Here is an extract from my fifth letter, which is in effect my diary entry for 23 July 1979:
Well here’s what happened yesterday. We completed the move to Garçon‘s house in the morning, had lunch at Garçon’s (after a little shopping in Rose Hill where Anil bought a Chinese trinket box). Then we went in the afternoon for a drive around some of the sites of Rose Hill. We went to Balfour Garden, where there is a beautiful view of waterfalls and they have giant tortoises.
Unlabelled – guessing Balfour Garden
We also went to the Divine Life Society building (a place for weirdos I think).
We then drove to Marraz’s to collect the last of the stuff and then drove to Narrain’s, where we stayed, went for a walk, and had dinner. We then went home and I went to bed quite early and slept well. Today we are seeing some more interesting sites, so tune in to tomorrow’s exciting episode of: – Anyway, see you soon, lots of love, hope all is well Ian H (PS all mail still goes to the same place)
Here is an extract from my fifth letter, which is in effect my diary entry for 22 July 1979:
Dear parents,
Just thought I’d let you know that all is okay and tell you what happened yesterday. Garçon came in the morning and collected us, along with all our luggage except for one night necessities, as we stayed at Marraz’s last night, to move to Garçon’s this morning.
We went to his house for lunch and then went on to the races. Garçon is an expert, wagers large amounts (and wins large amounts). We youngsters just took his tips for the low stake game, so we made pence rather than pounds (although Anil made about 5 pounds as he bet a large amount and won on the last race).
Champ de Mars Racecourse
Marvellous when the horses get into the final straight. Everyone gets really excited and jumps up and down.
We then went on to the home of Buddu, the husband of Bill’s cousin. Buddu own cinemas and is so rich it’s coming out of his ears. Their house is like your description of Stella’s in Bournemouth – like an antique shop. We had supper there and returned. We were so tired, we both lay down for a moment (at 9:45) and I didn’t wake up until 12:45, when I got into my pyjamas, got into bed and slept like a log.
Here is an extract from my fourth letter, which is in effect my diary entry for 21 July 1979:
I wrote that first paragraph this morning (1st thing) and now I’m speaking this evening (last thing).
We went out this morning. We went to Lynford’s first and then to the post office and to the shops. Then we had lunch. This afternoon we went for a ride with Jan down to the south coast (Gris-Gris) – where we will be staying (week three I think). On our return we got ready to go out this evening.
Gris-Gris
We went to a wedding ceremony and feast (the ceremony of the night before the wedding). The feast we ate with our fingers off coconut leaf plates. It was a superb experience to see this and we will be going to another wedding next week, and they will let me take photographs there. In the late evening Anil and I went for a walk and we saw a lorry full of workers from the sugar cane fields making carnival, which was great fun.
In the event, we never did get to the wedding ceremony where photographs were to be allowed. Perhaps the neighbour’s untimely death and funeral put paid to that idea.
But I do have two strong anecdotal memories for events during the wedding ceremony we did attend on this day.
I was really struggling with the business of eating with my fingers. There is a particular technique to it (I’m better at it now) but at that time it was all new to cack-handed me. An old lady shrieked out a few words in Mauritian Creole and everyone within earshot burst out laughing. Anil told me afterwards that the old biddy had basically said, “does no-one have a spoon for that unfortunate English boy?”.
Secondly, I recall trying cannabis for the first time at that wedding. I had been forewarned about this opportunity and in fact tried smoking cigarettes (or little cigarillo things) with Anil on the beach two or three days before the wedding (and subsequently) by way of preparation. It seems that Mauritius had relatively tolerant laws with regard to marijuana in those days, such that, as I understood it, although it was illegal to buy, sell or smoke the drug on the street, it was legal to grow it for certain legitimate purposes, one of which was for use in wedding ceremonies. Lots of people were having a toke at the wedding. I recall asking Dat if it really was legal to be doing what we were doing, to which he replied, “I think so, but why don’t you ask that fellow over there with the big spiff? He’s the Chief of Police”.
For some reason, I omitted these smoking and cannabis-related details from the letters to my folks.
I’ll just put you in the picture a little as the general side of life here. The poverty we see around us is quite perturbing, although I find myself acting very much like the better off native people here; trying not to see the poverty. It is very easy to look at this island “through rose coloured spectacles”. In many ways, however, it is quite accurate to call it a Paradise Island. The sheer beauty Flic-en-Flac, Gris-Gris, Chamarel et cetera quite takes your breath away.
The feature that surprises me a little about the island is how very clean it is. It is quite compatible with the continent and even England these days.
One thing that surprises me is: (1) how few Jews there are, and (2) how little the educated Mauritians I’m staying with know about Judaism; their knowledge was minimal, very unflattering and wrong, and we’ve had many interesting discussions on religion with which I’ve open their eyes, I hope.
