Calcutta a couple of weeks later via the Indian Ocean. It looked alright till we went ashore later. We were pestered with mosquitoes and fireflies. The fireflies flitted about like miniature neon lights (its their way of attracting a mate). But the mosquitoes were unbearable. I had a touch of malaria after and had to take tablets. I was amazed by the squalor and the pong. Everyone burnt coconut oil, rotten fruit and professional beggars lined the streets and you could not go a yard without being pestered by them. It seems there is a bloke in charge who took the money they had begged and gave them just a little back. But I was told he would see they had one meal a day.

While I was in Egypt I bought a leather case. It was a beaut. So while I was in Calcutta I bought two pairs of silk pyjamas, one for our Mabel and one for Dot. Much later on I was to fill it with souvenirs from all over the place, like king ebony elephants from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). They were beauties, but now they are at the bottom of the Indian Ocean off Ceylon.

William Young, Royal Navy, Calcutta, 1941

(source: A8117895 Bill's memories-Let's go to sea. Chapter 2 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The Snakes of Bollywood

With the single projector one had to change reels, usually eight to a film; this swift but unavoidable interval was always greeted with catcalls.

When showing Indian films to the coloured troops, there were usually twelve reels or more. Very tedious! To shorten the show, I tried cheating by missing out some reels at random but was caught out one night by an Indian officer who knew the film story - rapped knuckles for that one!

Those Indian films with their strange music always seemed to attract snakes; maybe it was just coincidence but so often after such a show there was a snake scare. One night during a show, I went back to the 15cwt to fetch something and there found a long snake inside the cab near the engine. Being a 'clever dick', I pulled out the Service revolver we carried (a Colt .38) and fired at it. Oh yes! I hit it after a couple of shots but in doing so smashed the carburettor and had to spend the night on location. Needless to say, I slept the night in the Unit's Sergeants Mess, not in the truck.

Kenneth Rawlinson, Sergeant 'Cinema Projectionist' AKS (Army Kinema Section), later to become CKS (Combined Kinema Section), Bombay, Calcutta & Burma, 1945

(source: A7659723 A Willing Volunteer Part 3 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

all sorts of crawlers, flyers and jumpers

Mosquitoes are plentiful and difficult to keep out from under your mosquito net.

A common sight on waking is a mosquito on the wrong side of the net bloated with your blood which leaves a vivid red mark when you squash it. Of course, wild life is prolific and even in the most immaculate cantonment bungalow the rains bring all sorts of crawlers, flyers and jumpers into your living room, particularly when the lights are lit. The noises at night are truly prolific - bull frogs and jackals are easily identified, but many others sounds from the gentle to the horrific are not - except to the expert. Snakes are common - some very large and fast moving, others quite small and it is best to wear slacks at night when it is dark. They don't normally attack and are apparently as pleased to keep out of our way as we are to keep out of theirs. There are, however, a large number of fatalities each year amongst the native population and we had some in the jungle war zones. We usually carried a lit torch when changing watches at midnight as our bamboo signals hut was in a rather remote part of the grounds at the back of the governor's residence. Perhaps my most nerve-racking "snake" experience was during one Christmas midnight to 0800 Watch. There was a sudden "flop" and looking up we saw that a snake had fallen through the bamboo roof and had dropped on top of our transmitter, about to seven to eight feet from the ground. We couldn't do much about it without damaging the transmitter and none of us knew sufficient about snakes to know whether it was dangerous or not. Anyway it curled up - no doubt attracted by the warmth of the transmitter (it was the coldest part of the year) and was still there when we went off watch five to six hours later. I gather that it moved of its own accord shortly afterwards.

The wildlife could occasionally bring its own joy like the fire flies that sometimes laced the wires like fairy lights.

[….]

During our short stay in tents the local wildlife hit back at Brian Wilson. He spent the best part of his pay (we were paid fortnightly) on a leather suitcase from the local bazaar. It seemed a bargain, but he left it on the ground in the tent and the following morning, when he opened it to move his kit in, he found that the bottom had completely disappeared and in its place were thousands of red ants busily enjoying themselves with apparently a taste for leather..

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Barrackpore,May/June 1942

(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages 85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

this insect bit me on the finger

So I was the ship’s postman. I got friendly with a Subby (Sub-Lieutenant) Deacon — he was a copper in Golders Green. He had an office and oh, I was landed there - I was even learning to type! First port of call was Gibraltar. You never knew where you were going so my first thought was ‘I’m not going back to bleeding West Africa again am I?’. But no, we went from Gibraltar into the Mediterranean — called in on Malta and then went right the way through the Suez Canal, out the other side to Port Said and across the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean. We called in at Calcutta and there we loaded up with Indian Soldiers and a couple of armoured cars.

Whilst I was in India, this insect bit me on the finger. First of all it was like a blister and it got bigger and bigger and hard, like a marble. The sick bay bloke that we had, used to be a plumber. Course, he didn’t know nothing, did he. He gave me some hot water and I spent several days with my finger immersed in hot water but that didn’t work and now there was a red mark going up my arm. There were other ships with us by now because they were all getting ready for the big invasion. They put me in a motor boat and we went across to a Canadian destroyer. They took me up into the sick bay and the Canadian doctor said to me: ‘When you wake up after the injection, you’ll feel like you’ve been on the booze.’’. He put his scalpel in the lump, cut it open and out they came like maggots — well they were maggots. Got ‘em all out, scraped it clean, washed it and he said to me: ‘ If it had been another 2 or 3 hours I would have had the pleasure of taking your arm off.’

Edward Terence Lewis , Royal Navy, Calcutta & Bay of Bengal, 1945

(source: A6862728 East-End boy goes to Sea (3) - Jacko's sad demise. at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

the sheet was absolutely a mass of cockroaches

It was a dreadful place and I can remember one night waking up to find that the sheet was absolutely a mass of cockroaches. Somebody had fumigated their house and because this area was so open these cockroaches had flown off from there and just invaded us en masse. Never before had I seen and I hope never again to see anything like it. I was absolutely terrified as were we all. Can you imagine waking up in the middle of the night and finding your sheet one mass of brown crawling cockroaches - like something out of a horror film.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. La Martiniere for Girls, Calcutta, 1947

(source: page 47 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

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Accidents & Diseases

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

YOUR HEALTH

Your Health. No, we're not toasting your health; though we will do so gladly. You bring the quart. Health? It's that thing you don't know you've got until you have lost it. And this city is as good as any place to lose it. Let us be kind and say no more than that sanitary conditions could be better here. In India, put up your dukes and start jabbing defensively the moment you hit any city. Calcutta - no exception.

Medical Care in the Calcutta Area. Each camp or staging area has its own dispensary. In the city itself the General Dispensary is located at 77 Park Street (Dental Clinic, too). Anyone needing medical care should first go to a dispensary where he will be seen by the Medical Officer in charge; any cases needing hospital care will then be sent to the 142nd General Hospital. Except in an emergency demanding immediate hospitalization the above routine is to be strictly adhered to. Short-cutting will only succeed in landing you back at the dispensary from which you should have started.

Sizing Things Up. You are in the city. Will those big buildings protect you from the bite of a small insect? They will not. Is the sun any less strong here than out in the open fields? It is not. Is that colored drink okay because its sold in a bottle? No. And so it is urged that you:

1. Do use mosquito repellents, do sleep under nets, do keep your sleeves rolled down after the sun starts to go down. Malaria and Dengue are both endemic in Calcutta, and both can be extremely serious as well as uncomfortable. The mosquito is small yet mighty. He's got hair on his chest.

2. Do respect the sun. Do wear sunglasses, do wear protective head covering, and - for Pete's Sake ! - do your drinking after sundown even though you strike town early in the day with a terrific thirst. If you do any amount of drinking and then walk out into the sun, you will know how concrete feels when hit with a sledge hammer.

3. Do eat and drink the right things in the right places. Stick to the in-bounds restaurants and ice cream stores. Eat only at those places which prominently display the "In Bounds" signs. Even these will be none too good - that is, compared with the sanitary standards you grew to accept as normal back home. You can buy ice cream, soda water, and native candy from sidewalk peddlers - you can, but it's cheaper to cut your throat. Eat only cooked fruits and vegetables - that goes for in-bounds places, too. Uncooked fruit is all right only if you peel it yourself.

4. Do drink safe water. The only safe water is that which has been chlorinated or boiled. Cholera and all the various types of dysentery are present in the city in endemic form. Be careful - unless you want to be Number One in the Throne Parade. Water used for brushing the teeth should be of the same standard as drinking water.

5. Do think twice, and then a third time, before petting any type of animals in India, including your favorite, the dog. Our old friend Rabies is prevalent in this area. And see that diseased-appearing beggar over there? Well, he may have petted that animal last.

6. Do avoid local ice in your drinks - unless you know that the ice has been checked for drinking water standards of safety. And who's going to show you the certificate?

7. Do take those salt tablets during the hot season. Three to four a day - an item of issue by the Q.M. Avoid decreased efficiency, fatigue, heat cramps, and heat prostration.

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Patients’ complaints

As usual, this week a Group Psych class. For a change, some of the boys admit they get something from it. This surprises me; arouses the cynic, and causes me to re-examine the fellows who so speak. I am becoming as crass as Pilgrim about the "boys." He says they are damned spineless yellowbacks!

The nurse is bothered constantly by a procession of them with complaints like these: "I want some APC's for a headache." "My back hurts." "My joints ache." "I've got a breaking out here (they point), what's good for it?" "Can't someone do something for me?" "I'll blow my top if I don't get out of here." "I couldn't sleep last night." "I had the worst dreams; awakened tireder than when I went to bed." 'The back of my neck aches...What about an x-ray of my ankle; I think it is swollen. Look how my fingers shake (spreading the fingers for all to see them tremble) I want an eye consultation My ear hurts. I itch all over I want to see the Lieutenant. I want to see the Major. Someone had better do something for me."

That's the way it goes...the whole day. In addition, many of them are on regular prescribed medication programs. And these are fellows that have been cleared of organic disease by Medical Services.

What fun!

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, August 24, 1945

(Source: page 188 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

Nothing, can be done to remedy the condition of these men

Have I told you that I now have 41 patients on the ward, 16 of whom are boarded casuals from up the line? The casuals cost little or no work, but the remaining patients are all very difficult cases. Anyone with any gumption at all will not come to the hospital now. So that means that practically every case we have is a primary behavior disorder, emotional immaturity, a psychopathic personality, or a chronic or psychopathic alcoholic. Actually, nothing, positively nothing, can be done to remedy the condition of these men.

I have a particularly bad case or two which I'll write up on the typewriter for you in a day or so.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, September 20, 1945

(Source: page 208 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

The boy is faking

Today is Saturday, and even as you welcome the weekend, so do we, for our two half days off are precious to us. Not that we work so hard, but rather the idea of freedom to do as one likes makes the half-days memorable. Unfortunately, I gained no half-day this afternoon, but instead conscientiously returned early at noon to check a patient whom we consider sending to the locked ward - 51.

This boy was born in Germany, came to America at the age of 3 1/2 with his parents. He is now 22. When he arrived on my ward, he was quiet but cooperative, seemed to be holding something back. His complaint was a tight-scary sensation in the chest in the region of the heart, which sent his pulse rate up. Under psychotherapeutic treatment, he began to exhibit anxiety symptoms. Soon he was going to nurses and ward men to hold his hand, to feel his pulse, to check if his heart were still beating.

He told me that he had stopped masturbating because he thought it gave him a headache (his original complaint). When he tried to start three months later, he couldn't get an erection. He became frightened. For several days now, he has reported little or no sleep at night. However, his eyes are not bloodshot, he has no circles under his eyes, and his face is placid and doesn't show signs of strain. He often gives the wrong answers, psychiatrically speaking, to questions asked him. He tells us what he thinks we want to hear, not what the usual sick person would say!

The Col. agreed with me that the boy is faking, and so I came back to observe him. He did go out to play ball, came back in looking much better, .but worried because he hadn't been tired out by the exertion, was certain that that was abnormal. But I reassured him and got away about 4:15 p.m. with instruction to the nurse to watch him.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, September 22, 1945

(Source: page 210 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

The man who ran over the Hindu boy

October 12, 1945

[…]

This morning I tried to send the man who ran over the Hindu child back to duty, taking him to the Col. for a conference. Imagine my consternation when he broke down and cried like a baby to the Col.'s questioning because he was afraid that he would never be able to explain to his religious mother why he had taken a life. As I have already written you, it was not the driver's fault. The Biblical injunction "Thou shalt not kill" doesn't apply in his case because he did everything possible to save the reckless boy. The Col. had an excellent idea - send the chap to the chaplain. We will see what Colbern reports.

[…]

October 22, 1945

[...]

We boarded two patients this morning, decided to scratch from Saturday's shipment the fellow who accidentally killed the Hindu boy because I caught him reading his chart last night. He failed to tell me the truth, and I thought that if his religious scruples, which he has been so highly tooting, permitted him such leeway, then as far as I was concerned, he could go back to duty. That caused a painful interview between him and me later in the day, because he was already listed on the shipment and had been called to get his baggage in order. I went into my song and dance about accepting the consequences of our acts. I don't think he liked it. I don't give a damn whether he did or not. I am tired of dealing with weak minded, sanctimonious hypocrites.

[…]

Calcutta, India

October 23, 1945

Dearest Ritten

This letter is being written the morning of October 24. I wrote you a short note last evening, but just did not seem up to trying to write out a description of all that happened yesterday. I think that all in all I had my worst day of psychiatric experience the 23rd.

Here's the way the day started out. Cloudy. Tassio came in to tell me that the patient who figured in the accident that killed the Hindu boy and whom I had taken off the Friday shipment, was on the warpath. He had gone to see Col. McConkie, and he had Col. Powers' assurance that he could leave today. Hmmm.

I noticed the chap, named Warren, in front of Col. Peterson's office, Ward 47, dressed in fatigues and looking very desperate and determined. Nonetheless, the Col. didn't show up until after ten. in the meantime, Warren came back to the ward (55). I went out to tell him that we would go to see the Col. at the earliest possible moment. He was sitting on one side of the bed while I sat just next to him on the adjoining bed.

Suddenly he opened up on me, as it were, with the comment that "You are no psychologist, I wouldn't let you analyze my hogs."

I was somewhat taken aback, but I agreed that he wouldn't have to keep me from it, I wouldn't take the job in the first place, having my hands full of the owner. But Warren kept right on talking, despite my efforts to placate him. He wanted me to take my insignia off, so that he could beat me. He worked himself into such a rage that he started for me, his wicked little eyes bloodshot and blazing.

For the first time since I have been here I felt a delicious little thrill shoot through me, as though a pressure had been released, and finally I was to be permitted to let off a little steam, too. I was sure that I was dealing with a madman, and prepared myself to give him the surprise of his life. I sat quite still, looked him in the eye, and said, simply enough, "Sit down." Just like that. For one long moment he wavered...then a lifetime of retreating dropped him back on the bed. He continued to vilify me. At the outset, he had asked me if I were a Jew. He condemned the Jews for keeping him in the hospital, charged that I was allied with them. Of course, he could name no Jews. (He didn't know about Gerber.)

Finally, he went into a paranoid state completely, threatening to kill me if he had the chance, and to kill anyone else who interfered with his plans to get out of the hospital. It did absolutely no good to argue with him or try to explain. He accepted what he liked, rejected every shred of information that didn't suit his plans, He dropped his cloak of Christianity completely. (It is interesting to note that the most devoted follower of the church whom it has been my misfortune to have on the ward turned out to be the most vicious personality whom I have encountered.)

I got his promise to not do anything drastic until he had seen Col. Peterson. Just then Col. Pete and Major Pilgram came in. We called Warren in, and he began sobbing out his imprecations against the Jews, the army, and intimated that he had been persecuted as much as he intended to take. He wildly threatened to kill, to commit suicide, etc. He claimed that he did not care about the death of the Hindu boy, but that it was just another jab at him by fate which permitted others to make fun of his misfortune. It was pretty obvious that he had lost his mind, so we decided to send him to 51. That was it.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, October, 12, 22 & 23, 1945.

(Source: pp.213, 223 & 225 ff. of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

Cholera in Calcutta

The food markets of "filthy Calcutta" display their uncovered wares near drains and open latrines, sprinkle them with unfiltered water. It is an open invitation to cholera, one of the dread diseases of the East.

Last week, once again, a cholera epidemic raged in Calcutta; there were 80 new cases daily. At the Grand Hotel, chief rendezvous of Allied fighting men on leave in the CBI theater, 15 British soldiers had fallen ill and a U.S. Negro orchestra leader had died.

The disease was spreading like fire through the city, packed with thousands of U.S. and British soldiers. Although 29 British soldiers had come down with it, not one U.S. serviceman had yet been infected—thanks to the U.S. Army's compulsory vaccination rule.

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, May. 21, 1945)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)

There are "easy" girls

3. Take care of your health if you want it to take care of you. You will not find a brothel in-bounds either according to the M.P.'s, according to your present health and the future health of your children, or according to your pocketbook. There are "easy" girls, the so-called amateurs, in the in-bounds area. Sure, there are. But you didn't persuade her with your charm. Some other fellow made the road easy for you. And he, that last customer in this free bread line, might have left a present with her to be relayed to you. Over 50% of these kind-hearted amateurs have V.D. And if you forget all else, for remember the "Pro" stations listed in the Health section of this booklet.

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Calcutta is riddled with venereal diseases

Women. (Whoops, here we go again! But we don't mind knocking ourselves out if you guys don't mind listening.) Those of you who have already made up your minds to abstain, kindly turn to the movie section and decide what show you want to go to tonight. That eliminates part of the audience - we hope. To go on: As in any port city in the Orient, Calcutta is riddled with venereal diseases. Studies show that professional prostitutes are 150% infected (half have one and the other half have two). Even in the native population the rate is well over 50%. That good-looking amateur whom you think you convinced by your personal charm may be just the baby to hand you a gift package - unwrapped.

Prophylaxis. So we didn't convince you - or you got sort of tight and forget that you were convinced. Then do remember that there are Prophylactic Stations located at:

77c Park Street

6 Lindsay Street

14 Watgunge Street

Hindusthan Building

Each camp dispensary in the Calcutta area.

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

Diseases to be afraid of

There were many, so many I can't recall, from leprosy to various parasites of many kinds. The one disease that most guys got at one time or another was some form of dysentery from aombebic (sp) up and down. Obviously, there were disease-caused deaths, but just what, I don't really know.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)

"Good Doc Snively" and the "Calcutta Crud"

Health situation? Well, the worst I ever had was an outbeak of skin rash we called the "Calcutta Crud," and a skirmish with dysentery. I was careful to only eat cooked food, peeled fruit and iodine-treated water. Our squadron had little in the way of real health problems. We had a good squadron physician who watched over us quit well and was always available for our treatment. He was a Capt. who we called "Good Doc Snively."

Medicines? Merthiolate (sp) was availabe for the "crud" and there were anti-biotics as available at the time. I don't know just what, but we always seemed to have what was needed.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)

I couldn`t raise that arm to salute properly!

At the same time my injured arm was playing up - I said that I would have to be demobbed because I couldn`t raise that arm to salute properly! I was sent home in 1946. I`m so tall that no demob suit could be found for me; for formal events I had to continue to wear my officer`s uniform for several months although I was a civilian.

David Ensor, wireless operator with Royal Corps of Signals, Calcutta, 1946

(source: A4255427 Early Promotion at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Succumbing to dengue

Monday, 24 July: During the past week, I succumbed to dengue and bed, and remained there, nursed by my bearer, for almost a week. However, I have now recovered and am doing Home Sister duty. This is a thankless job, and one that lasts from 7.30am to 9pm. Whether you are on or off, somebody manages to find a job for you.

