大象传媒

My name is Eleanor Mahoney, I was born at Radwell House, Baldock, Hertfordshire, at the home of my Grandfather. My father was not present at the birth because he was in Quetta, Baluchistan, India with his Regiment, the 4th/15th Punjab Regiment. At the age of three months I was taken to India by my Mother and an English Nanny who stayed for about 12 months. Then there was an Indian Ayah to look after me. We were in Quetta for the major earthquake in 1932. Shortly after this my father was posted to Peshawar, on the North West Frontier, at the foot of the Khyber Pass. The hot summer months were spent in the Himalayas in Srinagar and Gulmurg.

As a family we returned to the U.K. in 1937 and went to live in Baldock, and then I was sent to Boarding School near Hitchin, Herts. At the outbreak of the War in 1939 my father was recalled to India. We were then living in Berkhamsted, Herts and had some girls evacuated to us who the attended school locally. Because of fuel rationing I then had to travel to Boarding School by train from Berkhamsted to London, get across London and catch another train to Hitchin. In July 1940 Mother, my brother and I sailed from Liverpool to Canada on the Empress of Britain; the crossing of the Atlantic took three weeks because we had to go in convoy to avoid the U. boats. I was then sent to Boarding School in Toronto, and my brother and Mother went across Canada and then the Pacific to join my Father in India. In Canada we were not known as evacuees, but War Guests. An Aunt was my guardian and as her husband was in the Army, she would travel with him in Canada, so my holidays were spent at School, or with school friends. When the War ended in Europe I suggested that it might be a good idea to join my parents, so my Father said that if I could get my passages at the expense of His Majesty鈥檚 Government that would be fine. I sailed from Montreal on a Banana Boat to Avonmouth, the first bananas after the War. Spent 3 months waiting for a passage to India, working on a fruit farm in Sussex to make some pocket money.
The journey to India was aboard a troopship taking Italian prisoners of war back to Naples and collecting Indian P.O.Ws to return to Bombay. The journey to meet up with my parents took 3 nights and 2 days sharing a railway compartment with 3 Army Officers to Jubblepore in Central Province. So I met up with my Father who I hadn鈥檛 seen for 6 years, my Mother after 5 years and a 3-year-old sister whom I had never met. We remained in Jubblepore at the time of the partition of India and Pakistan when there was a great deal of unrest. The Somerset Light Infantry were moved in to quell the riots and that is when I met my husband. Life was very busy as I then got a job for the mornings, and had a good social time as well working for the W.V.S. at the Railway Station. Father retired from the Army in 1946 and we came back to the U.K. having spent 2 weeks in a transit camp at Deolali, near Bombay waiting for a passage on a troopship which took 3 weeks, and finally met up with my brother who had been sent back to the U.K. during the war to go to boarding school, another long story. Our house in Berkhamsted had been closed for the duration of our absence, so there was a lot of adjusting to do to live in England after having all the servants etc. in India.

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