Anyway see you at four-and-a-bit weeks, please write, love Ian
Here is an extract from my fourth letter, which is in effect my diary entry for 20 July 1979:
Dear folks,
Here’s news of yesterday. In the morning we went to Lynford Smiths. At first he was out, so we waited for him. The maid (who doesn’t speak English) answered the phone and called me to take a message. I found out during the course of the conversation that I was speaking to Trevor Huddleston (the Bish O’Maurish).
Actually Trevor Huddleston was the Archbishop of the Indian Ocean, but what did I know of Archbishops back then?
More important than the mundane conversation I had with that great anti-apartheid campaigner that day, was the more general political awakening I had, while I was in Mauritius for those five weeks, to the evils of such racism. More on that anon.
Anyway, then we went to Flic-en-Flac (the seaside) where we swam. Marraz and I snorkelled and we had lunch. Then we came home and got ready for dinner; we were going to Jan’s, so we dressed smartly. We had a wonderful discussion and meal there.
Here is an extract from my third letter, which is in effect my diary entry for 19 July 1979:
Okay folks it’s tonight in fact and we are not going anywhere else so here is the news from today. This morning we wrote some letters and went out. We met one of our new found friends who works in the bakery and he showed us around that. Then we returned home, had lunch, and the Marraz took us to see the sugar plant – a most interesting sight, sweet!!?
Then we came home to meet Jan Sooknah. Marraz and Jan play football for a club team and we four, along with Bhavesh (Marraz’s eldest son) went there. Marraz is a superb player. He used to play for a first division team and without him his team would never have drawn two-all. Jan is okay but too fat!!!
Marraz, Anandani and Bhavesh BiltooBhavesh showing his best for the camera
Then we went home for supper, which was a superb curry. The food is all marvellous here. Then Anil and I went for a walk down to Lynford Smith’s, but he was out so we came home again.
A bit of bad news. We saw a beautiful bird out of the window and Marraz immediately went and got his own beautiful pair of binoculars: good job I hadn’t given him those binos earlier. What I plan to do is to bring home the binos and buy something here. In a way it is good, as Marraz has no car at the moment as it is being repaired, so plans have been changed and we will stay with lots of other relatives during the five weeks, so I can buy several small gifts.
Anyway, see you soon, lots of love, Ian
I think this might have also been the day that I bought some hand-crafted silver earrings for Grandma Anne. I wanted to get her an especially nice present, as she had always been very generous to me and in fact might (on reflection) have part-funded my flight to Mauritius.
It was an in-joke in the Harris family that Grandma Anne never really liked the presents she was given and that she had a trunk into which she threw most such presents after receiving them with grace, the present never to be seen again.
But she did like big, dangley earrings and I took soundings with Marraz and Anandani. The latter was the school mistress at the local primary school. She suggested that I go to the parents of one of her charges. They were silversmiths and would have a range of hand-crafted silver earrings of every possible description.
Anandani sent Bhavesh with me and Anil on this errand. Bhavesh blurted a message in creole to the parents, which Anil loosely translated as a statement that I was, to all intents and purposes, a member of the family and a threat that all hell would break loose if they tried to charge me a tourist price rather than a sensible price.
I chose a particularly dangley pair of highly-crafted silver earrings. They quoted a price. It sounded fair to me, but I asked them, through sign language and some very rudimentary Creole if that was the last price. They assured me through sign language and expertly-deployed Creole that it was absolutely the local, last price, below which they simply could not go. Anandani seemed very satisfied that she had done her bit when i showed her the wares and told her the price I had paid.
Grandma Anne said that the earrings were lovely when i gave them to her, but I still half-expected never to see them again. Except that is not what happened. In fact, Grandma Anne was rarely seen wearing any other earrings for the rest of her life – albeit only a couple of years. Either she genuinely liked them, or she was genuinely proud of the story – i.e. that her grandson had gone off to this far away place and chosen earrings for her, or both. In any case, the gift was a great success.
Here is an extract from my third letter, which is in effect my diary entry for 18 July 1979:
Dear Mum and Dad,
Hi! How are things? We are having the time of our lives here!! Just thought I’d tell you about yesterday. First thing was the trip to the caverne (just down the road) with Anandani’s brother (Marraz’s brother-in-law). Then Anil and I were given a papaya by him which he climbed up the tree to get. Then Anil and I went into the village, bought some provisions (i.e. nuts and bananas) and returned home. Spent the hour or so before lunch noshing and resting, as we knew we were going to be busy this afternoon, because Narrain was taking us to the other side of the island.
After lunch Anil, myself, Min and Baby (daughters of Narrain) set off for the other side of the island.
(I think I’m calling all of this but corrections welcomed): Left to Right: Baby, Shahil, Min, Anil, Nanda
Strangely, my memory of the papaya incident was that the gentleman did his stunt on the day we arrived in Mauritius, but it seems it was Day Three of our trip.