It is, however, a good means by which to acquire Urdu, since it’s the only way to cope with bearers and sweepers. Actually, the whole thing is very wearing, but I am interested in the housekeeping side. A big factor is that nobody interferes!!

Put in isolation

Monday, 31 July: I was but a few days Home Sister before I found myself back in bed again. Undiagnosed and running a temperature of 104.8 °F, I was sent off to 21st BGH, where I now repose in the officers’ medical ward. I must admit I felt at death’s door for a few days, but that is wearing off now.

The general opinion seems to be that I’ve got typhoid, and so I’m isolated! Actually the folks are very kind, but the general standard of nursing isn’t very good.

My temperature persists

Monday, 7 August: Once again, I am back in the general ward, which is somewhat less boring. Have had lots of visitors, including Francis, which was a grand surprise. She is in Calcutta for a few days and very kindly finds time to visit me each day.

Francis knows a patient in the next ward, a very nice Irish girl, Moira Gorman, who comes along to see me too. My temperature still persists, and nobody seems to know what is the matter, which is typical of the army.

Henrietta Susan Isabella Burness, V.A.D., Calcutta,24^th July- 13^th August 1945

(source: A1940870 Life in the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), 1945at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

… the usual evil croppin' its head up - The VD Situation

I don't remember if we were ever actually told by the authorities that friendships
or relations with Indian women were prohibited. But we were always warned of course of the usual evil croppin' its head up—the VD situation. It was pretty rife actually among the troops. Oh, quite a lot, particularly in the leave centres. This is because there was prostitutes and they were gettin' used. And it was an offence if you got VD. In the early days there was fellows in my unit that went down with VD - probably naive people, you know- but afterwards, I think the message got home after a few bad cases of gonorrhoea and what not and the horrific tales that these guys came back wi' after they had their treatment! Because in these days it was the old lumbar puncture up the back and apparently that was a horrific experience. It was enough to put you off havin' any ideas in that direction.

Eddie Mathieson, Marines’ commando soldier on the Burma Front. Calcutta, 1944/45

(source: pages 239-240 of MacDougall, Ian: Voices from War and some Labour Struggles; Personal Recollections of War in our Century by Scottish Men and Women. Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1995)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Ian MacDougall)

The fever

At Calcutta I developed a fever and took to my bed at the Great Eastern Hotel. Foolishly, I had bought a Family Doctor, & book from which I gathered that families in India were subject to an alarming number of diseases. I could not be certain whether I was suffering from cholera, beri beri, plague or blackwater fever, but felt as though I had the lot. The Indian doctor, who came to my assistance, could find nothing specifically the matter with me and, perhaps exorcised by his diagnosis, the fever left me as rapidly as it had appeared.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Calcutta, early 1940s

(source pages 9 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

20th birthday in sick bay

There followed several months of relative tranquillity interrupted by my 20th birthday which I spent in sick bay with Malaria, not caring if I ever saw 21. I did, however, survive long enough to walk about for 2 weeks with Jaundice before the sick bay called once more.

Jim Homewood, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, May 1942

(source: A5760281 My War - Part 3 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

a dress made in white Moygashel

”There were plenty of insects and flying beetles (these were like cockroaches with wings), and night mosquitoes. We had to use mme osquito cream, and being fair skinned, they were all very fond of me! After two weeks in Calcutta I contracted Ringworm and enteritis and had to go into hospital for a week. The show had to find a deputy pianist. I went to see a skin specialist when I came out of hospital and he told me I was allergic to K. D. (Khaki Drill), and so I had to have a new battle dress and a dress made in white Moygashell.”

[Not quite sure on the spelling, but we think it is a kind of thin material like silk, Andy) (Moygashel (Pr-BR).]

”In fact I was the only white ENSA Artiste in India if you know what I mean? But it was a much cooler outfit and suited my skin much to my relief. After a month in Calcutta H. Q. we were sent us on to Burma.

Pansie Marjorie Muriel Hepworth Norris, ENSA Entertainer, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A5253518 The ENSA Years of ‘The Norris Trio’ - Part 2 - My Burma Story at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

a ride on the Khoo

This was when I overheard Ida in great distress talking to Aunty Dolly.

[The Punjab having acute water shortage, at the gate there was an irrigation well which is a contraption whereby a large water wheel had tins fitted to its circumference. The wheel is turned by bullocks and in turning lifts water out of the well which is then diverted into the fields through channels. We used to love going for a ride on the Khu as it was called and the boy who used to drive the bullocks usually allowed us to do this.]

One afternoon, Dominic asked Aunty Dolly if he could go and have a ride on the Khoo. She let him go and shortly after Stephen wanted to go too. She always confessed to a soft spot for Stephen. She used to tell us that when my mother was near her time with him, she was admitted to hospital in Patna because they lived in the Cantonments and it was very far from the hospital. However, Mummy decided she did not want to stay and left the hospital (in her nightie) and got in a Rickshaw and came home. By the time she got home, her pains had started and she could not go back so a messenger was sent for the Doctor. The Doctor came and things were well on the way by then and no nurse so Aunty Dolly had to help. she had absolutely no experience and was most reluctant but then the baby was bom, she said he was a scrawny little scrap and the Doctor held him out to her. She said "I can't hold that" and the Doctor said, "I've no time to waste - I've got to see to the mother" and put the child down on the floor on a blanket. Aunty Dolly said she saw this "little thing - kicking and squealing" and she picked him up and it gave her the most unbelievable feeling - as if she had somehow had something to do with his advent into the world and so felt ever after that there was a special bond between them. Anyway -she allowed him to go but told him not to get into mischief. Stephen could not stay out of mischief.

About half an hour later Barney said "Please, Aunty-can I go too." She said "No" at first but then eventually when he pestered, she let him. go. He had not been gone very long - probably just had time to get there and about five minutes more when we heard this unbelievable screaming. Everybody dropped everything and started running towards the gate. Half way there we found Barney running back wringing his hands and screaming "He's dead - Stephen's dead" - he was absolutely hysterical. We then saw one of the farm hands carrying Stephen in his arms. Stephen's leg was a mess- The thigh bone was stripped bare of flesh and the man was carrying a lump of his flesh in one hand. He said a crow had run away with another lump, I have never seen anything like it and hope I never shall again. He was rushed to hospital - luckily we had a car in a time when cars were not so plentiful and they operated on him. And grafted some skin but his thigh has always been dreadfully scarred.

It appears that as soon as Bamey got there, Dominic said to him "I dare you to climb on the top bar of this thing" - to which Barney answered "I'm not mad-no way," Stephen -who has always been full of bravado said, "If you are scared, I'll do it" and before anybody could say anything more, he had put his foot on the moving crossbar

- slipped off and got tangled by his leg in the wheel. By the time the bullocks stopped, the damage had been done and it was very lucky that he was still alive- Barney had started to run immediately Stephen fell so was convinced he was dead.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Sialkot, mid 1940s

(source: page 21-22 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James)

The Sundarbans where I contracted jaundice

Next stop was a houseboat on the Sundarbans where I contracted jaundice. Getting relieved and arriving at the B. G. H. in Calcutta took 48 hours, by which time I suffered a rigor. Sick leave was spent on two mission stations at Jamtara and Mihijam in Bihar State with my friend Bernard Wright. It was at the latter station that I was baptised by immersion along with two Bengali Christians. On the subject of leave I availed myself of all my entitlement during the years in India and enjoyed a sick leave in Shillong, a visit to Darjeeling and four visits to Kalimpong, where I awoke every morning to the sight of Mount Kinchinjunga glistening in the morning sun.

Douglas Gibson, Royal Air Force wireless operator, Calcutta, 1944

(source: A4175237 Grandpas War at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

left handed children were the Devil's children

I was also left handed and Burra Aunty used to tell everybody loudly that "that CHILD must be made to use her right hand since left handed children were the Devil's children." I did eventually learn to use my right hand but unfortunately it resulted in my never being able to tell left from right without thinking about it – something which has caused much hilarity among my own children - two of whom are left handed.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Darjeeling, 1947

(source: page 37 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

I had what was called then a nervous breakdown

I stayed on another year for the HSC (Higher School Certificate) which is now called A Levels and we did five subjects. There were four girls in the class. There were five actually but one hardly ever turned up so there was just the four of us and we did have a lot of fun. We did a lot of study on our own and we had a lot of free time and it was a happy year but at the end of that year, I had what was called then a nervous breakdown. One day in class the; teacher (a new lady called Mrs Bob) was shouting at me. Her lips were moving but I could not hear a word she said and could not for the life of me answer. I was sent. up to the headmistress - a very English lady called Miss King (MA Oxon) - who always dressed in tweed skirts and twin sets with a single strand of pearls and brown brogues and thick stockings. She said, "Well Elizabeth - we have never had trouble with you and you have never before been sent to me for insubordination. What is the problem?"

1 answered, "I don't know. I just couldn't hear anything she said. I could see her tips moving and she thought I was being rude and offering what she called 'dumb insolence' but I honestly couldn't answer her."

So the school doctor - Miss Calvert-Brown - had a look at me and decided I'd done too many public examinations much too quickly because there had been the Junior Cambridge in one year and the Senior Cambridge (normally a two year course) in one year and now I was attempting the HSC in one year. I was three years below the average age of the class, and whilst quite capable of passing the exam - this combined with the sort of pressure under which I was living at home was just too much.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian secretary. Calcutta, 1951

(source: page 51-52 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

Vimto & dysentery

My next war time memory is coming back from Southern India on our way to Calcutta, which is a long journey. We travelled on our ENSA coach, taking us back all the way through the great Indian Landscape up to Calcutta.

Before I had left for India my Father had given me a Brownie camera, telling me to make sure I photographed all the places I would see on my journey, which thankfully I did - I have some wonderful pictures which I took at that time. Any of the village shops in India would develop negatives for you and give you your prints in about an hour, so Anne and I went on particular day into a small shop to do just that. It was very hot and sticky and steamy and humid. We had been told not to drink anything that had not been boiled and passed by inspection for our consumption, but as we sat waiting we looked longingly at the lemonade and Vimto.

“I’ve got to have a drink” I said.

“No no, you know you can’t” said Anne.

“But it’s Vimto, it’s in a bottle it’s been treated, it’ll be ok.”

“Well, you can do it if you like but I’m not!”

So I bought a bottle of Vimto and drank it, but Anne didn’t. On the way back to Calcutta, I got dysentery and Anne didn’t.

When we got back to Calcutta I was in quite a poor shape and I was immediately told I would have to go into hospital. I remember being in the wonderful Grand Hotel in Calcutta with a lovely room with mosquito nets on the bed and a big black and white tiled bathroom. I felt pretty ill, and once I saw a little mouse come up out of the drains into the room, but where normally I would have jumped up and screamed, I just lay there and thought oh… a mouse.

Off I was packed to hospital for a couple of weeks. Meantime, our company had dwindled to about four members as people perhaps became ill or, as in the case of Beryl our Soprano, were sacked. The remaining members were split up and put into different Companies and I remained in the hospital alone.

Anne came to say goodbye to me there, and we were both in tears because we had been through much together over quite a long period of time. I have to say I did not have the worst case of dysentery, not amoebic, and I was young and strong and I got through it. I thought, this is the only time in my life I have seen food and I don’t want it, and I did lose a lot of weight. When I came out I was two stones lighter and quite delighted, I thought a slim new me was great.

Cecilia Austin Caryl (nee Nicholson/ theatrical name: Celia Nicholls), ENSA, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A2905184 War time in India with ENSA at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Bitten by a rabid dog

Unfortunately my luck in avoiding health problems ran out, as I become involved with a rabid Burmese Village dog. My orderly and another soldier killed the dog and unfortunately I was near enough to possibly become infected.

The two riflemen, one of whom was bitten, were given injections of 10cc for 14 days in the stomach. My dose was half this, 5cc for 7 days, also in the stomach. We were so lean and fit that the injection raised a wheal under the skin and took a long time to disappear.

As I was rather unwell from all this, the doctor decided that leave in India would be a good idea so I duly boarded a Dakota with my orderly.

Arthur Gilbert, Army, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A5011336 Going to War on the Tube - Chapter 6 Mandalay to Rangoon at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

I found myself in Barrackpore Military Hospital

It is difficult to spend three years in India without health problems arising, and sure enough I found myself in Barrackpore Military Hospital with Dysentery. Almost recovered, I contracted a fever which was to be a scourge for the rest of my life. This was diagnosed as "Dengue" Fever - inaccurately obviously, as it has plagued me in gradually diminishing degrees ever since and Dengue is one of the few none-recurrent fevers. There were so many fevers to be found in India that it was difficult to diagnose them. Malaria is the most common and they all seem to follow a similar path - headache, cold and shivering - and eventually it bursts into an almighty sweat. Weakness and disability follow. The only thing that seems certain is that the mosquito is the cause of it all.

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Barrackpore, 1943

(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages 85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

We have a Casualty like Piccadilly Circus

I don’t know whether you have ever been on a job where you have to cover. But when you are on duty and covering, something always happens. When other people are on, nothing happens; they go to bed. Something always seemed to happen when I was orderly officer. One early hour of the morning, the war in Burma had ceased and men were coming back to Calcutta, to go home. Lorry loads of men were being taken to Calcutta Station, and they had a pile up; one lorry ran into another, and the Casualty was full of badly injured men and slightly injured men. The whole lorry load suddenly arrived in Calhitti. And of course, who is orderly officer? I am. Well, I don’t mind a big job like that, it suits me. I like a big organising job. “All those not hurt, go over there, a char will make you some tea. All those with slight cuts and bruise, over there, the nurses will see to you.

We had runners, we didn’t have telephones. So we sent all the boys, the runners off to every ward to get them to send all the orderlies with all the stretchers they’d got, and they all came running into Casualty like spokes on a wheel. We put the more seriously ill ones on the stretchers to get them onto the wards. And then I thought, “What am I doing? We have a Casualty like Piccadilly Circus, and all the men are in bed. So then I sent all the runners to get all the consultants up, and I can just imagine what they said. It gave me great pleasure.

Dr. Ivy Oates, doctor, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A3890225 A Woman Doctor (Part Three) Edited at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

“Hooray, we’re out of Malaria country.”

However, that was one night. Another night I was on, the troops had come out of Burma and they were bright yellow with nepacrine, and they thought, “Hooray, we’re out of Malaria country.” They stopped taking nepacrine. A Medical Officer rings me up and says, “I’ve ten men with Malaria.” He rings again, “I’ve eight more men with Malaria.” He was gradually shipping the whole regiment to me with malaria, because they’d all stopped taking the nepacrine, and that was his blessed fault. However, I said, “Look, I’ve no more beds left. You’ll have to turn one of your barrack rooms into a ward, and I’ll send you the treatment. We can’t admit anyone else. That was another time when the C.O. went out, and went to bed with a half empty hospital and woke up to find it bulging at the seams. They must have dreaded me being on.

Dr. Ivy Oates, doctor, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A3890225 A Woman Doctor (Part Three) Edited at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

“I thought the French were our allies.”

Once, I got a phone call from French Indo-China. A little French girl, they thought, had inhaled a peanut and we were the only people who could do the bronchoscopy. So they said, could they fly her over? So I said, “Yes!” The next morning, the C.O.’s having kittens. “YOU HAVE ADMITTED A CIVILIAN TO A MILITARY HOSPITAL. YOU MAY HAVE TO PAY FOR HER!” So I said, “Alright, I will.” I didn’t know what I was going to pay, but he wasn’t going to brow beat me. I said, “I thought the French were our allies.” Mind you, we had our doubts about that. I was never forgiving of the French for letting us sink their navy, rather than come over to the allies when Hitler invaded France. However, we got the little girl and I think the C.O. was a bit touched, seeing me going round with this little girl, talking to her in my pigeon French.

Anyway, we did the bronchoscopy and she hadn’t got a peanut stuck there, and she was flown back and I didn’t hear any more about it. But this is how it was.

Dr. Ivy Oates, doctor, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A3890225 A Woman Doctor (Part Three) Edited at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Dengue fever at the museum

[…] we were billeted in the museum. This was in the main street of Calcutta, called Charingie. While I was there, we were getting bitten so much by the bugs in the place that I got Dingy fever, so I had a couple of days in bed. It cleared up and we were able to carry on and go to the pictures, […]which were really nice out there, because they were all air-conditioned and it was so hot in Calcutta. I always remember that on one occasion we went to see 'Romeo and Juliet'. Obviously it wasn't our taste of a picture and we made ourselves a bit of a nuisance what with, 'Wherefore art thou, Romeo?' and all the rest of it. 'Ssh, ssh', people went, so we got up and walked out.

Kenneth Shaw Prout, Army, Calcutta, 1944

(source: A5526489 Memories of a Bombardier 1940 - 1946 (Part 4) at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Medical Supplies for Soldiers

And we had wee phials of morphine, of course. I think that was general in the army, too, though I'm no' sure about it. We certainly had them for dealing with your own wounds or somebody else's wounds. If you got any you could have self-administered this. And we had purifying tablets for water. Mepachrine pills to combat malaria. And this cream that was supposed to keep mosquitoes away but which didn't. I used to think it attracted them! Then we got mosquito boots, long-legged boots that laced up to the knees, with your trousers tucked in. At first we had standard army boots but they just fell to bits. The mosquito boots were a help, although the leeches could still get in. It's amazing where a leech can get to. They used to creep in. It depended on where you were. There werenae leeches everywhere you went in Burma. But when you did hit country where there was leeches these damned things always got in at places where you couldn't reach them: under your webbing equipment or in your boots. You used to pour the blood out your boots. Oh. horrible things, aye, terrible.

Eddie Mathieson, Marines’ commando soldier on the Burma Front. Calcutta, 1944/45

(source: page 235 of MacDougall, Ian: Voices from War and some Labour Struggles; Personal Recollections of War in our Century by Scottish Men and Women. Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1995)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Ian MacDougall)

Avalanches are quite common in that part of the world

Avalanches are quite common in that part of the world and the most famous story is that of the Lee children. Ten children whose parents had gone out for the evening. An avalanche destroyed their entire house and all the people in it with the exception of one disabled child who was unable to run and somehow survived the catastrophe. There is a large memorial to the Lee children in Darjeeling.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Darjeeling, 1947

(source: page 32 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

I think that finished her off

Aunty Elsie then contracted Leukodennia - a condition in which the skin loses all its pigmentation and one ends up like an Albino except that the hair and eyes retain their colour.

A few years later she died and Aunty Lettie was left alone. Then one of her stepson's - a handsome, burly figure of a man who was in to weight lifting and keep fit - discovered he had leprosy. I think that finished her off. Leprosy is the scourge of the East and something which used to really frighten me.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Calcutta, 1947

(source: page 35 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

What had been a joke with us - his stature

Around this time I was nine and Stephen was 12 and I was taller than he was. What had been a joke with us - his stature – now became cause for concern and he was taken to a specialist. It seemed that he had a curvature of the spine and was unlikely to grow any more. The specialist told my mother that if they operated and tried to correct it, it was a fifty-fifty chance that it might be successful but also a chance that he would not walk again so it was decided to leave well enough alone. After all, he was in full possession of his faculties although sickly and small.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Ranchi, mid 1940s

(source: page 23 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

People in those days were ashamed of having handicapped children

They had three children although most people thought they had only two. The eldest boy was born disabled. He never learned to walk and he had a pronounced squint and could not speak properly - spitting all over the place when he tried. His name was Leslie but he was called Snookums always (I don't know why). People in those days were ashamed of having handicapped children and kept them confined to the house - a sort of dark secret. They seemed to think it was a reflection upon them that one of their children was not 100%.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Calcutta, 1940s

(source: page 36 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

this insect bit me on the finger

Edward Terence Lewis , Royal Navy, Calcutta & Bay of Bengal, 1945

(source: A6862728 East-End boy goes to Sea (3) - Jacko's sad demise. at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The school would be placed in quarantine

As soon as measles, German measles, chicken pox or mumps was confirmed, the school would be placed in quarantine. This meant that Socials with the other school were cancelled, as well as outings to Kurseong’s own flea pit. To most of us this was the more serious implication of the quarantine, especially if the latest Errol Flynn epic was due. Those afflicted were sent to the hospital that served both schools. If numbers exceeded the numbers of beds there, then the overflow stayed in the dormitories. Gradually the numbers of patients would dwindle, this was followed by a nervous two-week wait in case there were further cases. And woe betide the unfortunate boy who prolonged the ban on Socials and cinema trips. One year it was mumps that was the scourge. Five of us sufferers were locked away in an upstairs ward of the hospital. We were lucky to have a generous supply of comics, but these could not be passed to non-mumpers. We discovered that a classmate had been admitted with a broken leg, and we were warned that we were not allowed to visit him under any circumstances. The unfortunate had no reading matter, and he shouted up a request for something to be passed to him. It was common practice for the hospital to issue squares of cotton as handkerchiefs, so we unravelled some, made up a long chord and lowered some comics to the broken legged one. A few days later we were attacked by the irate nurse. The downstairs patient had developed a spectacular case of mumps, so much so that his head and neck now tapered the wrong way. We were all able to swear with total conviction that we hadn’t been down to see the victim. So the charge of lying was added to our dossiers.

John Gardiner, boarding school pupil at Victoria School. Kurseong 1939-1946

(source: John Gardiner: Memories of VSK (1939 – 1946) on website of Victoria & Dow hill Schools Kurseong at http://www.orbonline.net/~auballan/J_Gardners_VSK.htm)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Gardiner)

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Medicines

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Addresses of Dispensaries in 1940

Achinta Mohan Homoeo. Dispensary—10 B Mohini Mohan Road.

Amrita Charitable Dispensary—67 Surendra Nath Banerjee Road.

Ashutosh Homeo. College and Dispensary—123 Bow Bazar Street.

Ayurvedic Charitable Dispensary—51 Cotton Street.

Baikantanath Charitable Dispensary—12 Dass Lane.

Ballygunge Dispensary—23 Rustomjee Street.

Bechulal Dispensary—7/1 Kamardanga Road.

Chandney Charitable Dispensary—4 Temple Street.

Cbitpore Dispensary—3 Gopal Chunder Mukerjee Road.

Chittaranjan Free Unani Dispensary— 4 Kanat Sil Street.

Chittaranjan Homoeopathic College and Charitable Dispensary— 97A Harish Mukerjee Road.

Islamia Hospital and Charitable Dispensary—1 Bolai Dutt Street. Phone, B.B. 2551.

Jogendra Homoeopathic Dispensary—84 Shambazar Street.

Kangally Chandra Mullick Homoeopathic Dispensary—17 Sambhu Babu Lane.

Kidderpore Charitable Dispensary—36 Pipe Road. Phone, South 74.

Manicklal Seal Charitable Dispensary—33 Canal South Road. Phone, Cal. 2465.

Maniktala Dispensary—109 Narkeldanga Main Road. Phone, B.B.2191.

Mohamed Ali Hospital and Dispensary—7 Amratola Lane.

Presidency Medical School and Charitable Dispensary—29 Russa Road. Phone. South 1052.

Prince Golam Mohamed Charitable Dispensary—Tollygunge. Phone, South 854.

Rai Serajmull Bahadur's Charitable Dispensary—6 Mullick Street.

Sagore Dutt Charitable Hospital and Dispensary— Kamarhatti. Phone, B.B. 3181.

Taltola Dispensary—58 Lower Circular Road. Phone, P.K. 134.

Tangra Dispensary—108 Chingrihatta Road.

Ultadanga Dispensary—123 Ultadanga Main Road.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 198 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

Calcutta is riddled with venereal diseases

Prophylaxis. So we didn't convince you - or you got sort of tight and forget that you were convinced. Then do remember that there are Prophylactic Stations located at:

77c Park Street

6 Lindsay Street

14 Watgunge Street

Hindusthan Building

Each camp dispensary in the Calcutta area.

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

The daily Atabrine pill

Malaria was warded off by taking a daily Atabrine pill which turned everyone's complexion sickly shade of yellow. We also had full cover, mosquito nets for our cots. I don't think any of our crew had malaria, either in India or Burma.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)

one million doses of smallpox vaccine a night

I went to Calcutta for 3 months and lived in a Rajah’s palace. At one time I issued one million doses of smallpox vaccine a night, and sent medicines over the Himalayas to General Slim’s troops in China.

Maurice Gross, Army Pharmacist, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A5756187 One Man's War. at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Malaria treatment

I, like many comrades, spent my 21st birthday in this land called ‘The Jewel in the Crown’ and what a day. I ‘celebrated’ with the usual issue of a tin of bully beef, which ran from the tin due to the terrific heat. Just a few weeks later I was to suffer a bad attack of malaria and was taken to the Convent of St. Loretta in Calcutta where the nuns, now well known world wide because of Mother Teresa, attended me. The treatment for the disease was being plunged into a bath of ice and being given copious doses of quinine.

Harold Davies, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1942

(source: A6635289 Salamanders – 79 Fighter Squadron at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The raw liver treatment

He was taken ill with dysentery and flown to a hospital in Calcutta to convalesce. He was anaemic and had to eat as much raw and cooked liver as he could - he never wanted liver again!

William Hunter Turford, Flight Sergeant Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1944

(source: A6157703 RAF in Burma at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Another Cholera Inoculation

With Singapore already fallen we had to set sail for Bombay, where we were held in a transit camp until they decided what was going to happen to us. It was decided to send us to Calcutta by boat, via Ceylon a journey of 3 weeks. We sailed in a converted cargo ship, the conditions were terrible, very few hammocks. A lot of us slept on the floor with the rats and cockroaches.

When we reached Calcutta there was a cholera outbreak going on. Our medical papers had been lost and so we had to have our inoculations again which we had already been given in Liverpool. This resulted in the deaths of 2 men as they couldn’t stand the double dose.

We were again held in a transit camp. One day we were allowed to go and see the sights, the Black Hole and the Firpos Café. We then had to move up country to Imphal sailing up the Ganges.

Reg Stone, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1943

(source: A2361601 Reg Stone: Experience in India at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

"Thank you, Nurse"

[I remember] The school nurse issuing a spoonful of Mag. Sulph. to every boy in the school. We had to say "Thank you, Nurse" to prove we had swallowed the disgusting stuff, thus preventing us from spitting it out later.. The chaos in the Bogs two hours later…..

John Gardiner, boarding school pupil at Victoria School. Kurseong 1939-1946

(source: John Gardiner: Memories of VSK (1939 – 1946) on website of Victoria & Dow hill Schools Kurseong at http://www.orbonline.net/~auballan/J_Gardners_VSK.htm)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Gardiner)

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Ambulances

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

AMBULANCES

Motor Ambulances :—for accidents and non-infectious diseases are kept at 3 Central Avenue (Phones B. B. 3927 and 3928), for infectious diseases at the Campbell Hospital (Phone Cal. 3853). Ambulances are available day and night, free of charge. When 'phoning only the word "Ambulance" is necessary.

Hand Ambulances :—for infectious diseases are kept at the Campbell Hospital (Phone Cal. 3853), Medical College Hospital (Phone B. B. 1076), North Suburban Hospital (Phone B. B. 3817) and Mayo Hospital ('Phone B. B. 1058); available free of charge.

Animal Ambulances :—are kept at the Hospital of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 276 Bowbazar Street ('Phone Cal. 1229) and at the Veterinary Hospital, Belgatchia ('Phone B. B. 1021).

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source page 80 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

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Hospitals

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

142^nd US Military Hospital (near Dhakuria Lakes)

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta,

(Source: Elaine Pinkerton / Reproduced by courtesy of Elaine Pinkerton)

Aerial View of Dhakuria Lakes and Huts of the 142^nd US Military Hospital

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta,

(Source: Elaine Pinkerton / Reproduced by courtesy of Elaine Pinkerton)

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Addresses of Hospitals in 1940

Albert Victor Hospital (Leper Asylum)—32 Gobra Road, Entally. Phone, Regent 200.

This was a department in the old Alma House in Amherst Street. In 1906 the present, asylum was erected and named after H. R. H. Prince Albert Victor. Admittance was originally restricted to lepers of Calcutta and suburbs : now open to lepers from all over Bengal.

Out-patients :—8 to 11 a.m. daily, except Sundays.

In-Patients :—Normally 175 beds. Visiting hours, 5 to 7 p.m. daily.

Alipore Police Case Hospital—32 & 33 Belvedere Road. Phone, Alipore 234.

Bengal Alien Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital— 169 Bow Bazar Street. Phone, B. B. 1762.

Out-Patients :—8 to 9-30 a.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. daily, except Sundays.

In-patients :— 17 beds. Visiting hours, 11 to 12 and 5 to 7 p.m. daily.

Bengal Medical Institution and Hospital—24 Sura 3rd Lane. Phone, B. B. 710.

Bhagwan Das Bagia Rai Bahadur's Marwari Hindu Hotpital—128 & 130 Harrison Road.

This Hospital was founded and endowed in 1902 by Bhagwan Das Bagia Rai Bahadur.

Out-Patients :—7 to 10 a.m. daily.

In-Patients :—55 beds. Visiting hours, 10 a.m. to 5p.m. daily.

British Military Hospital—246 Lower Circular Road. Phone, Alipore 267.

Calcutta Dental College and Hospital—114 Lower Circular Road. Phone, Cal. 3955.

There is only an out-door department, open from 8 to 11 a.m. daily, except Sundays.

Calcutta Homoeopatic College and Hospital—265 and 266 Upper Circular Road. Phone, B. B. 2654.

Surgical, medical, maternity and gynaecological; eye, nose, ear, throat, chest and dental departments.

Out-Patients :—8-30 to 11 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m. daily.

Emergency Dept. : —Open day and night.

In-Patients :—85 beds. Visiting hours, 11 to 12 and 5 to 7 p.m. daily.

Calcutta Medical School Hospital—301/3 Upper Circular Road. hone, B. B. 1730.

Surgical, medical, maternity and gynaecological; eye, nose, ear, throat, chest and dental departments.

Out-Patients :—9 to 11 a.m. daily.

Emergency Dept.:—Open day and night.

In-Patients :—Normally 225 beds. Visiting hours, 4 to 7 p.m. daily.

Calcutta Police Hospital—16 Beni Nandan Street. Phone, P.K. 340. For all ranks of the Police Force.

Out-Patients :—At all hours.

In-Patients :—Normally 280 beds. Visiting hours, 4 to 7 p.m. daily.

Calcutta Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Hospital and Dispensary—276 Bowbazar Street. Phone, Cal. 1229

Campbell Hospital—138 Lower Circular Road. Phone, Cal. 131 and Cal. 2656.

This Hospital has commodious wards and well-equipped out-door dispensaries. It is open for the treatment of all general and infectious diseases, except diphtheria.

Out-Patients :—8 to 10-30 a.m. daily, except Sundays.

Venereal, 10-30 a.m. to 12-30 p.m. on weekdays.

Anti-rabic, 10-30 a.m. to 12 noon daily.

Emergency Dept. :—Open day and night.

In-Patients :—Normally 700 beds, but when small-pox and cholera rages in epidemic form. this number is greatly increased.

Visiting hours, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 to 7 p.m. daily.

Carmichael Hospital for Tropical Diseases. See page 191.

Carmichael Medical College and Hospital—1 Belgatchia Road. Phone, B.B.2510.

Medical, surgical, maternity and gynaecological; eye, ear, nose, throat and chest departments; tuberculosis, cholera and diphtheria.

Out-Patients : -8 to 10 a.m. daily.

Emergency Dept. :—Open day and night.

In-Patients :—Normally 450 beds. Visiting hours, 4 to 7 p.m. daily.

Chittaranjan Hospital—24 Gorachand Road, Entally. Phone, P.K. 931.

This Hospital was built in 1927 to perpetuate the memory of Deshhandhu Chittaranjan Dass.

Medical, surgical, maternity, gynaecological; cholera and kalaazar.

Out-Patients :—8 to 10-30 a-m. daily.

Eye Clinic, 10 to 11 a.m.. Mondays, Fridays.

Ear, Nose, Throat, 9-30 to 11 a.m., Tuesdays, Thursdays.

Venereal, 5 to 7 p.m., Tuesdays. Thursdays, Saturdays.

Tuberculosis. 8 to 10 a.m. daily.

Emergency Dept. :—Open day and night.

In-Patients :—164 beds. Visiting hours, 12 to I and 5to 7 p.m. daily.

Chittaranjan Seva Sadan Hospital for Women and Children— 148 Russa Road. Phone, South 224.

Out-Patients :—Gynaecological, 8 to 10 a.m. daily, except Mondays.

Obstetrical (Ante-natal). 4 to 6 p.m. daily, except Mondays.

Ear, Nose. Throat, 10 to 12 noon, Tuesdays. Saturdays.

Dental Clinic, 10 to 11-30 a.m., Mondays, Thursdays.

Eye Clinic, 6 to 7 p.m. daily.

Emergency Dept. :—Open day and night.

In-Patients:—Normally 167 beds. Visiting hours, 4 to 6 p.m. dally.

The Childrens Clinic :—At Sishu Sadan. 1 Beltola Street.

There is an out-door department open from 8 to 10 a.m. daily.

Indoor Dept.:—36 beds for children. Visiting hours, 4 to 6 p.m. daily.

Dunham Homeopathic Medical College and Hospital for Men—63 Upper Circular Road. Phone, B. B. 2757.

Out-Patients:—Morning, 8 to 10 a.m. daily, except Thursdays.

Evening, 6 to 7-30 p.m. daily, except Sundays.

ln-Patients :—15 beds. Visiting hours, 5 to 7 p.m.

Eden Hospital. See page 189.

Eye Infirmary, See page 189.

Ezra Hospital. See page 188.

Gobindra Sundari Free Ayurvedic College and Hospital—20 Ram Kanto Bose Street.

Medical, surgical, maternity and gynaecological.

Out-Patients :—9 to 11 a.m. daily.

Eye, Nose. Ear, Throat, Chest and Dental Departments, from 9 to 11 a.m., Sundays. Fridays.

In-Patients :—Normally 66 beds. Visiting hours, 5 to 7 p.m. daily.

Howrah General Hospital—Telkul Chat Road. Phone. Howrah 42.

Out-Patients :—Medical. Surgical, Radiological, Obstetrical (Ante-natal), and Gynaecological, from 8-30 a.m. daily.

Dental, 9 a.m., Mondays. 'Wednesdays. Fridays.

Sfetn, 11 a.m., Tuesdays, Fridays.

Eye Clinic, 11 a.m., Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays.

Ear. Nose, Throat, 10 a.m., Mondays, Thursdays.

Heart Clinic, 10 a.m., Wednesdays, Fridays.

Urological, 9 a.m., Tuesdays, Fridays.

Fracture Clinic. Pathological, 10 a.m. daily.

Leprosy, 11 a.m., Wednesdays, Saturdays.

Emergency Dept. :—Open day and night.

In-Patients :—Normally 230 beds. Visiting houra, 5 to 7 p.m. daily.

Indian Military Hospital—Sterndale Road. Phone, Alipore 221.

Lady Dufferin Victoria Hospital for Women and Children— 1 Amherst Street. Phone, B. B. 1113.

Medical, surgical, obstetrical (ante-natal), gynaecological.

Out-Patient :—7-30 Co 10-30 a.m. dally, except Sundays.

Emergency Dept. :—open day and night.

In-Patients :—Normally 200 beds. Visiting houra, 4 to 6 p.m. daily.

Mayo Hospital—67/1 Strand Road North. Phone. B. B, 1058. Medical, surgical, obstetrical, gynaecological; ear, chest and throat departmants, anti-cholera and anti-rabic treatment.

Out-Patients :—7-30 to 9-30 a.m. and 1-30 to 5-30 p.m. on weekdays. 7-30 ro 8-30 a.m. on Sundays-

Skin Diseases, 8 to 10 a.m., Mondays,'Wednesdays. Fridays.

Emergency Dept. :—Open day and night.

In-patients :—Normally 115 beds. Visiting hours, 5 to 7 p.m. daily-

Medical College Hospital. See page 187.

Mental Hospital—100 Maniktala Main Road. Phone, B.B. 2962.

North Suburban Hospital—82 Cossipore Road. Phone. B.B. 3817. Treatment: in all general and infectious diseases, except small-pox.

Out-Patients :—8 to 11 a.m. daily.

Emergency Dept. :—Open day and night.

In-Patients :—Normally 82 beds. Visiting hours, 11 to 12 noon and 5 to 7 p.m. daily.

Park Veterinary Clinic—42 Theatre Road. Phone, P.K.1294.

Park Veterinary Hospital—144 Jhawtolla Road. Phone, P.K. 347.

Pratap Chandra Homoeopathic Hospital—14/1 Narkeldanga North Road. Phone, B.B. 2356.

Medical, surgical? gynaecological.

Out-Patients :—9 to 11 a.m, daily, except Sundays.

In-Patients :—35 beds. Visiting hours, 11 to 12 and 5 to 6 p.m. daily.

Presidency General Hospital. See page 48.

Prince of Wales Hospital See page 188.

Ram Chandra Goenka Hospital and Dispensary—240 Kalighat Road. Phone, South 61.

This Hospital contains four beds for emergency cases.

Ramrikdas Haralalka Hospital—104 Ashutosh Mukerjee Road. Phone, South 943.

Out-Patients :—8 to 10 a.m. daily.

In-Patients :—22 beds (male). Visiting hours, 5 to 7 p.m. daily.

Sambhu NathPandit Hospital—11 Elgin Road. Phone, P.K. 1374.

Medical, surgical, obstetrical, gynaecological.

Out-patients :—8 to 10 a.m. and 3 to 5 p.m. daily.

Dental Dept., 9 to 10 a.m., Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays.

Eye Clinic, 3 to 5 p.m., Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays.

Anti-rabic Treatment, 10 a.m. daily.

Emergency Dept. :—Open day and night.

In-Patients :—Normally 125 beds. Visiting hours, 5 to 7 p.m. daily.

Shree Vishuddhananda Saraswati Marwari Hospital—118

Amherst Street. Phone, B.B. 1030.

Medical, surgical, obstetrical, gynaecological.

Treatment in Allopathic, Homoeopathic and Ayurvedic.

Out-Patients :—8 to 11 a.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. daily.

In-Patients:—320 beds. Visiting hours, 7 to 8 a.m. and 12 to 4p.m. daily.

Tuberculosis Hospital— Jadabpur. Phone, P. K. 1821.

Vaida Shastra Pith and Hospital—294/3/1 Upper Circular Road.

Phone, B.B.4159. National Ayurvedic Treatment.

Out-Patients :—8 to 10 a.m. daily.

In-Patients :—Normally 75 beds. Visiting hours, 5 to 7 p.m. daily.

Veterinary Hospital—1 Ahiripukur Road.

Veterinary Hospital—429 Grand Trunk Road North, Howrah. Phone, Howrah 266.

Veterinary Hospital and Dispensary —Police Hospital Road.

Vishwanath Ayarveda College and Hospital—94 Grey Street. Phone, B.B. 1841.

Medical, surgical, obstetrical, gynaecological.

Out-Patients :—8 Co 11 a.m. daily.

In-Patients :—Normally 58 beds. Visiting hours, 11a.m. to 2 p.m. daily.