We first went to Grand Bassin, a place where the long pilgrimages go in Mauritius (Hindu ones). Then we went to Alexandra Falls and then to see the coloured earth (a plateau with earth of all different colours interspersed). I’ll be bringing back colour sample. There is some wonderful photography to be done in these places so we will return for a photographic session.
Then after supper we went out with our new-found Mauritian friends, down to a drinking house. Rum is very cheap here (£1.30 a bottle) as are bananas (10p for six). All home produce is very cheap. Anyway I’ll finish this letter either tonight or tomorrow.
I wrote letters to mum and dad which doubled as my diary/travelogue. Here is a scan and then transcription of the second of them, which relates to 17 July 1979.
Dear folks,
As you may have realised from the drift at the end of letter one, I had the inspiration to save writing time. You want to know what I’m doing all the time and I want to keep a diary. Thus I am sending you my diary as I go along which is why I wanted to keep the letters for me when I come back. Please send me news from home about once a week or fortnight or I will feel forgotten.
This morning we first went to Lynford Smith’s house (the priest from England) who drove us to Rose Hill to Garçon’s house…
There we had a workers lunch in the market, a full lunch for a big 10p (a little less). We then visited Jan Sooknah a cousin of Bill’s. who immediately insisted we go to his house for tea and was very pleased to see us. He is a lawyer. All lawyers here are very rich. He lives in the district which is the Mauritian equivalent of Beverly Hills or Hampstead Garden Suburb!!!
They want us to stay there for a while: we may do later. Then we came home for supper where we had octopus; the food is superb!!
We went for a walk after supper and befriended the sons of the owner of the café (very convenient) and some of their friends. Marraz Biltoo is very popular around here and knowing him means instant acceptance and friendship.
Sugar cane grows like grass in Mauritius, you just tear it off the trees. It has the fascinating property that the fibres (if you carry on chewing rather than spit them out) clean your teeth and are good for the gums.
Good gums with all that sugar cane, Anil?
We are having the time of our lives here, the weather is good And improving. It is so different from England you wouldn’t believe it.
I won’t write a whole letter every day; soon the news will become less no doubt, so I will dig sections of letters, but I will be writing each day, you could say.
I wrote letters to mum and dad which doubled as my diary/travelogue. Here is a scan followed by a transcript of the first of them, which relates to 16 July 1979.
For those who struggle to read my beautiful manuscript, here is a dictated transcription:
Dear Ma and pa,
Well here I am, in Mauritius. It’s 7:15 AM and the sun will soon be making its presence felt. We are right at the tail end of the wintry weather (that means cold nights), but wrapped up in a blanket I was quite warm enough, so the assurance that I won’t need the blanket for much longer is quite irrelevant. Mindyou, I’d have slept like a log through anything after getting about half an hours sleep on the plane.
The flight was most enjoyable. At Heathrow we met a Biltoo, Arriss, who travelled with us and being in aviation he knows the ropes. Bahrain, our first stop (at 1:45 GMT 3:45 Bahrain time) was smelly, with workers sleeping around on the airport floors etc.
Seychelles wouldn’t let us off, as it was raining when we stopped there, but the weather in Mauritius was lovely.
We arrived at 11:15 GMT, 2:15 Mauritius time and were met by Marraz (whose home I am in now) Garçon (with chauffeur to take all our bags) and Narrain (whose wife is one of Bill’s sisters). Of course they brought their families with them, (except Narrain as there was no room to 6 kids). First of all we drove to Garçon’s house.
The first thing that struck me on the journey was the extreme poverty. People living in rusty shacks etc. The second thing was the wonderful smell of the island, this mainly caused by sugar cane.
Garçon’s house at Rose Hill is like a mansion. We may stay there for a while. We quickly moved on to Narrain’s house – that was when we met Tiffin (Bill’s sister) and the six children. Then we went to Marraz’s house. Marraz has pull here, so the words Marraz Biltoo got us straight through customs etc. at the airport.
That evening we were visited by the Anglican priest from Catford [Lynford Smith] who I recognise and who recognises me. He says you can’t possibly see Mauritius unless you live with Mauritian people for some time, like I’m doing.
Anyway I’ll be in touch soon, lots of love Ian.
PS Please keep my letters as I’m too busy to write everything down for you and keep a diary
I refer to Anil’s dad as “Bill” in these letters, but I remember him as Dat (or Dutt) and I am pretty sure everyone in Mauritius called him Dat. Perhaps Bill was his nickname or simplified name in England.
This photo, taken later in the holiday, shows the people named in that first letter and some more. Left to right: Anil, Marraz, Anandani (in front of Marraz), Dat (Bill), Narrain (sitting in front of Dat), Garçon, Janee, Tiffin.