Voluntary Venereal Hospital—3 Bhowanipore Road.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 193-197 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

THE INDIAN RED CROSS SOCIETY

(BENGAL PROVINCIAL BRANCH)

Location :—No. 5, Government Place North.

Hours of Business :—10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

On the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, there was immediately expressed, by those who could not go to the Front, a great desire to help in any way they could. Lady Carmichael took the initiative and formed the "Lady Carmichael Bengal Women's War Fund." Its early activities ere confined to the supply of comforts to sailors and soldiers, and implements and appliances to hospitals.

On the conclusion of the Great War in 1918, when the work done for the troops and the field hospitals gradually decreased, the available funds were transferred to the Indian Red Cross Society (Bengal Branch), by an Act known as Bengal Act VIII of 1920.

The aim of the Red Cross Society is to secure the active interest of the greatest number of possible members, and to inaugurate schemes which will be capable of instant expansion in case of emergency. The work of the Society is therefore organised under five main divisions :—

1. The Red Cross Military Division (Literature for Troops Section) :—This division, in peace time, carries on the work done by the Red Cross Society during the war, in providing comforts for troops. It also deals with the collection and despatch of periodicals, books and papers to troops in India, especially on the Frontier. The Bengal Branch is the only Provincial Branch in India which regularly and systematically carries out this work.

2. The Red Cross Hospitals Division (Civil and Military Hospitals) :—This division supplies comforts to Civil and Military Hospitals in Bengal, and meets the salaries of nurses in mofussil hospitals.

3. The Red Cross Health Welfare Division :—This controls work specially connected with Public Health and consists of six sections each with a separate committee:

Section 1. Calcutta Maternity and Child Welfare Committee.

Section 2. District Maternity and Child Welfare Committee.

Section 3. Industrial Maternity and Child Welfare Committee.

Section 4. Bengal Health School.

Section 5. Bengal Health Education Committee.

Section 6. Calcutta Health Week Committee.

4. The Junior Red Cross :—This movement, which started in Bengal in 1931, has gained increasing popularity among the many schools of the Province. Its chief aim is to develop in its youthful members the ideals of personal and communal hygiene; it also does good work in encouraging the exchange of correspondence between its members and those in other countries.

5. The Ambulance Division:—This Consists of:—

(a). St. John Ambulance Association, which for many years has carried out the teaching of First Aid, Home Nursing, Tropical Hygiene and Sanitation throughout the Province.

(b). St. John Ambulance Brigade, which provides the personnel of trained men and women who are prepared to do duty as First Aiders on all public occasions. In addition, separate Committees carry out the work in connection with the following :—

1. The Sub-committee of the King George's AntiTuberculosis Fund.

2. The Jadabpur Tuberculosis Annexe.

3. The Red Cross District Relief Fund.

4. The Association for the Prevention of Blindness, affiliated to this Branch.

The Red Cross Society, working in co-operation with the Association and Brigade, gives a monthly grant to St. John Ambulance Sisters' Clinic for Anglo-Indians. The Society also assists " The Ex-Services Association ", "Calcutta Hospital Day Committee" and other societies in carrying out their annual street collections.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages58-60 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

THE PRESIDENCY GENERAL HOSPITAL

Visiting Hours: —Private rooms 8-30 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Alexandra Ward (for children) : 5 p.m. to 6-30 p.m.

Other Wards : 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

In Patients admitted : 8 a.m. to 12 noon. Urgent cases at any time.

Out patients seen : 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. (Sundays excepted).

Trams :—Kalighat, Ballygunge, Tollygunge.

Buses :—Nos. 2, 2A, 3, 4, 4A, 5.

The Presidency General Hospital, overlooking the Maidan, occupies a splendid site in large and well laid out grounds, and is bounded on the west by Bhowanipore Road and on the east by Harish Mukerjee Road. The original hospital was built on the site of a garden house, which was acquired in 1768. The present handsomely designed building, airy and well adapted for its humanitarian purpose, was built to the east of the original hospital in 1901 and has 168 ward and private room beds. The Woodburn Ward, erected to the west of the main building, consists of 25 private rooms equipped with all modern conveniences. About 50 yards to the north of the main building are the Observation Ward and the Diphtheria Ward, the Cholera Ward and the Halliday Ward, mainly for skin diseases. The Anglican Chapel and the Roman Catholic Chapel are on the south.

The Presidency General Hospital has an outstanding claim to distinction throughout the world, for it was in a small laboratory in this hospital that, Surgeon-Major, afterwards Sir, Ronald Ross of the Indian Medical Service, discovered in 1898 how malaria germs are conveyed by mosquitoes of the anopheles breed. This epoch-making discovery is worthily commemorated by an iron gate set in a masonry wall, to the right of the main entrance. Over the gate is a medallion portrait of Sir Ronald Ross, and let into the wall on either side of the portrait, are two marble tablets, one bearing the inscription :—

"In this small laboratory seventy yards to the south-east of this gate, Surgeon-Major Ronald Ross, I.M.S., in 1898 discovered the manner in which malaria is conveyed by mosquitoes."

and the other :—

"This day relenting God
Hath placed within my hand
A wondrous thing : and God
Be praised at His Command.

"Seeking His secret deeds
With tears and toiling health
I find thy cunning seeds
O million murdering death.

"I know this little thing

A myriad men will save

0 Death where Is thy sting :

Thy Victory, 0 Grave ?"

This memorable Laboratory, now the Hospital's Clinical Laboratory, is reached by the gate a few steps to the left of the memorial.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 48-49 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

THE MEDICAL COLLEGE HOSPITALS

Trams :—Esplanade/Dalhousie-Shambazar.

Buses :—2, 2A, 13, 14.

The Medical College, the Prince of Wales and Ezra Hospitals:—

Out Patients—From 8 to 10 a.m. daily, except Sundays.

In Patients ;—Visiting Hours—5 to 7 p.m. on weekdays. 4 to 7 p.m. on Sundays.

The Medical College Group of Hospitals at No. 88 College Street covers an area of about 18 acres and is bounded on the north by Colootolla Street, on the south by Eden Hospital Road, on the east by College Street and on the west by Central Avenue. ,

The original Medical College Hospital, a white three-storeyed structure in the Corinthian style of architecture, with wards accommodating over 300 patients, open verandahs and an operating theatre, was designed and erected by Messrs. Burn & Co. The foundation stone was laid with Masonic ceremony by the Marquess of Dalhousie in September 1848, and the building completed and opened in December 1852. The cost was met from the balance of the money in the hands of the Lottery Committee, and funds from the old and new Fever Hospitals, supplemented by a donation of Rs. 50,000 from Raja Pertab, Singh. Wards for the treatment of tuberculosis and diphtheria cases have recently been installed on the roof, while on the ground floor is accommodated the Venereal Department.

To the north of this Hospital is the

EZRA HOSPITAL

This was built in 1886-87, with provision for twenty beds, by the philanthropist Mrs. Moselle Ezra, in remembrance of her husband, Mr. E. D. J. Ezra.

Adjoining the Ezra Hospital on the east is the

CHEST, EAR, NOSE, THROAT AND DENTAL DEPTS.

Out-Patients:—From 8 a.m. daily, except Sundays. This block as the original Eye Infirmary, built in 1891 and named after Sham Churn Law, who provided the funds for its erection. A munificent donation by the philanthropist Soorajmull Nagarmull has enabled the Hospital authorities to extend the building in the rear and to establish a Chest Department, fitted with operating, X-ray and research rooms.

SIR JOHN ANDERSON CASUALTY BLOCK

This handsome structure, immediately to the south of the Medical College Hospital, was built and completed in 1937, in commemoration of the centenary of the College, and named after Sir John Anderson, then Governor of Bengal. The department, which is open day and night, is a self-contained unit, equipped with all facilities for the immediate treatment of casualty cases. In the rear of this block is accommodated the Skin Department, open from 8 to 10 a.m. on weekdays. The Hospital's Enquiry Office (Phone B. B. 1076) is also located here.

PRINCE OF WALES HOSPITAL

This red brick building, directly to the south of the Sir John Anderson Casualty Block, was erected in 1910, with beds for 88 surgical cases. In the northern wing, on the first floor of this Hospital, within easy reach of the General Out-door Departments and the Electrotherapy Treatment Rooms, is the X-Ray Department, open from 8 a.m. daily, except Sundays.

EDEN HOSPITAL

Out-Patients:—From 8-30 to 10 a.m. daily, except Sundays.

In-Patients:—Visiting hours—5 to 6-30 p.m. on weekdays; 4 to 6-30 p.m. on Sundays. Children allowed only on Sunday evenings.

This grey three-storeyed building, situated directly to the west of the Prince of Wales Hospital, with provision for 130 patients, chiefly maternity and gynaecological cases, was built in 1880 to relieve the great pressure for accommodation in the Medical College Hospital. Erected from Government grants and public donations, and named after Sir Ashley Eden, then Lieutenant-Governer of Bengal, this Hospital, consisting of a central block and four wings, one at each corner, was at the time of its erection considered to be one of the finest and most up-to-date in the world. Another three-storeyed building, adjoining the original block, has recently been erected for the same purpose.

A few yards to the south of the Eden Hospital is the Female Isolation Ward, for the treatment of septic cases.

EYE INFIRMARY

Out-Patients:—From 8 to 9-30 a.m. daily, except Sundays.

Visiting Hours:—5 to 7 p.m. on weekdays; 4 to 7 p.m. on Sundays.

This striking, commodious, three-storeyed building, occupying the space between the Eden and Carmichael Hospitals, with the main entrance on Chittaranjan Avenue, was erected in 1926 with provision for 140 beds. The Infirmary is staffed with highly qualified eye-specialists and is fully equipped with the most up-to-date apparatus, embodying the latest discoveries in the field of ophthalmic surgery.

The row of buildings on the south, extending along Eden Hospital Road, houses the nursing staff of the hospitals.

The average number of in-patients admitted to this group of hospitals is greatly in excess of actual provision made, and the urgent necessity of providing additional blocks and wards is under consideration. At present the Sir John Anderson Casualty Ward is being extended on the south.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 185-187 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

CALCUTTA SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE

Trams :—Esplanade/Dalhousie-Shambazar.

Buses :—2, 2A, 13, 14.

Out-Patients Department:—Patients are seen at 10 a.m. on the

following days for the diseases mentioned :

General Tropical Diseases—Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays.

Kala-azar—Mondays, Thursdays.

Diabetes—Thursdays.

Skin Diseases—Wednesdays, Saturdays.

Leprosy and Filariasis—Tuesdays, Fridays.

Antt-Rafcic Treatment:—These cases are attended to at the Pasteur Institute at No. 2 Ballygunge Store Road. Open throughout the year, including Sundays and holidays.

This world-famous Institution, at the south-east corner of Colootolla Street and Chittaranjan Avenue, forms, in conjunction with the Carmichael Hospital for Tropical Diseases, part of the scheme for post-graduate instruction and research in tropical diseases. This scheme was framed by Sir Leonard Rogers, and it is due to his energy and enthusiasm that the present organisation owes its existence. Both School and Hospital were built by contributions raised from public subscriptions, the Research Fund Association, and donations from the Governments of India and Bengal.

The chief object of the School of Tropical Medicine is to raise the standard of efficiency of teachers and to train research workers. Large numbers of medical men from India and abroad receive training in Tropical Medicine : in addition, there are special courses of training in such diseases as leprosy, kala-azar, hookworm disease, etc. Through the generosity of the Rockefeller Foundation, fellowships are granted to members of the staff to enable them to visit Europe and America to study the latest technique and methods of research.

The research side of the Institution aims at the discovery of better methods of treating and preventing the great disabling diseases of India. Each department of medicine has its own staff of qualified experts under an eminent professor, who is a specialist in that particular branch of medical knowledge. During the year the specialised work, discoveries and researches of each department is chronicled in detail in treatises and publications.

In the limited space at our disposal, it is impossible to deal adequately with the valuable work and momentous discoveries made in the field of medical science by the School of Tropical Medicine. We may mention, however, that many of the discoveries of the School have received world-wide acclaim : for instance, the work of the Leprosy Department and the methods of treatment as laid down by the School, is known and carried out throughout the world : while the carrier of Kala-azar, isolated as the sand-fly in the School laboratories, is acknowledged by research workers all the world over.

The School Library. This is an invaluable collection of up-to-date standard works on medical science. It contains over 15,000 volumes dealing comprehensively with every aspect of Tropical Medicine, in addition to other subjects.

The School Museum. This contains a wide variety of pathological specimens and is of great use to medical students and practitioners.

The School is affiliated to the Calcutta University for degrees in D.T.M., D.P.H. & Hy., D.P.H. and L.T.M. The high percentage of successes in these examinations is a great tribute to the efficiency of the School's Professors.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 190-191 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

CARMICHAEL HOSPITAL FOR TROPICAL DISEASES

Trams :—Esplanade/Dalhousie-Shambazar.

Buses;—2, 2A, 13, 14.

Visiting Hours :—5 to 7 p.m. on weekdays; 4 to 7 p.m. on Sundays.

This Hospital forms the other part of the scheme framed by Sir Leonard Rogers for post-graduate instruction and research in Tropical Diseases.

The building, commodious and handsome, adjoins the School of Tropical Medicine on the south. The foundation stone was laid by Lord Carmichael in 1916, and the structure, of modern architecture, was completed and opened in the following year.

The chief purpose of the Hospital is to keep the research laboratories of the Calcutta School of Tropical

Medicine in touch with Practical Medicine, and to supply suitable patients for the study of the various diseases being investigated. Patients are only admitted if found suitable and must have attended the Out-patients' Department of the School or Tropical Medicine.

The Hospital receives difficult cases of obscure diseases from all parts of India for diagnosis and treatment:

this is undertaken because of the extensive laboratory facilities available, which are far greater than those existing in any other hospital in the East.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 191-192 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

THE ALL INDIA INSTITUTE OF HYGIENE AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Trams :— Esplanade/Dalhousie-Shambazar.

Buses:—2, 2A, 13, 14.

The idea of establishing such an Institution was mooted as far back as 1860, when a Royal Commission visited India and recommended the formation of a Sanitary Commission for the improvement of health and sanitation. It was not until 1932, however, that the present All-India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health was founded through the generosity of the Rockefeller Foundation, who bought the land and erected, at their own cost, the magnificent four-storeyed building at the north-east corner of Colootolla Street and Chittaranjan Avenue.

The Institute works in close co-operation with the School of Tropical Medicine and a number of investiga- tions have been worked out Jointly by members of the staff of these two Institutions ; it is affiliated to the Calcutta University for degrees in D. P. H. & Hy., diplomas in Maternity and Child Welfare, and other special courses. The Institute comprises the following sections:—

Public Health Administration.

Sanitary Engineering.

Vital Statistics and Epidermiology.

Blood-Chemistry and Nutrition.

Malariology and Rural Hygiene.

Maternity, Child Welfare and School Hygiene.

The Institute has a staff of distinguished Professors and a Library covering a wide variety of books on various medical matters.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source page 192 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

YOUR HEALTH

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Therapy under the Trees

May 9, 1945

[…]

Today cannot be considered one of my better days. In the first place, I couldn’t get the group therapy class to respond. I’ve lost 4 of the original 12, and 2 more were missing because they had appointments. That left me with six, only two of whom would open their mouths. The humidity was 85% the other day - probably more this morning. Then, since we meet outside, the crows proved a real nuisance, holding San Franciscan conferences in the palm tree under which we were seated. (And to think I kept an Indian boy from killing a wounded crow, or kite, or raven [or whatever they are] yesterday.)

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, May 9, 1945

(Source: page 150 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

A Standard day

[…]

Today has been a beastly, hot, sultry day - one that I was glad to write off forever. I was tired, worn out, and had a tummy-ache. But tonight I feel better and look forward to the morrow. It would have helped if I had seen your beloved handwriting!

Example of my life on the ward:

4:45 p.m. -Pause for several minutes after two neuro-psychological consultations to talk over last night with the Col.

4:50 -Pause again at Ward 46 to see Pilgram about a patient and he's not there so chat with Howard a second.

4:52 -Take Lancaster, one of the n-p conferences, to one side to tell him of our decision to Section IX (separate from service) him.

4:55 -Jim Beasley wants to see me for a minute. He wishes to borrow 10 rupees to pay off a boy leaving tomorrow. I take him into the office to ship him the pages.

5:00 -Little Miss Howe peeks in (she was to be married tonight) to say she hadn't yet heard from her fiance, who went to Delhi yesterday.

Hers must be an unhappy life though some of her kind appear to have made a good adjustment.

The heat is most oppressive -- weighs down like a slab of rock on the body, like a dark veil on the mind. It refuses to rain, and that is merciful.

This morning passed in a haze of interviews and dictation. One was for the purpose of getting my views on a POW from the Houston, sunk March 1, 1942, and in a Jap prison camp for 312 years. He became temporarily deranged about August 4 after being brought to the 142nd. I declared him normal but there are instances that smell fishy. He was only mistreated once by the Japs, claims the Australian Medical Officer declared him unfit for hard labor such as working in the Jungles.

He came to us weighing 227 pounds. When his condition is contrasted with that of Wainwright and countless others, the implications are pretty ugly. Nevertheless, indicative evidence doesn't count. He is rational enough now.

As usual, Woody Flanagan and I started for the EM (enlisted men) mess to check it and eat there, when Ruth decided she wanted to go along. Needless to say, she created quite a commotion, but the treat to the boys was well-deserved, no doubt.

This afternoon passed almost as rapidly as the morning. About 4:00 a terrific downpour started, the heaviest of the summer. Howard and I actually waded a time or two when we went to quarters at 5:15.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, September 13, 1945.

(Source: p.203 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

Indian confusions

August 27, 1945

Dearest Little Girl:

[…]

As ever, I am still nervous, albeit I cover it nicely by easily slipping from one situation to another without too much fuss and too much hurry. This is deceptive, and does not reveal how agilely my mind is dogging from pillar to post...but naturally I know.

Nor does it discover to others the vague unrest that has stirred in me for years. I had thought that perhaps India would help me gain insight, but I have learned nothing here that I did not already know. If anything, I find issues somewhat clouded by the incredible things that I have seen in this part of the world.

There are so many people here that just watching the crowds makes me very impatient. Where are they going? Why? Not even their grazing sacred cows, whom they reverence but let starve, seem as aimless in their goals.

[…]

Well, today during the last session of Group Psychotherapy, I was on the ball and delivered myself of some rich sentiments. The class was large; about 21 and they seemed to enjoy it more than before. But I am glad that it is over in a week or so. I despise the stuff, what with airplanes whamming over the hospital and trucks grinding by and gabbling natives working around the area. It does no good to yell at the latter, they just look at you, turn away, and continue their damned gabbling.

[…]

Night, precious sweet.

Dick

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, August 27, 1945

(Source: page 191 of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

The Capt. was taking his anger out on us

1 completed my rounds and undressed wearily at two this morning. I had been in bed five minutes when a call came for me from Ward 4. An officer, a Captain Pfandler, was causing trouble, would not go to bed, was cursing the night nurse and the ward man etc. By the time I got there, he had quieted down. I talked with him awhile. Overseas two years. A pilot. Jeep accident. Dizzy spells, sufficient to board him. Investigation over some unmentioned matters in Burma. Ordered held by the authorities at the base section. The Capt. was taking his anger out on us here at the hospital. Tsk.

Back at three to the Receiving room. Finally to bed by 3:30, asleep by 4:00.

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, October 22, 1945.

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

VD Clinics

Medical establishments listed are primarily places where American soldiers, who cheated on their wives or girl friends back home by visiting an establishment on Karaya Lane, could go and get "medically" cleansed after such frivolity. The map may also have shown some facilities for emergency medical treatment, too. I just don't remember.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)

Rest Homes and rest camps

You ask about a rest camp near Park Circus.

I was never there. It was primarily for use by troops fighting on the front over in Burma and up in China. It was a place they could get away from tortures of a shooting war and relax a few days back in something resembling civilian life. Personnel from the 40th usually elected to go to rest camps up near Darjeeling or down south to Madras when the opportunity came. Usually that was about every 6 months and was for a week at the camps. Darjeeling was a favorite because of the climate, however, Bond and I elected to go to Madras because space there was available when we had time to go.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)

From the BOR ward to Indian surgical

From the BOR ward…

Monday, 17 July: Time has passed fairly quickly since our arrival. Staff change daily as most people either seem to be due for repat. or their husbands are. Yes, I admit I am most envious.

At first, I was placed on the BOR ward, and were the boys pleased to see someone just out from Blighty. Needless to say, I got a terrific ragging about getting my knees brown etc. They were a grand lot, really, but having discovered all there is to know about dysentery and malaria, I now find myself on an Indian surgical ward.

…To Indian surgical

This in itself is an experience. It is very amusing at times when I try my Urdu on the patients, and they their little knowledge of English on me. Usually they win.

They are not really objectionable to nurse, but they are very childish, with no desire to help their own recovery. They take a great delight in asking for medicine and kicking up such a row if they don’t get it. If one patient gets an injection, the rest of the ward yells for one also.

Henrietta Susan Isabella Burness, V.A.D., Calcutta, July1945

(source: A1940870 Life in the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), 1945at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

I found myself in Barrackpore Military Hospital

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Barrackpore, 1943

(source: A6665457 TWEEDALE's WAR Part 11 Pages 85-92 at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Moving Hospitals

The war in the Far East was going badly because money, men and munitions had been needed in North Africa and Europe, but things were going better in Europe and we were to get ready for what was called the Burma push. And our whole hospital, beds and equipment were to move by train to a place called Ranchi, near Calcutta.

Once we got started and organised in Burma we moved forward rapidly and when they got Rangoon, a port, it was more convenient to send casualties by sea, to Madras. So some of us were posted from Ranchi to Calcutta. One of my jobs in Calcutta was to go to a convalescent hospital, which was a Raja guest palace in Burracoti. It was the time of the 'quit India.' In every country, there is a group of people that knows what is right and what should be done, and that group is the students and they staged many demonstrations in Calcutta. Nobody wanted to quit India more than the British Tommy; he was fed up with taking meparcrien and fed up with Indian food. He wanted to quit India, so one student demonstration along Chowringee, was chanting, "Quit India." The British soldiers fell behind, shouting, "Quit India." And the students wondered why everyone was laughing. I was at Burracotee at the time that rioting started. It was well out of the town, away from British settlements. Consequently, the hospital had to be sealed off and no one could leave and no one could come in. So the nurses that had been on at night had to cover the day and the next night, and I was stuck there. Calcutta is very humid and you have to change clothes frequently.

My husband rang from Calcutta and said, "Are you all right?" I said, "No, I've got no change of clothes, I only brought enough for 24 hours." So he said, "I will put myself on a convoy and bring some."

The home sister who was imprisoned with me in the hospital said, "I have a friend in transport who could move this hospital to that building that the army has in Calcutta which was intended for the overflow from the hospital, but he hasn't enough men." So when my husband arrived with his convoy, I said to him, "We could move the hospital to the building in Calcutta, but we haven't enough men." He said, "How many do you want, 80, 100?" I said, "100 will do." Next day, a convoy, lorry loads of men and some 3 tonners, lined up. We put beds and equipment into the 3 tonners and went in convoy through Calcutta and the patients were put into the other building. I remember saying to the quartermaster, "I've got 100 chairs for you." He said, "What do I want with 100 chairs?" So I said, "I don't want them and you're the quartermaster."

The next morning, the corporal sent for me. He was not aware of what had taken place. Apologising for me being left out in the sticks he said how he'd tried and how the palace was unsuitable, but he tried to get the other place opened, but it hadn't been possible. And when we finished, I said, "I've moved it." He said, "Moved what?" I said, "The hospital." "You'll have offended the raja," he screamed as though I'd started a second Indian mutiny. He'd no more time for me. The silence afterwards was deafening, but I heard an officer say, "Only a woman would have got away with it."

I did not get a medal for doing what the colonel said was impossible. I was court martialed for offending the Raja. It was only years later that I realised that not only had I insulted the Raja by not waving goodbye, but I was a woman and women are not highly regarded in India.

Dr. Ivy Oates, doctor, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A3890225 A Woman Doctor (Part Three) Edited at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Offending the Raja

So there you are; however, I got back to Calcutta. I had different jobs. One particular job I had was to go to a place called Bhuracrutee, where a Raja had lent us a beautiful marble guest palace, as a sort of convalescent halfway house in a hospital. We had got a building, which we could have used; it belonged to the army, but they’d never been able to get it sorted out. So, one day, I had to go Bhuracrutee, see to the patients there, stay overnight and come back the next day.

It was the time of the ‘Quit India Campaign’, and this palace was away from any western settlement. Rioting started, so it wasn’t safe for anyone to leave the palace or the hospital to go out. The nurses who had been on all night, had to stay on the next day, and the next night and the next day. So did I. My husband rang me up from the fort in Calcutta where he worked. He said, “Are you all right?” I said, “Of course not, I thought I was only coming for 24 hours. I’ve only got two changes of clothes.” You have to change your clothes at least twice a day in Calcutta. I said, “I’ve no clothes.” So he said, “I will put myself on a convoy, and come and bring you some.” So the home sister who was also incarcerated with me said, “I have a friend in transport and he said ‘I have enough transport to move this hospital to the place in Calcutta, but I haven’t enough men.’” So when my husband arrived, I said, “The home sister has a friend in Home Transport who could move the hospital into Calcutta, but they haven’t enough men.” He said, “How many men do you want? Eighty? A hundred?” I said, “A hundred will do.”

So, he bought lorry loads of men in and transport brought their three tonners; we packed patients, beds, equipment, everything into the three tonners, went in convoy to Calcutta to the building which the army had there, and ‘shovelled’ them all in. I didn’t tell the C.O., after all, the administrators don’t need to know everything, but I did say to the quartermaster, “I’ve a hundred chairs for you Q.” He said, “What do I want with a hundred chairs? I don’t want a hundred chairs.” I said, “Nor do I, but you’re the Quartermaster.”

The next morning, the C.O. sent for me and started apologising, told me how sorry he was that I was out in the sticks; it wasn’t suitable being out there, you know, a poor defenceless woman amongst the rioting etc. And so, when he’d finished, I said, “I’ve moved it.” He said, “Moved WHAT?” I said, “The hospital.” He flew up into the air. He said, “You’ll have offended the Raja.” It was as though I’d started another Indian mutiny. Well, perhaps……….I don’t know. It didn’t occur to me until years afterwards that maybe I had offended the Raja, not only because I had moved the people from his palace without saying goodbye, but “you had done it, a woman”.

It just occurred to me, years later, that that would have offended him. Never mind, whatever happened, happened. The silence after it was deafening. I didn’t get a medal for doing what the C.O. said was impossible, and I didn’t get court-martialled for offending the Raja, but I did hear one of the men saying, “Only a woman would have gotten away with it.”

Dr. Ivy Oates, doctor, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A3890225 A Woman Doctor (Part Three) Edited at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Nursing and Social Life

Back to monsoon and some good news

Monday, 17 September: Back to the sticky heat of Calcutta with the monsoon still in full swing — so much so that I’m expecting to find myself floating down the corridor when I awake each morning.

I arrived back to find the astounding news that Alan is home in England, and within half an hour of my arrival here I applied to return home. It’s expecting rather much of the army, but a little optimism won’t harm! Alan’s operations were wound down in mid-August, and he returned from Australia via Colombo, Karachi, Basra, Cairo, Malta and finally to Lynham.

A rude awakening

Work does not go down too well after such a life of leisure and pleasure, but there is plenty to keep me occupied on my Indian surgical ward. Calcutta is just as crowded as ever — there is no joy in shopping at all.

I have applied for membership of the Saturday Club, which is the only completely English club in the city. There is dancing every night, and it possesses a very good library, an excellent swimming pool and hard tennis courts. Matron recommended it to me, and it certainly looks good.

Moira progresses, and so do I

Monday, 24 September: Work has been plentiful this week, and we seem to have had a rush of accident cases. Felicity has wangled her posting and has gone off to Rauchi to join her unit, which will be going ‘Forward’ soon. Her cousin is going with her, and so she seems to be quite happy.

I’ve been accepted as an honorary member of the Seap and have enjoyed a dinner dance there this week. News from Moira appears to be good, and it certainly is a good sign that she’s started writing letters again.

Awaiting news of my release

Monday, 1 October: I’m patiently awaiting for news of my release. Matron is back from leave, and she can see no reason for my being refused repat. It is a cheering thought.

Night duty seems to be my fate on Friday! We only do two weeks out here instead of four. I don’t think I shall mind very much as I should think it will be much cooler than working by day.

Mail is very bad just now. I have not had any since 15 September. It is strange that some gets through all right — still I keep hoping.

Caring for the British wing

Monday, 7 October: Night duty is going down very well really. I’ve got the entire British wing to look after, which consists of three medical wards (one of which contains 70 beds, while the other two have about 40).

Isolation also comes under this wing, and here I have a BOR dangerously ill with cholera. That keeps me busy most of the night. Actually, I think he will pull through quite easily, tho’ I wonder if it will be worth it, as he is under close arrest for murder.

The British prisoners’ ward is also under my keeping, and I’m kept busy trying to see that the guards do not sleep! Two of my four medical orderlies hail from Newcastle, and I can hardly understand a word they say. However, they are good lads.

Suspected smallpox

Monday, 14 October: I’m now on my last week of night duty. I really think I shall be sorry to finish. All my charges are progressing favourably. Unfortunately, a suspected smallpox case has arrived now, so I hope there won’t be any more.

Owing to night duty, much to my sorrow I had to refuse an invitation to General Stuart’s cocktail party. Such is life!

Still no mail from home. I must say I have not found as much time for writing letters on night duty as I had hoped.

A patient escapes, but I do not

Monday, 21 October: My night duty has ended, but not without a spot of excitement. My cholera patient escaped via the ward window and over the hospital wall on Monday night.

Fortunately, as there was a guard on duty, none of the medical folks can be held responsible. I was busy in the next ward when it happened, but I’ve had to attend a court, be sworn in and make a statement on the incident.

The reply to my release has arrived with an unfavourable answer. This has proved a terrific disappointment to me. Matron is putting it through again, however, with a personal recommendation.

I’ve had two days off in lieu of night duty and one for the month, and I spent most of the time relaxing at the Saturday club. I’ve been too fed up to do much else.

Rumour that hospital will close

Monday, 27 October: Felicity has passed through Calcutta on her way to Singapore. She looks very fit. Some of the other girls who came out with us are with her, so we had a little reunion.

Moira is much better and is expected to come to Calcutta at the end of the month en route for Ranchi Chest Hospital. Nothing very exciting has happened.

I’m back on duty in the Indian surgical ward, and there is plenty of work. Rumour has it that the hospital closes on 18 November, at least that is the last date for receiving patients. I wonder where we shall all be posted to then!

A social whirl

Monday, 3 November: Social life is in full swing here now. The weather has cooled a little, and the racing season has commenced. The Saturday Club is very gay these days, and I dance there most evenings now.

Moira has arrived back and is about eight miles out of Calcutta at the Woman’s [sic] Services Hospital at Barakoti. I’ve been along to see her, and she looks very well. She is anxiously awaiting to hear her fate.

Postings are the order of the day here, and the staff are slowly depleting in numbers. Work is slightly more hectic again. The mail situation has improved greatly, tho’ it is by no means perfect.

Henrietta Susan Isabella Burness, V.A.D., Calcutta, Autumn 1945

(source: A1940870 Life in the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), 1945at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

If a person was sick I helped them

I was 21 when I joined the Army. My father had been in the Army during the war and my older brother was called up to be part of the Navy at 21. My happiest memory of being in the forces was seeing my brother in a Navy hospital in Singapore. Before that I travelled to Calcutta, India. We stayed in a camp. The uniform we wore changed from light brown to a light green colour. At 120 degrees F it was stiflingly hot. I felt safer when I was given an Identity Card. I looked after British and Japanese soldiers, and showed no favouritism to the British — if a person was sick I helped them. I received a Queens Medal Of Honour for my efforts — everyone in the forces did. I feel I achieved a lot.

anonymous, Army, Calcutta, 1947?

(source: A4276613 War in the eyes of an evacuee at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

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Nursing Homes & Institutions

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Addresses of Maternity homes in 1940

Baldeodass Maternity Home and Hospital—22 Nilmani Mitra Street. Phone, B.B. 568.

Chetia Maternity Home—10 Moyerpore Road. Phone, South 696.

Kidderpore Maternity Home—47 EkbatporeRoad. Phone, South 641.

Maniktala Maternity Home—237 Maniktala Main Road. Phone, B.B.4212.

Matri Mandir Maternity Home and Child Welfare Centre—128 Lansdowne Road,

Out-Patients :—7 to 10 a.m. dally.

In-Patients : —23 beds. Visiting hours, 5 to 7 p.m. daily.

Ramakrishna Mission Shishumangal Pratishthan (Maternity Home and Child Welfare Centre)—99 Lansdowne Road. Phone, South 1234.

This Institution was established in 1932 with the object of educating the public about the vital importance of adequate maternity and child care. to render efficient ante-natal, natal and post-natal care to all mothers, and to train midwives.

Out-Patients :—10 to 12 noon daily. On Saturdays and Sundays, 10 to 12 noon and 4 to 6 p.m.

In-Patients :—100 beds : 50 for mothers and 50 for new-born babies.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 197 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

Addresses of Nursing Homes & Institutes in 1940

Bengal National Nurses' Bureau (Day and Night Calls)—Phone, B.B. 2731.

Bengal Nursing Home, Ltd.—5A Beadon Street. Phone, B.B. 2018.

Calcutta Hospital Nurses' Institution—Allahabad Bank Buildings, Royal Exchange Place. Phone. Cal. 2270.

Calcutta Nurses' Association (Day and Night Calls)—65A Dharam tala Street. Phone, Cal. 996.

Calcutta Nursing Home—231/1 Lower Circular Road. Phone, P.K. 391.

City Nurses' Bureau—I2/C Lansdowne Road. Phone, P.K. 1217.

Elgin Nursing Home—5 &. 6 Elgin Road. Phone, P.K. 442.

Ideal Nurses' Home (New)—83 Bow Bazar Street. Phe., B.B. 1706.

Indian Nurses' Association (Nurses and Midwives for Day and Night Calls)—49 Dharamtala Street.

Lady Lytton Club and Employment Bureau for Hospital Nurses, (Yule House)—6 Suburban Hospital Road. Phone, P.K. 1414.

Lady Minto's Nursing Association—16/1 Loudon Street. Phone, P.K.1138.

Lady Rogers Indian Nurses' Hostel—44 Elgin Rd. Phe., P.K, 1013.

Nurses' Academy (Indian and European Nurses and Midwives for Day and Night Calls)—19 Colootola Lane. Phone, B.B. 2731.

Nurses' Association—39 Harrison Road, Phone. B.B. 5908.

Nurses' Association (Sarojini Mullick's) Nurses and Midwives—, 51/'1A Corporation Street. Phone, Cal. 4545.

Nurses' Bureau—335 Upper Chitpore Road. Phone,B.B. 114.

Nurses' Bureau (Miss G. Browning's)—15 Eiliott Road. Phone, P.K.699.

Nurses' Corporation—58B New Park Street. Phone, P,K. 486.

Nurses' Home (Day and Night)—76 Harrison Road. Phe.. B.B-4411.

Nurses' Union (Sister T. Ghose's)—1/1/1B College Square East. Phone, B,B. 5156.

Park Nursing Home—4 Victoria Terrace. Phone, P.K. 531.

Riordan Nursing Home—5 Suburban Hospital Road. Phone, P.K. 661.

Swiss Private Nursing Home—1 Upper Wood Street. Phone, P.K,220.

Tropical Nurses' Institute and Home—139/3 Russa Road. Phone, South 465.

Unique Nurses'Home—85 Bow Bazar Street. Phone, B.B. 1930.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 249 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

Grandfather’s new house at 6, Lower Circular Road

When we entered grandfather’s new house at 6, Lower Circular Road on April 1, 1941, the street was purely residential with a sprinkling of shops opposite Karnani Estate. The bus service along this route was a wispy one. The buses were regular but never spoilt the peace of the locality. An Anglo-Indian family lived almost opposite us. One of the girls, Esme Tennent, was devastatingly attractive and became one of the nurses looking after aunt later on that year when she contracted typhoid.

Samir Mukerjee. Calcutta, 1941

(source: Samir Mukerjee: Keep the faith & the friends. The Telegraph: 31Oct2003)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Samir Mukerjee)

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Recovery

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

POWs of the Japanese

September 1, 1945

Dearest Ritter:

So beginneth a new month.

Last year I was still in Bombay.

The year before I was in Washington, Pa.

Next year - in your arms, and the place won't count! Well, that is something!

We have one more month of this rather uncomfortable weather to endure, then the season will become nice. If our work lets up sufficiently, life shouldn't be too onerous, especially if I can get out to the golf course several times a week. I will begin golfing this Wednesday, unless something interferes.

Today, Saturday, I went to the general meeting which is held weekly in the conference room. This morning, after an incredible interlude of an hour in which the RA doctors, with the exception of Peterson, proved that they couldn't read English in attempting to interpret a directive, an English lieutenant, who had been a war prisoner in Siam since January 1942, spoke to us.

He told of the general bad conditions under which they worked, the lack and poor quality of the food, positively no medical supplies except what they bought themselves, etc. Since he was an officer he probably fared better than average, but he had it rough. Fourth-grade rice twice a day, with a little salt. That did it, and there was no more.

Punishment for officers was usually to stand at attention for an incredible length of time - usually one, two, or three days...continuously. If the guard didn't like your expression, he slapped you hard. Two of their officers were beaten to death with bamboo sticks; two others whipped until they would be crippled for life, but they were taken away and never seen again.

Since they were given no medicine, when working in the jungle, the prisoners died like flies. From what little pay they were able to get out of the Japs, they shared in the expense of buying what drugs they could find to purchase. I believe the officer said that he had had malaria 36 times in three years. Still, he looked fairly healthy when I first saw him. One of the sabotage tricks used by the British while building the railroad for the Japs was to carry the queen white ant and several others wrapped in mud to the pilings of the trestles, plant them near the uprights so the termites could eat.

But as harshly as the Japs treated the prisoners, in a sense they treated their own soldiers worse. A Jap officer or noncom thought nothing of knocking another soldier down, beating him with anything he had in his hand. In Jap hospitals the Jap patients were given few drugs, little medication, two thirds of an ordinary food ration, permitted to talk only occasionally at stated times, and not permitted to read or write at all. Since they were no longer of use to the army, they were not worth wasting much time on.

This applied to the honorably wounded as well as to others who sickened from malaria, dysentery, etc.

The Lt. told of seeing trains of wounded Japs with ugly, dirty, bloody dressings;

unkempt; unfed. One man with an arm-and-leg amputation had two bloody bandaged stumps, clutched a handful of raw rice in his remaining hand (his ration for a five-day trip), begged a cigarette from the hated enemy prisoner of war. He got it.

I am amazed at the equanimity which not only the British but our own American POW's show toward the Jap when discussing the hardships they underwent while in a Jap camp. I do not think that they consider the Jap quite human. I am sure that they I pity him.

I finished a book this evening before dressing. Talked with Pilgrim and Dols for awhile in the former's room. Axtmeyer, Hines, McKinley, and Fischer came along on their way to the club. I joined them for a rather careless late evening but left before they did. Gus had returned from the Chinese consul's party at which he had met a Red Cross girl. While we were talking, the gang mentioned above came roaring along headed by Dols, who was more than three sheets to the wind. We got them out of our room, and then they went down to serenade Whit, ended by squirting the fire extinguisher on both Whit and Napper, which made both boys exceedingly angry.

Everyone thought it funny but they. By 2 a.m. all had quieted down.

So much in love with you,

Dick

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, September 1, 1945.

(Source: pp.197 ff. of Elaine Pinkerton (ed.): “From Calcutta With Love: The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard” Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002 / Reproduced by courtesy of Texas Tech University Press)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

I reminded them of their own families

In the 1930’s my parents lived in India. My mother had returned to Scotland to have my sister but, due to the rumblings of war, it was decided that she would stay in India to have her second child, me. Therefore a couple of weeks after war was declared I was born in Asansol, West Bengal.

Although we were not being bombed as were people in Britain, we did have worries as we were not far away from the Burmese border and the Japanese troops.

I have early recollections of there always being soldiers in our bungalow and, so I am told, being thoroughly spoilt by them. Often they had children or relatives of my age at home so perhaps I reminded them of their own families.

When I was older I was told that these soldiers had been brought out of Burma for medical treatment or leave from the front lines, my parents, like many other people, took the soldiers into their homes for convalescence or just a break before returning to the front.

M Brown ,schoolboy, Asansol, 1942-3

(source: A7468716 Wartime in India at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The men returning from the Burma front were in a sorry state

Calcutta was full of troops. The men returning from the Burma front were in a sorry state. They wandered around the market buying gifts to send home. My mother would intervene and haggle with the shopkeepers on their behalf. Then she took the men home with her for a clean-up and a good meal. This happened regularly - our house was never empty.

Mary Anderson (nee Hezmalhalch), office worker, Calcutta, 1944

(source: A2640601 A Schoolgirl’s War in the Far East at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

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Charitable Homes

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Addresses of Charitable Homes & Institutions in 1940

Apostleship of the Sea: Catholic Institute for Seafarers—51 Ekbatpore Road, Kidderpore.

Armenian Almshouse—18 Pollock Street.

Bruce Institution for the education and maintenance of Anglo-Indian Girls—Writers Building. Block No. 1.

Calcutta Muslim Orphanage—8 Syed Salley Lane. Phone, B.B. 2536.

Calcutta Orphanage for Hindu Children—12/1 Balaram Ghose St.

Calcutta Pinjrapole Society—34 Armenian Street. Phone, B. B. 584.

Calcutta Prisoners' Aid Society—5B Maharani Surnomoyi Road.

Catholic Male Orphanage—15 Portuguese Church Street.

Chinese Almshouse—16/1 Blackburn Lane.

Convent of Our Lady of Providence—75 Lower Circular Road.

DeSouza Charities—3 Royd Street For indigent Anglo-Indians.

Doucett Charitable Fund—3 Royd, Street. For Anglo-Indian widows and orphans only.

Govinda Kumar Home—Panihati. Phone, Barrackpore 51.

Gujarati Shree Jain Dharamsala—96 Canning Street.

Haranabayi Widows' Industrial Home—53 Hazra Road.

Indian Red Cross Society—5 Government Place North. Phe., Cal. 58.

Jewish Women's League—8 Pollock Street.

Loreto Orphanage (Convent)—! Convent Lane, Entally.

Mary Cooper Home. See page 152.

Marwari Relief Society (a philanthropic organisation)—391 Upper Chitpore Road. Phone, B.B- 2990.

Mulvany House—11 Corries Church Lane.

Niawa Hitaishini Sabha and Orphanage—5B New Bow Bazar Lane. The object of this Institution is : to maintain and train up helpless boys of Hindu families, to grant regular monthly help to Hindu widows and to give occasional relief to persons in emergent cases.

Rainkrishna Society, Anath Bhandar—17 Mahendra Sircar Lane.

Rescue Home for Minor Girls—43 Lower Circular Road. Phone, P. K.923.

Salvation Army Men's Industrial Home for Anglo-Indians and Europeans —173 Lower Circular Road.

Salvation Army Women's Industrial Home for Indians—Behala.

Society for the Protection of Children in India—24 Camac Street. Phone, P.K. 2077.

Society of St. Vincent de Paul—3 Dharamtala Street.

St. Andrew's Colonial Homes (Kalimpong)—4 Middleton Row- The idea of establishing a Home for Kalimpong School-boys in Calcutta, originated with Dr. Graham, C. I. E., and the scheme was given a concrete form when Sir Archibald Birkmyre, in 1925, built and fully furnished for the purpose a magnificent Hostel, which bears his name, at No. 4 Middleton Row.

St. Paul's Mission Orphanages—13 Scott Lane and 73 Serpentine Lane.

Stuart Clark Hostel—11 Mission Row.

Women's Friendly Society—29 Park Lane. Phone, P.K. 906.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages207-208 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

SALVATION ARMY

Central Hall—37, Dharamtala Street

PUBLIC MEETINGS

Sunday—Holiness Meeting, 10 a.m.

Young Peoples Meeting (Sunday School), 8-45 a.m.

Salvation Meeting, 7-30 p.m.

Monday— Vernacular Meeting, 8-30 p.m.

Wednesday—Home League (Ladies only), 3-30 p.m.

Thursday—United Meeting, Music and Speaker, 7-30 p.m.

The Salvation Army Headquarters for Eastern India is located at 37 Dharamtala Street, a three-storeyed building of modern architecture. A marble tablet at the entrance, bears the inscription :—

"This building was erected and dedicated to the glory
of God; for the Salvation of souls, by the aid of Army
comrades and friends in Great Britain and Calcutta, in
commemoration of the 70th., birthday of General Bram-
well Booth. 1926".

The Salvation Army, established in Calcutta in 1888, has a splendid record of achievement and endeavour. During this comparatively short period, in addition to Evangelical Work carried on at 37 Dharamtala Street and 66 Circus Row, Park Circus, the Army has founded the following well-organised institutions :—

The Training Garrison for young men, at 37 Dharamtala Street.

The Salvation Army (Gidney) Hostel for young business women, at 38 Dharamtala Street.

Naval and Military Home :—a "home away from home" for soldiers and sailors, at 2 Sudder Street.

Men's Industrial Home :—which provides employment and offers night shelter for Europeans and Anglo-Indians, at 173 Lower Circular Road.

The Women's and Children's Industrial Home at Behala (for Indians), consisting of an Industrial Home, a department to deal with and house young girls rescued from moral danger, a medical unit and an infant section which deals with foundlings and orphaned babies.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages115-116 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

D'Souza Home

This Home, situated at No. 138 Dharamtala Street, was founded in 1872 by the late Lawrence Augustus D'Souza, an Anglo-Indian philanthropist, who left a considerable sum of money for its upkeep. This fund has been invested in Government securities and is in the custody of the Official Trustee of Bengal.

The Home is managed by a committee of Anglo-Indian gentlemen and is in the charge of a matron who looks after the wants and comforts of each individual inmate. In addition, there is an Anglo-Indian doctor on the staff who visits the Home twice a week and attends to the sick.

The Home is exclusively for Anglo-Indian widows who have no income or any other means, of support. The number of inmates in the Home is generally 15; they are allowed out for two hours every day and are permitted to go for a change for a month every year.

The Institution is entirely maintained by the income derived from the endowment left by the founder.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 199 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

The Fendall Home

The Fendall Home was founded by Miss Lavinia Fendall in 1878 as a Rescue Home for European and Anglo-Indian women and girls. For this purpose, she bequeathed property at No. 68 Upper Circular Road, but no form of endowment for the Home exists.

A generous donation from the David and Rachael Ezra Fund, obtained through the good offices of Lady Reid, has enabled the authorities to build an Annexe to the Home. This new building has been named "Lady Reid Home" and is used for girls who are convalescing and for other special cases.

Girls are sent to the Home by various churches and social bodies all over India. A number of these girls, who would otherwise have no opportunity of making good. are trained and sent out as childrens’ nurses; while others, who can never become self-supporting. are cared for and given such work in the Home as they are best suited for.

The chief source of income or the Institurion, apart from subscriptions, is derived from the work the girls do for various Calcutta firms, such as the manufacture of jharans, tea bags, bank bags, etc. The girls also do a great deal of fancy work, which is on sale throughout the year at "The Good Companions."

The Home is managed by a Lady Superintendent of the Oxford Mission.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 199 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

The Refuge

During the closing years of the last century, there was in Calcutta an Institution known as the "Dasaram," which provided a home for a number of destitute people. This Institution was started and maintained by young men of the Brahmo Samaj. After a few years of usefulness, however, the Institution had, for various reasons, to close its doors in 1901. A Christian gentleman, by the name of Ananda Mohan Biswas, thereupon came to the rescue of the helpless inmates of the Asram, and very generously provided them with an asylum in a house in Ward Institution Lane, which he named "The Refuge." Later, The Refuge was removed to what was then known as the Moghuls Garden in Narkeldanga, a spacious house with a compound, and in about 1909 to its present location at No. 125 Bowbazar Street, where from a small venture it has grown into a large Institution, giving shelter to as many as 187 inmates.

The main objects of the Institution are :—

To provide a home for destitutes, invalids and Incurables, without distinction of age, sex, caste or creed;

To help in the suppression of mendacity; and

To render temporary relief to persons in distress.

The Institution has been in existence for 39 years now, and is, as Lord Ronaldshay on a visit described it, "a haven of rest to all who find pity nowhere else."

The Refuge is managed by a Court of Governors who, fully alive to the need for elementary education, have provided two seminaries in the Institution, one for boys and the other for girls. In order to enable them to earn a livelihood the boys are given instruction in weaving, tailoring, carpentry, book-binding, shoe-making, cane-work and other useful arts and crafts, while the girls are taught nursing, tailoring and music.

There are separate infirmaries in the Institution for men, women and mental cases.

The Refuge is maintained by Government and Corporation grants, and public subscriptions and donations.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 199-200 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

St. Joseph's Home

The Little Sisters of the Poor

In about 1882 one Mr. Asphar, a wealthy merchant and pious Catholic, having seen and admired the work of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Europe, conceived the laudable plan of opening an establishment of these sisters in Calcutta. To this end, he addressed the Roman Catholic Archbishop, Paul Goethalls, painting in glowing terms the valuable service these nuns render the aged poor. The Archbishop, who himself had felt the need of such an Institution in this city, immediately communicated with the Mother House at La Tour, Brittany (France), on the subject, and on the 30th November 1882 the first band of six Little Sisters of the Poor landed in Calcutta, and these were reinforced by two more a year later.

Against eight Little Sisters in 1883, St. Joseph's Home today has 18 sisters, each of whom perform the duties allotted to her most enthusiastically. The management of the Home is invested in a Governing body consisting of a Superioress, a Sister Assistant and a Sister Councilor. The Superioress is nominated for three years at a time from the Mother House and she is called "The Good Mother." To this small governing body falls the task of maintaining order in the Home, and for this reason it is necessary to frame a set of rules which must be observed for the mutual benefit of all. How otherwise could contentment, health and cleanliness reign in a Home that shelters about 200 aged men and women of all castes and creeds, and from all stations in life.

"The Little Sisters of the Poor" is their full appellation and they are a religious order belonging to the Roman Catholic Church : they take the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and to these they add the vow of hospitality. This association of Christian ladies leave their homes and kindred to devote their lives to the care of the aged poor exclusively, and for the love of God devote themselves to works of charity that are quite repugnant to nature.

Originating in France, the early Little Sisters were nearly all of' that country's nationality : now they are composed of recruits from all parts of the world, but all undergo the same training and all speak French, which they look upon as the family language.

The present Home for the Aged at Lower Circular Road is an ideal situation for such an Institution, but it was not here that the Little Sisters' work had its birth in this city. The first house occupied by them was an old-fashioned two-storeyed one situated directly opposite St. James' Church. In 1887 the present site at No. 2 Lower Circular Road was purchased, but the new building was commenced only sometime in 1898, when the Maharajah of Darbhanga very generously presented the Little Sisters of the Poor with a sum of Rs. 10,000.

The premises, completed and occupied in 1901, are admirably suited for their purpose. There are two separate buildings, one for men and the other for women, containing all the amenities which make for comfort. There are spacious dormitories, sitting rooms, wide verandahs and a garden where the inmates can have all the fresh air they require. There is also a chapel, where services are held daily, and a sick room where the afflicted are visited by the Home's doctor and nursed by the Little Sisters.

The Home is open to all classes and creeds, and all the inmates are treated alike. At present there are 99 women and 96 men of various nationalities in the Home, all of whom are well over sixty years of age. Everything possible is done by the Little Sisters to make these inmates as homely and happy as possible. They are allowed to go out once a week, on Tuesdays, and receive visitors twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays, from 9 to 11 a.m.

The Institution is entirely supported by public charity.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 200-201 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

St. Mary's Home

St. Mary's Home, situated at No 23 Marquis Street, is one of the oldest charitable Institutions in Calcutta. It provides shelter for aged and infirm European and Anglo-Indian women, who are either destitute or whose means are insufficient to enable them to live independently.

The Home maintains a hospital with beds for 18 incurable cases, and a nursery for 14 children between the ages of 18 months and five years, who are either orphans or whose parents are very poor.

In special cases the Home admits working girls, who pay a fixed sum for their maintenance.

The Institution receives a small Government grant, but is otherwise entirely dependent on public charity.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 201-202 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

St. Vincent's Home

More than 70 years ago there existed in Calcutta a St. Vincent's Home, the outcome of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. This Institution was first established in Bow Bazar and changed successively from there to Hill's Lane and Circular Road and finally to Diamond Harbour Road, Kidderpore.

In 1868, at the earnest request of the Right Rev. Bishop Steins, S.J., the "Daughters of the Cross," came out to India and took charge of the Home.

The "Daughters of the Cross" is a religious order belonging to the Roman Catholic Church ; the Society was founded in 1833 at Liege, Belgium, and though at that time its members were all of Belgian nationality, it is now composed of Sisters from all parts of the world. These nuns, by the very terms of the Constitution which governs their lives, must in all their doings glorify God, by striving to imitate the life on earth of Jesus Christ.

When the first three Sisters arrived in Calcutta in December 1868, St. Vincent's Home consisted of an old ill-ventilated house, and the number of inmates on the roll was 31 in all, namely, 22 adults and 9 children. Today there are four large buildings, which owe their existence to the indefatigable zeal and energy of these Sisters, and the total number of inmates living on the premises works to an average of 424, that is, 224 adults and 200 children.

St. Vincent's Home comprises a number of departments :—there is the Home proper, really and truly a Home for many a young girl suffering in mind and body. The aim and object of this section of the Institution is to protect the spiritual, social and physical development of destitute helpless girls of every community by providing for them food and shelter and giving them a training in house-keeping, nursing, needle and fancy work, cutting-out and dress-making, etc. Situations are obtained for those who are fit to earn their livelihood, while others, who can never become self-supporting, are cared for and given work in the Home.

The Home has a department for persons of small means, chiefly nurses, matrons, etc., who are out of work and are seeking employment. These contribute as much as their limited means allow towards their maintenance.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source page 202 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

St. Catherine's Hospital

St. Catherine's Hospital for incurables, convalescents, the aged and the infirm :—there are altogether 110 beds, some very sad cases, but everyone in the Hospital, though suffering in one way or another, is happy to be under the care of the Religious Sisters.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source page 202 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

St. Paul's Orphanage

St. Paul's Orphanage :—this was originally only a small building, quite inadequate for the large number of children who sought admission. During their visit to India in 1911, Their Majesties the late King George V and Queen Mary honoured St. Vincent's Home with a visit, and the Queen very graciously assigned to the Home a generous gift which enabled it to build the present St. Paul's Orphanage, capable of accommodating 200 children. This Orphanage gives a Home as well as primary education to about 180 little boys, who are either orphans or whose homes are such as would leave them unprotected.

Connected with the Orphanage and forming, so to say, the nucleus of it, is the "Creche," where at present 20 little babies, varying in age from a few months to three years, are brought up. Most of these babies would have been utterly abandoned were it not for the home they find here.

The Daughters of the Cross work for the poor of all creeds and nationalities. Their two primary day schools are one, St. Mary's, for European and Anglo-Indian children and the other, St. Victor's, exclusively for Indians.

The Institution is almost entirely supported by voluntary contributions, donations and subscriptions.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 202-203 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

The District Charitable Society

This Institution, now situated at No. 130 Dharamtala Street, came into being in 1830 with the main object of alleviating hardship and suffering among the poor of Calcutta. This the Society endeavours to attain by co-operation with churches, charitable and remedial Institutions, benevolent persons and agencies of all denominations, in a far-reaching constructive.

The Society is under the management of an Executive Com- mittee and a General Committee, while the actual distribution of relief is vested in a Relief Board composed of members of the various churches and charitable and remedial Institutions. This Board meets weekly, and after careful and unbiassed investigation sanctions relief, consisting mainly of food rations and medical comforts. In cases where families in straitened circumstances are unable to pay their rent, the Board, after satisfying themselves thoroughly, grant cash reliefs. Indigent nurses and persons who have obtained employment, are assisted with a supply of uniforms or their Railway fare to enable them to join work.

The Society spends no less than Rs. 22,000 yearly under various pension schemes to meet the urgent needs of specially deserving cases. Anglo-Indian widows, especially those with children are, in approved cases, given regular monetary grants to meet the cost of living, other than the actual provision of food. Europeans, and Anglo-Indian widows of Europeans, are provided for under another scheme. The allocation of such grants is in the hands of a Pension Committee, who takes the utmost care in recording the fullest details and circumstances of each case.

The education of poor children is another important aspect of the Society's work. Grants are made at the beginning of each school year for the 125 children the Society now maintains in various schools in Calcutta and the mofussil. Besides, a substantial midday meal is daily supplied to about 370 poor school children.

Application for relief by non-Christian Indians are received at 79 Upper Chitpore Road by Honorary Secretaries and dealt with independently by the Indian Sub-Committee. Nearly one thousand such applicants, mostly helpless widows and deformed and blind men, receive monthly relief.

Other activities of the Society include :—

St. John's Ambulance Baby Clinic—at 30/1 Alimuddin Street. This Clinic fills a definite want among poor Anglo-Indians by providing fresh milk for under-nourished infants up to four years of age. The Clinic also imparts instruction in ante-natal care, mothercraft, the care of infants, the correct kind of food, method and intervals of feeding, etc.

St. Christopher's Street Boy's Refuge—at 17/1 Canal Street. This provides a night shelter, food and games for homeless Indian boys.

Tollygunge Homes. In the year 1841 an Alms House was built in Amherst Street from funds raised by public subscription, and the Institution placed under the management of the Commissioner of Police and the District Charitable Society. This house was subsequently sold in 1921, and with the proceeds land was purchased at Tollygunge, and the present buildings erected and named the Tollygunge Homes. These Homes provide accommodation for 67 old men and women who are kept quite comfortably ; there is no restriction to their going out occasionally or receiving visitors daily.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 203-204 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

Saroj Nalini Dutt Memorial Association

With a view to removing the ignorance and superstition in Indian social life, and for the social, and educational and economic emancipation of Indian women, Sreemati Saroj Nalini Dutt in 1913 started an Association in Birbhum. Before she could make sufficient progress in the work she had undertaken, however, she passed away on the 19th January 1925 at the age of 37. Thereupon her friends and admirers, in order to perpetuate her life-ideal and work, founded, in February 1925, the Saroj Nalini Dutt Memorial Association.

Working with the inspiration she left behind, this Association has taken up the cause of millions of Indian women who are labouring under the chains of ignorance, custom and superstition, and has inaugurated a colossal movement for the emancipation and uplift of women on strictly democratic principles through numerous sister organisations both in India and abroad.

The Association maintains a training school in Calcutta for imparting training in the basic crafts of the country, and creates and fosters a large number of women's institutes. These are purely autonomous organisations of women in which village women receive valuable training in arts and industries of various kinds, in practical social reform and in social and communal unity.

Since its formation, the Association has helped in organising a large number of Mahila Samities (Women's Associations), the value of whose work in fostering a new awakening among the women of Bengal cannot be over-estimated. Apart from the fact that they serve as active centres of welfare work in diverse branches, social, economic and educational, they help to train Indian women In habits of self-reliance and self-help. They teach them the value of concerted action, widening their outlook and bringing new interest and enthusiasm to their lives.

Adult education, social meetings, study circles, baby shows, baby clinics, maternity centres, first-aid and home nursing classes, classes for training nurses and midwives, health weeks and health exhibitions, cottage industries and exhibitions of arts and handicrafts, represent only some of the manifold lines of activity a properly conducted Mahila Samity takes up. Physical culture also forms an important item in the agenda of their work. They have proved a powerful solvent of the Purdah System and an effective influence against the practice of early marriage.

The Central Association at present maintains a staff which includes three publicity officers and a lady and 15 trained instructresses, for propaganda and training work on Maternity, Child Welfare, Cottage Industries, Sanitation and Hygiene, Adult Education, Social Reform, etc. The Association has further succeeded in establishing friendly links with sister organisations of rural women in Scotland, England, Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America.

The Saroj Nalini Industrial School is one of the most important branches of the activities of the Association. Since its inception in 1925, it has been providing a complete course of practical training for adult women, especially widows and women of distressed circumstances, who are given training in industries, along with some literary education. The subjects taught in the School are sewing, cutting, embroidery, flyshuttle and durry and carpet weaving, knitting by hand and hand-machines, drawing, cotton and wool dyeing, painting, leather embossing, toy making, Jaipur bras s engraving, musicand literary education. The Literary Section attached to the School is compulsory for every student. There is a well-stocked library, and a Junior Red Cross Society.

The Association conducts Bratachari Training Classes and publishes a monthly magazine, "Banga Lakshmi," a powerful medium for propagating ideals of womanhood and co-ordinating the work of Mahila Samities throughout the province.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 204-205 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

The Calcutta Blind School

This unique Institution was founded by the Rev. Lal Behari Shah in 1897 with a view :

(i) To provide a home for the homeless and helpless blind, without any distinction of sex, caste or creed ; and

(it) To impart scientific, industrial and literary education to the blind with the object of enabling them to become self-supporting members of the community.

The course of instruction imparted at the School is divided into four sections :—Literary, Industrial, Physical and Musical.

All pupils receive a literary education up to the primary standard, the script used being the "Braille System." Originally in French, the Braille System has been adapted for many languages, and the School has the code in English, Bengali, Hindi and Sanskrit, the Blind being taught to read and write in these languages by touch. Students showing a special aptitude for education are admitted to higher classes and ale prepared for the Matriculation Examination of the Calcutta University. Some proceed for college studies and generally do well. The Industrial training is an important feature of the School. The Blind are trained in the manufacture and repairing of cane and bamboo furniture, carpentry, coir-mat weaving and weaving on looms, while the girls are taught knitting, the quality of production being consistently high.. Students are also trained as musicians and music teachers ; besides classical music, the syllabus consists of Modern Bengali Songs, Caricature, Mimicry and Dancing.

The authorities, fully alive to their duties towards the general health of the School, lay stress on physical education. Simple exercises to remedy physical defects, functional, transitional and mannerism, so prevalent among blind children, have been adopted with beneficial results. Drill, gymnastics, swimming, rowing, long walks and games also help to improve the physique of the pupils.

Other activities of the School include gardening, scouting, the Apprentices' Club, the Music Society or "Majlis" and the Literary Society, known as the "Balyadyam Sabha," which runs a monthly magazine under the name of "Arun," embossed by hand by the pupils.

The School in 1925 was moved to its present site at Behala on the Diamond Harbour Road, where it is successfully carrying on the great cask of educating the Blind. It occupies a unique position among the educational organisations of the province and its growing usefulness is borne out by the fact that, from one solitary pupil on its inauguration in 1897, the Institution today has over a hundred pupils on its rolls.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 205-206 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

The Calcutta Deaf and Dumb School

As early as April 1B93, the late Mr. Srinath Sinha started a class for the deaf and dumb in the City College at No. 13 Mirzapore Street. This afterwards became the Calcutta Deaf and Dumb School and was removed to its present address at No. 293 Upper Circular Road in 1903.

The Oral Method of instruction is employed in teaching the students of the School, by which they are taught to make themselves understood and to understand others speaking by watching the movement of the lips. The use of signs and finger-spelling is not permitted.

In the Industrial Department of the School the boys are trained in the different crafts, such as drawing, painting, papier mache work, clay modelling, printing and tailoring. Instruction in smithy and carpentry work is also undertaken. There is, in addition, a Normal Department to train teachers.

The School is under the management of an Executive Committee and is maintained by Government and Corporation grants and the financial assistance of donors and subscribers. Among the benefactors of the School, the name of Raja Sarat Chandra Ray Chaudhuri Bahadur of Chancal. Malda, should specially be mentioned for his endowment of Rs. 2 lakhs and a further Rs. 20,000 towards the cost of an extension to the present building.

Attached to the School, is a separate hostel for the boys and another for the girls : there are also residential quarters for teachers.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 206-207 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

Mary Cooper Home

at No. 4/2 Diamond Harbour Road, is Mary Cooper Home.This Institution owes its existence to the generosity of the late Mrs. Mary Cooper, who gave Rs. 1,00,000 towards founding a home for aged European and Anglo-Indians who had been unable to make any provision for their old age. A suitable building was erected on land donated by the Government of Bengal and the home was formally opened by the Hon. Lady Jackson on the 17th March 1931. The home provides accommodation for 32 inmates, both men and women, who must be over sixty years of age. There are four sets of married quarters, two sick wards and a resident nurse.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 152 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

Good Companions

[…] next [on Chowringhee] comes Willingdon House, accommodating the Bengal Home Industries and the Good Companions.

The idea of the Good Companions originated with Mrs. R. D. Cromartie, who in collaboration with Lady Benthall and Mrs. B. Studd, drew up a scheme, the aim being to establish a departmental store in Calcutta for marketing the products of Industrial Missions.

On the 6th January 1934, a meeting was held in the Bible House, 23 Chowringhee, with Mr. B. C. Studd in the Chair, when the scheme was officially discussed. It was decided to circularize all available Missions and invite their co-operation. There was a ready and enthusiastic response and the Good Companions opened its doors on the 22nd January 1934. At the moment there are 75 Missions on the list.

The Vicerine is the Patroness of the Institution, which is managed by a committee of seven members, and a working committee of eleven members, all honorary workers. The sale of products at the Good Companious is voluntarily undertaken by Society Ladies who generously devote part of their time as honorary workers.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 121-122 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

Birkmyre Hostel

The second Christmas was celebrated at the Birkmyre Hostel, Calcutta, where Harold and Louise Fox were wardens, caring for Anglo-Indian boys who had started work after completing their schooling at Dr. Graham’s Homes in Kalimpong. Boxing Day saw me riding on a rickshaw en route to the Railway Station in order to catch the train to Rawalpindi.

Douglas Gibson, Royal Air Force wireless operator, Calcutta, 1944

(source: A4175237 Grandpas War at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

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Social Security

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

There is no welfare state in India and the relicts of the British Raj fare the worst

There is no welfare state in India and the relicts of the British Raj fare the worst. My grandmother received an army pension for the duration of her life - of thirty rupees a month which is about £ 1.50. My father, who had been in the Secretariat as the Civil Service was called for over thirty years, received a pension of One Hundred Rupees a month for the last few years of his life. He continued working after they retired him at the age of 50 and worked until a few weeks before he died of lung cancer, aged 74 in January 1968.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Darjeeling, 1947

(source: page 38 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

_Echoes of the 1940s in the Kolkata of today_____

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Crowds

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Don't try to fight your way out

Wherever you go, people may crowd around you, especially where American soldiers have not been seen before. The only way to shake the crowd is to go away fast. If you are in a jam, find a policeman. Don't try to fight your way out. One of the worst things you can do in India is to lose your temper. If you keep your temper, and remain good-natured, Indians who are courteous by nature will respond. But avoid even good-natured rough-housing. You may accidentally injure an Indian and trouble would result. Furthermore don't ever touch an Indian's turban. It is sacred. Even the most playful touch from you would be an insult. Address Indians with courtesy, never in such abrupt manner as calling out, "Hey you." The word "bhai," or brother is always safe and will not give offense.

(source: “A Pocket Guide to India” Special Service Division, Army Service Forces, United States Army. War and Navy Departments Washington D.C [early 1940s]: at: http://cbi-theater-2.home.comcast.net/booklet/guide-to-india.html)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

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Beggars

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

Native madman

Native madman is allowed to roam the streets naked, accosting cars, sitting down in middle of the street or anything else that takes his fancy. How he escapes being run down or run in by the law is one of India's mysteries.

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

Downtown Calcutta street scene

The indifference of the passer-by on this downtown Calcutta street to the plight of the dying woman in the foreground is considered commonplace. During the famine of 1943, cases like this were to be seen in most every block, and though less frequent now, the hardened public reaction seems to have endured.

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

Waifs looking for hand-out near Sealdah Station

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Waifs looking for hand-out, Rr006, "Waifs looking for hand-out near Sealdah Station." seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Beggars

In India you will see more beggars with more pitiful faces and misshapen bodies than you have ever seen before. If you give something to one a dozen others will crowd around you, especially at railroad stations. Many of them are professional panhandlers. But there are also many holy men - or fakirs - among them; religious men who have given up their homes and possessions to wander from place to place, living on the charity of the people. Some wear orange-yellow robes. Others wear little clothing and smear their bodies with ashes. Most have matted hair, often worn in a coil on top of the head. They may ask you for something. Whether or not you give them anything, treat them with respect. They are holy to the people because they have devoted their lives to religion.

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The Homeless Man

At some time or other while you are here you will witness the sight of a crowd of men, women, and children who seem to move together like a herd of sheep. They huddle together, or they rush across the street in a mob, or they gather in a group shouting and jabbering - they are new arrivals in the city. Driven here by the famine, by flood, drought, or other causes, they come from Bengal itself, from Bihar, Orissa, or Assam. Homeless, helpless, hopeless when they reach Calcutta, they fare as men have always fared, in that the able-bodied and the strong among them as usual survive and soon find their way into the immense labor corps around the city - the rest, they soon vanish - some die in the epidemics, others just disappear.

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

"Nude Nellie of Calcutta."

#18 of the nearly nude beggar reminds me of the nude female beggar some in our squadron called "Nude Nellie of Calcutta." She was a familiar sight around the Esplanade.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)

like a nest of black ants

We were there for about a week. During this time we were able to explore quite a bit of Calcutta, and it was quite an experience for me. The place was absolutely swarming with people, like a nest of black ants, and there were thousands of beggars. Wherever we went it was Bakshees Sahib. Their deformities were enough to make one feel quite sick, but after a while we got used to it.

Stan Martin, soldier, Calcutta, early 1940s

(source: A1982955 Stan Martin's WW2 story at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

The pavements and stations were crowded with masses of dejected people

Meanwhile the whole of Bengal was in the grip of a devastating famine. People starving in the villages had rushed to Calcutta only to find the same shortage prevailing there. The pavements and stations were crowded with masses of dejected people, sitting, lying, helplessly resigned to their fate. The number of beggars increased tenfold.

Eugenie Fraser, wife of a jute mill manager, Calcutta, early 1943

(source:page 100 of Eugenie Fraser: “A home by the Hooghly. A jute Wallahs Wife” .Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing 1989)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Eugenie Fraser)

They were completely alone in a small world of their own

One moving scene has remained in my memory of two small boys, maybe four and two years old, sitting close together on the edge of the pavement, the elder tenderly embracing his little brother and trying to tell him something, perhaps a story. They were completely alone in a small world of their own. I placed some money on their laps and walked on. There as nothing I could do.

Eugenie Fraser, wife of a jute mill manager, Calcutta, early 1943

(source:page 100 of Eugenie Fraser: “A home by the Hooghly. A jute Wallahs Wife” .Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing 1989)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Eugenie Fraser)

The man’s face was evil itself

I had been purchasing wool in Dharamtala Steet and was hurrying along the pavement, when my attention was drawn to a man sitting there with a small boy beside him. The child’s head was resting on the man’s lap. The man’s face was evil itself. As I passed the boy raised his head and looked up to me. I had never before seen such grief and resignation in eye so young and then to my horror I saw that both the boy’s hand had been cut off at the wrists. The scarlet scars were still clearly visible. I was shaken to the core of my being. The first impulse was to snatch the child, hold him tight to my breast and run far from this obscene monster – run – but where? Overwhelmed by unbearable anguish I cold only hurry past, crying in hopeless despair, “God, why do you allow this? Where was your mercy?”. These grief stricken eyes stayed with me for a long time and cans till haunt me. “Why is it Mother India, that you – benevolent and kind – are also so coldly indifferent to the cruel exploitation of your helpless little children?”.

Eugenie Fraser, wife of a jute mill manager, Calcutta, 1943

(source:pages 100-101 of Eugenie Fraser: “A home by the Hooghly. A jute Wallahs Wife” .Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing 1989)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Eugenie Fraser)

A British view of a Calcutta Street

Imagine walking along, say, Dalton Road and seeing, say, the Spencer brothers—one sitting crosslegged in the midst of his wares in a loincloth and a beautiful turban, the other .sitting right in the middle of the pavement bathing himself (with his clothes on') at one of the wells of water that spring up at intervals all the way along. Then next door probably a soothsayer or phrenologist with all sorts of weirdlooking objects hanging outside—tortoise shells, dead things, goodness know; what! Then, say, Mr Bell lying in his .string bed fast asleep in the street—or sitting there stitching away and machining in the midst of naked little urchins—boys, yelling little coloured birds. Rickshaws being drawn by men, gharries by horses. Dead cats and rats lying about all over the place! Such a bewildering conglomera tion—it is indescribable!

Laura Lidrell, atcress. Calcutta1944

(source: Geoffrey Kendal: The Shakespeare Wallah. London: Sidgick & Jackson, 1986 )

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Geoffrey Kendal)

… that these people should be allowed to get into that state …

I would be in Calcutta about a month, I chink. I cannae really remember. My impression of India was that it was a smelly, dirty, filthy country, that every second person seemed to be a cripple of some sort. The amount of cripples and beggars was just astounding to us. We'd never seen anything like it. Men, women and kids. A lot of them had elephantiasis and things like that. Disease was rife actually. It really was terrible. I found that quite shocking- I couldnae come to terms with it at all. It used to disgust me that these people should be allowed to get into that state. And don't forget they were under British government. It was part of the British Empire and this was the state of affairs. The living conditions were atrocious. Sanitation was just non-existent in some of the native areas.

Eddie Mathieson, Marines’ commando soldier on the Burma Front. Calcutta, 1944/45

(source: page 235 of MacDougall, Ian: Voices from War and some Labour Struggles; Personal Recollections of War in our Century by Scottish Men and Women. Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1995)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Ian MacDougall)

Beggars at Trainstations

During this half hour a crowd of beggars would collect outside the compartment to display their deformities, their stumps, sores and sightless eyes and to demand baksheesh in a penetrating whine — the most nerve-racking sound on earth. If they got nothing, their whine continued; if they got what they wanted, it continued just the same. When our nerves were frayed beyond endurance, the beggars would eventually depart under a shower of abuse, leaving their victims feeling guilty, impotent and completely exhausted.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Train to Calcutta, early 1940s

(source pages 7-8 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

the deprivation I witnessed in Calcutta

I spent about nine months in Burma in 1944 and I think it was whilst in Chittagong we heard that the atom bomb had been dropped in Japan. Shortly after the ceasefire we were shipped to Calcutta which to me was a real eye opener. Having seen poverty at first hand in other countries hadn't prepared me for the deprivation I witnessed in Calcutta. Hundreds, possibly thousands of people were sleeping on the pavements with nothing but rags for cover, and their larders were the dustbins of the hotels and cafes. There were begging patches which had to be paid for and some of the disabled had primitive trolleys to push themselves around on, whilst the blind and limbless were led or carried to their begging patches.

Eric Cowham, Royal Navy, Calcutta, 1945

(source: A7229856 HMS Tyne, Burma and India at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

"Mackey" the tramp

There was an old tramp called simply "Mackey" who used to hang around Sandell Street. He was so dirty and his hair was long and matted and he wore a dirty mackintosh (which is why I think we called him "Mackey"). We all thought he was dark skinned but one day it poured with rain. When the Monsoons came, it rained solidly for days at a time and the roads always got flooded in Calcutta. Mackey was wading through the flooded streets and we saw that his legs and feet were white and his hair, which the rain had washed, was light brown. The kids in the street used to make up stories about Mackey being a kidnapper and used to run a mile when they saw him. I often wondered about him. It turned out he was a Scot – we never knew what made him become a tramp and live on the streets like he did.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Calcutta 1941-2

(source: page 14 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

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Sanitation & Public Hygiene

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

Water Fountain

Seymour Balkin, USAAF 40th Bombergroup. Calcutta, 1944

(source: webpage http://40thbombgroup.org/indiapics2.html Monday, 03-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of Seymour Balkin)

Garbage Disposal, Calcutta. Dead animals deposited behind wall for the vultures

Robert Sanders , USAAF 40th Bombergroup. Calcutta, 1945

(source: webpage http://40thbombgroup.org/indiapics2.html Monday, 03-Jun-2003 / Reproduced by courtesy of Bob Sanders)

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Townplanning & the Improvement Trust

Townplanning — Calcutta had its first Improvement Trust in the Lottery Committee, which came into being in 1827 and carried on its great work for two decades. It was responsible for a great many improvements, including the construction of Cornwallis Street, College Street, Wellesley Street, Wellington Street, Wood Street and Creek Row and the erection of a number of public buildings including the Town Hall.

The successor of the Lottery Committee was the Fever Hospital Committee, which in its turn, gave place to the Board of Commissioners to whom we owe Simms' Survey Map and a report on the condition of the town in 1850.

The present Improvement Trust, instituted by the Government in 1912, works in close association with the Calcutta Corporation, which contributes largely to its funds. The Trust is a very progressive body and in the short period of its existence, has carried out many improvement schemes in driving roads through the congested areas, demolishing slums, constructing model houses, widening streets, providing parks, correcting abuses which have been inevitable in the rapid growth of the city and in ensuring that future development will be along sound lines. The solid work that the Trust has done for the betterment of the city, can hardly be overestimated.

One of the Trust's more important achievements is the construction of the 100-foot-wide Chittaranjan Avenue, extending from Chowringhee across Shambazar Street to Chitpore Bridge. In different localities in northern Calcutta, the Trust has laid out several parks, including the well-known Deshbandhu Park and the Cossipore-Chitpore Park (156 bighas) with an artificial lake. A number of football grounds and tennis courts have also been provided for schools and clubs in the locality.

To the east of the city, in the Park Circus area, the Trust has constructed Syed Ameer Ali Avenue, a wide road linking Park Circus with Ballygunge, and has laid out an extensive Park. known as Eastern Park. To the south of the city several roads have been opened and insanitary tanks filled, Russa Road widened in parts to 150 feet, Rash Behari Avenue constructed and Southern Avenue laid out. The Lansdowne Road extension from Monohurpukur Road southwards to the Dhakuria Lakes has also been completed.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source page 3-4 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

THE ELEVATED RESERVOIR AT TALLAH

The elevated reservoir at Tallah, said to be one of the largest of its kind in the world, is situated on the Barrackpore Trunk Road, a short distance from Tallah Bridge. It consists of a steel tank, 110 feet above ground level, supported on steel columns. The tank is 16 feet deep, with a floor surface of 321 square feet and a capacity of 9 million gallons.

The north-east column was placed in position on the 18th November 1909, by Sir Edward Baker, then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and the reservoir, constructed and erected by Messrs. Clayton, Son & Co. Ltd., of Leeds, England, at a cost of Rs. 23 ½ lakhs, was completed on the 12th January 1911, and brought into use on the 16th May of the same year. Messrs. A. Earle and W. McCabe were Chairman and Chief-Engineer respectively of the Calcutta Corporation during its construction.

The tank is divided into four compartments which can be used independently of one another, so that. one or more compartments can at any time be thrown out of work for cleaning or repair purposes without any interruption to the water supply of the city. The reservoir distributes water over a distance of 522 miles of watermains through no less than 62,230 house connections.:

The daily supply of filtered water for the whole city is estimated at 67,548,000 gallons, or an average of 25 gallons per head per day. The daily supply of unfiltered water is estimated at 54,323,000 gallons.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source page 141 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

Showers:

You enlisted men who have hit the city adorned with a bit of India's own, try your American Red Cross Clubs for a free shower, with soap and towel furnished.

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

The city sprawled over the Hooghly Delta tike a disease

Calcutta was, I had been told, fun. A good place for a European to be stationed, with lots to do, delightful clubs and a good golf course. To the poor it had less to offer and the homeless slept on its pavements and urinated in its gutters. The city sprawled over the Hooghly Delta tike a disease — a dirty, overcrowded town of slums and belching factory chimneys. Scattered among the newer buildings were the bustees — once villages, whose huts somehow survived in the shadow of the tenements — where the villagers drew water from ancient wells, and drainage systems had yet to be devised. At night the pariah dogs scavenged for titbits among the garbage, and the beggars rested from their labours. It was not a town to be proud of.

John Rowntree, Officer Indian Forestry Service. Calcutta, early 1940s

(source pages 9-10 of John Rowntree: “A Chota Sahib. Memoirs of a Forest Officer.” Padstow: Tabb House, 1981.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the Estate of John Rowntree)

The smells off Chowringhee

“Chowringhee looked like any other main thoroughfare. It had shops, hotels and restaurants down one side and a large open space called the Maidan on the other. But step off Chowringhee and walk down any side street and you saw the real Calcutta. You smelt it too. It was said that if you put your head out of a train window when you were two or three miles away you could take a sniff and announce ‘we’re nearly there’.”

“In the narrow streets you could see the reason. Piles of rotting vegetation stacked up at every street corner and the local population chasing away the carrion crows, the kite hawks and the pi dogs……or beggars searching for food.”

“Wandering about or sitting on the pavements were the white sacred cows and everybody acting as though they were the elite of the city. However inconvenient they made themselves they mustn’t be disturbed. You must step off the pavement to get round them; the traffic must swerve if necessary.”

Harold P. Lees, RAF, Calcutta, early 1940s

(source: A2808632 Harold P. Lees war part 3 The sights and sounds of Calcutta at BBC WW2 People's War' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/ Oct 2006)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with the original submitter/author)

Rubbish Removal

Calcutta is famous as having once been the capital of India, once the second city of the British Empire and once known as the 'City of Palaces'. It is still supreme, as a city of quite unusual dirt. Every day, all over the city, several millions of its citizens are filling the gutters with every form of discardable litter. Everybody drops everything, no one picks anything up. That is why Calcutta, despite the personal cleanliness of its inhabitants, is, has been, and always will be, the dirtiest city in the world. In the 1930s this irresistible flood of garbage was temporarily stemmed, and the city, if not exactly salubrious, was not offensive. The instrument was a small two-wheeled cart, drawn by a leggy little horse with the kinky ears of the old-style country- bred. There were fleets of these, and by force of numbers they emptied the dustbins and cleared the gutters before putrefaction set in. Red roans predominated, wall-eyes were not uncommon and, since many of them were entires, they were subject to gusts of waspish irritation, flouncing and squealing and snapping at their neighbours. The rattle of their wheels and the clatter of their little boxy hooves were as familiar a noise in the early mornings as the spit and crackle of the high-pressure hoses that washed the streets. It was wiry little beasts like these that had once made the Mahrattas the scourge of Hindustan and panicked the citizens of Calcutta into digging the Mahratta Ditch. But it was for all too brief a time that the ponies kept Calcutta clean. Lorries replaced them—the European way of doing things that took no account of customary perquisites.

Sir Owain Jenkins, businessman, director of Balmer Lawrie. Calcutta, 1940s

(source: Sir Owain Jenkins: Merchant Prince. BACSA 1987)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Sir Owain Jenkins)

Traffic on Chowringhee

Fear of Japanese raids had driven ships away from the Hooghli, but the traffic on Chowringhee was still promiscuous with honking lorries, pattering rickshaws, lumbering bullock carts, and curious cabs with louvred shutters. Dazed cattle had the right of way and I was all but lynched for colliding with a cow. Rotting garbage overflowed from tins and besmeared the pavements. Enormous rats proliferated. The stark skeleton of a holy man with a chain round his genitals stepped superciliously through the crowd and a dhoti-clad Bengali held an umbrella over his head when it started to rain. The holy man's expression struck me as more self-conscious than aloof.

Harold Acton, RAF airforce officer. Calcutta, early 1940s.

(source: page 115-6 Harold Acton: More memoirs of an Aesthete. London Methuen, 1970)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Harold Acton)

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Doctors

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Addresses of Doctors in 1940

Ambart, Dr. C., M.D.—19A Stephen Court, Park St, Phe., Cal. l5l5.

Anderson, Lt.-Col. F.J., M.C., F.R.C.S., I.M.S.—5 Pretoria Street. Phone, P.K. 293.

Baker, Dr. J.E.G., M.R.C.S., L.R.C-P.—16 Park Lane. Phone, P.K. 1873.

Bardhai., Major P., M.B., M.R.C.P., F.R.C.S.—23 Royd Street. Phone, P.K. 189.

Berkeley-Hill, Lt.-Col. Owen, M.A., D.M.,etc.--6 Harrington Street. Phone. P.K, 676.

Bonerjee, Sir B., M.A, M.D., etc.—10 P. K. Tagore Street, Phone, B.B. 296.

Brachio, Major J.J.A.B., I.M.D.—5 Theatre Rd. Phone, P.K. 581.

Brahmachari, Sir U.N., M.A., M.D., Ph.D.—19 Loudon Street. Phone, P,K. 917.

Chakraverti, Dr. J., M.B., etc.—50 Dobson Rd. Phe., Howrah 166.

Chandra, Dr. S.R., M.B., L.R.C P., F.R.C.S., etc.—3 Chowringhee Mansions. Phone, Cal. 865.

Chatterjee, Capt. S.C.—4 Victoria Terrace. Phone, P.K. 331.

Chatterjee, Dr. S.P., M.B., D.T.M.—64 Sambhunath Pundit Street. Phone. P.K. 731.

Chopra, Col. R.N., C.I.E., UA., M.D., etc.—l Deodar Street. Phone, Alipore 278.

Dai, Dr. S.K., M.B., D.T-M.—65 Gokul Boral Street, Phone, Cal. 2535.

Denham-White, Lt.-Col. A., M.B.. B.S., F.R.C.S., I.M.S.—4 Asoka Road, Alipore. Phone, South 386.

Domenicone, Dr. A., M.D. (Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist)—12/1 Stephen Court, 18 Park Street. Phone. Cal. 633.

Galitaun, Dr. G., M.A.. M.R.C.S.. L.R.C.P,. etc.—34 Chowringhee Road, Phone, Cal. 2771.

Kelly, Major Eward, F.R.C.P., I.M.S.—9(4 Middleton Row. Phone, P.K.1105.

Kirwan, Lt.-Col. E-0'G., C.I.E., M.D., F.R.C.S.I., I.M.S. (Eye Specialist)—6 Little Russell Street. Phone. P.K. 231.

MacGilchrist, Lt.-Col. A.C., M.A., M.D.—9 Mandeville Gardens.Phone, P.K- 523.

Mallya, Lt.-Col. B.G., M.D., F.R.C.S.E., I.M.S.—135 Lower Circular Road. Phone, Regent 460.

Mitra, Capt. S.C., M.A., M.D., etc.—231/l Lower Circular Road. Phone, P.K. 391.

Mukerji, Capt. P.B., M.B., etc.—26 Ritchie Rd. Phone, South 891.

Mulmy, Lt.-Col. H.E., B.A., M.D., M.Ch., I.M.S.—243 Lower Circular Road. Phone, P.K. 250.

Nairn, Dr. Stanley, M.B., Ch.B., F.R.C.S.—9 Middleton Street. Phone, P.K. 2007.

Napier. Dr. L. E.—20 King Edward Court, Chowringhee Road. Phone, F.K. 119.

Norrie, Dr. F.H.B., M.D., F.R.C.S.—13 Harrington Street. Phone, P.K. 1631.

O'Connor. Dr. Maurice, M.B., B.S., M.R.C.S., LJI..CP.—2/2 Harrington Street. Phone, P.K. 700.

Pegg, Dr. Arthur, F.R.CS., M.B., B.S.—2;; Harrington Street. Phone. P.K. 700.

Pushong, Dr. E.S.—I Chapel Road, Hastings. Phone, South 583.

Roy. Dr. S., M,B.. M.Sc., F.R-C.S., D.L.O. (Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist)—8 Esplanade East. Phone, Cal. 1549.

Roy Chaudhuri, Dr. U.N., Rai Bahadur—P70 Rash Behari Avenue. Phone, P,K. 704-

Shorten. Lt.-Col. J.A., B.A., M.B., M.R.C.P., I.M.S. (Retd.)—34 Chowringhee Road. Phone, Cal. 2771.

Sinha, Dr. R., B.Sc-, M.B.. M.R.C.S., etc.—54 Garcha Road. Phone, P.K.2738.

Treu, Dr. R., M.D-—9A Lord Sinha Road. Phone. P.K. 1122.

Ukil, Dr. A.C.—3 Creek Row- Phone, Cal. 5629.

Voegeli. Dr. Martha, M.A., B.D., M.D.—l Upper Wood Street. Phone, P.K. 210.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 250-251 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

Col. Berkeley Hill

In Ranchi we had many friends. One of these was a Col. Berkeley Hill - a doctor who was a pioneer in the treatment of mad people to enable them to return to normal life. He wrote several books one of which was called ‘All Too Human’ about his children. He married a Madrassi woman who had been a patient of his. He himself was Welsh and sent his children (three boys, Sam, Owen and John and two girls, Rosalind and Margaret) to England to be educated. He advocated making children responsible at a young age and used to give them the money to pay their passage and school fees. He said he was not disappointed in any of them as they all learned to look after themselves. He died suddenly, of a heart attack and we went to the funeral.

He had a vast estate in Tatasilvai a village outside Ranchi which was again like an English country estate transplanted to India. In his will he decreed that everything - down to the last spoon had to be sold and the proceeds divided equally amongst his surviving children. Owen had been killed in active service so this left John, Sam and the two girls who were nurses. His widow suffered a relapse after his death and I did not see her again but John was very enamoured of Ida and used to send her huge boquets of flowers and baskets of fruit However, she would have none of him being besotted with Wahid.

Elizabeth James (nee Shah), AngloIndian schoolgirl. Ranchi, mid 1940s

(source: page 23-24 Elizabeth James: An Anglo Indian Tale: The Betrayal of Innocence. Delhi: Originals, 2004 / Reproduced by courtesy of Elizabeth James (nee Shah))

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Opticians

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Addresses of Opticians in 1940

Butto Kristo Paul & Co., Ltd.—1 & 3 Bonfield Lane. Phone Cal. 4510.

Calcutta Optical Co.—45 Amherst Street. Phone, B.B. 1717.

City Opticians, The—Grand Hotel Arcade. 15/8 Chowringhee Road. Phone, Cal. 1277.

Easter Optical Co.—306 Bow Bazar Street. Phone, Cal. 2016.

Edulji. K. & Sons—5 Dharamtala Street. Phone, Cal. 710.

Eye-Site—24 Lindsay Street. Phone, CaL 3848.

General Optical Co.—3/1 Russa Road.

Grinell Optician—44 Free School Street. Phone, Cal. 6215.

James Murray & Co.—5 Old Court House Street. Phe., Cal. 1216.

Lawrence & Mayo. Ltd.—11 Government Place East. Phe., Cal. 872.

National Optical Co.—14 Bow Bazar Street. Phone, Cal. 957.

Optico, Dr. Juan's—11 Esplanade Corner, East, Phone, Cal. 1497.

Manufacturing House—309 Bow Bazar Street. Phone, Cal. 3684.

Optik Haus—ll Esplanade East. Phone, Cal. 3399,

Optikovue—42 Dharamtala Street. Phone, Cal. 6239.

Presidency Pharmacy—205 Cornwallis Street. Phone, B.B. 1752.

Stephens & Co. —23 Chowringhee Road. Phone, Cal. 5052.

Walter Buthnell, Ltd.—21 Old Court House Street. Phe., Cal. 1859.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 251-252 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

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Dentists

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

Addresses of Dentists in 1940

Ahmed, Dr.R., D.D.S., F.LC.D.—12/1 Esplanade East. Phone. Cal. 4785.

Ali, Dr. M.S., L.D.Sc.—38 Wellesley Street. Phone, P.K. 554.

Amkam Dental Clinic, (M.K. Mehta)—11 Lindsay St. Phe., Cal. 5896.

Barory, Dr. N.C., D.D.S.—B2 Bharat Bhawan, Meredith Street. Phone, Cal. 4766.

Bose, Dr. A.N., L.D.S., R.F.P.S.—26 Chowringhee Road. Phone, Cal. 4763.

Calcutta Dental College and Hospital. Page 193.

City Dental College and Hospital—24/2 Cornwallis Street Phone, B.B, 3933.

Constantinides, Dr. G.E., D.D.S.—35 Chowringhee Road. Phone, Cal. 4398.

Doctor, Dr. P.M., D.M.D.—1B Little Russell Street, Phe., P.K. 10.

Duncan Bros. (Dentists)—1 Corporation Street. Phone, Cal. 584.

Enversaid. Dr., D.E.D.P.—7 Park Mansions, 57 Park Street Phone, Cal. 1656.

Gerber, Dr. W. L., D.M.D.—Z5 Stephen Court, Park Street. Phone, Cal. 4546.

Jennings, Dr. B.R., L.D.S., R.C.S.—39 Chowringhee Road. Phone, Cal. 137.

Laha, Dr., & Sons (Dentists)—52 College Street. Phone, B.B. 4227.

Metropolitan Dental Co. (Dr. Winster)—2 Corporation Street. Phone, Cal. 2050.

Neogi, Dr. S.P., D.D.S.—8/1 Esplanade East. Phone. Cal. 2614.

Nippon Dental Surgery (Dr. T. Watanabe, D.D.S.)—20 Park Street. Phone Cal, 3518.

Parsee Dental Hall—8 Esplanade East. Phone, Cal. 2702.

Smith Bros, Ltd.—9 Chowringhee Road- Phone, Cal. 4738.

Taylor. Dr. H.A., L.D.S., R.C.S.—39 Chowringhee Road. Phone, Cal. 137.

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 252 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with John Barry 1940)

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

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Massage

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

Massage parlors

While commenting on great subjects, the "massage parlors" down by the Hooghly Bridge were always good for some interesting photos. Sometimes healthy-looking rickshaw pullers would stop there to have their feet soothed with oils of some kind. Their skin would glisten when a treatment was finished. If I hadn't been so reluctant, I'd have enjoyed taking off my shoes and letting the massage people go to work on me, too.

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

(source: a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12^th June 2001 and 28^th August 2001)

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley)

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Health & Welfare

Introduction

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

not a citizen of Calcutta who need he without adequate medical attention

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source page 2 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

The City's Health

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source page 8 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

Grim Statistics

(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Aug. 2, 1943)

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

The Climate

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

The climate of India

Calcutta has a tropical climate

Climate

ALIPORE METEOROLOGICAL OFFICE AND OBSERVATORY

John Barry, journalist, Calcutta, 1939/40

(source pages 56-57 of John Barry: “Calcutta 1940” Calcutta: Central Press, 1940.)

Cycling through the Monsoon

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, October 22, 1945.

Clubbing and the Monsoon

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, October 13, 1945.

Pin-up girls in the wind

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, April 9, 1945

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta_______________________

How did we cope with the heat?

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

what we can laughingly call winter

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Barrackpore,May/June 1942

The climatic problems of planes

Jack Boswell, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1945

Insects and Wildlife

_____Pictures of 1940s Calcutta________________________

A vulture

Sgt. Philip Roy Gallop, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, mid 1940s

Buffalo herd

Clyde Waddell, US military man, personal press photographer of Lord Louis Mountbatten, and news photographer on Phoenix magazine. Calcutta, mid 1940s

Lt. Daniel Bursch

Seymour Balkin, USAAF 40th Bombergroup. Calcutta, 1944

Snake Charmer

Robert Sanders , USAAF 40th Bombergroup. Calcutta, 1945

Cattle out for a Stroll

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta,

Oxen market somewhere near the Zoological Gardens

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

Oxen market somewhere near the Zoological Gardens

Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944

_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___

how the bugs change in kind and character from one season to another

Richard Beard, US Army Lieutenant Psychologist with 142 US military hospital. Calcutta, February 9, 1945

_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta________________________

Schoolboys and the Animal Kingdom

John Gardiner, boarding school pupil at Victoria School. Kurseong 1939-1946

(source: John Gardiner: Memories of VSK (1939 – 1946) on website of Victoria & Dow hill Schools Kurseong at http://www.orbonline.net/~auballan/J_Gardners_VSK.htm)

The mosquito above

Harry Hobbs, Piano expert. Calcutta 1930s

(source: Harry Hobbs: John Barleycorn Bahadur. Calcutta: Harry Hobbs 1943.)

Being bugged at the Cinema

Joyce Taylor, nurse with Air Force Nursing Service Reserve. Calcutta, 1944.

(source Pat Barr: The Dust in the Balance. British Women n India 1905-1945. London: Hamish Hamilton 1989)

The crows

Harold Acton, RAF airforce officer. Calcutta, early 1940s.

(source: page 116 Harold Acton: More memoirs of an Aesthete. London Methuen, 1970)

Breakfast with Kite Hawks

Jim Homewood, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, May 1942

The Elephant in the Road

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Calcutta, 29th April 1942

thieving monkeys

Leslie Brazier, Royal Air Force, Calcutta, 1943

One old stager warned me "keep your food covered when you cross the yard"

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Calcutta, 29th April 1942

It looked alright till we went ashore later.

William Young, Royal Navy, Calcutta, 1941

The Snakes of Bollywood

Kenneth Rawlinson, Sergeant 'Cinema Projectionist' AKS (Army Kinema Section), later to become CKS (Combined Kinema Section), Bombay, Calcutta & Burma, 1945

all sorts of crawlers, flyers and jumpers

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta___________________

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta____________________

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Calcutta, 29^th April 1942

Harry Tweedale, RAF Signals Section, Calcutta, 29^th April 1942

_Pictures of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

___Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta_

_Memories of 1940s Calcutta_____________________

Henrietta Susan Isabella Burness, V.A.D., Calcutta,24^th July- 13^th August 1945