Travel – Page 40 – Ian Louis Harris

Alexandra Falls And Chamarel Coloured Earth, Mauritius, 18 July 1979

An overview of my 1979 trip to Mauritius, courtesy of the wonderfully hospitable Biltoo family, can be found by clicking here or below:

Mauritius, July & August 1979, Overview, Summary and Picture Links

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.

Chamarel Seven Coloured Earth – presumably taken at that later photographic session

Then we also saw an incredible Mauritian sunset.

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.

Second Letter From Mauritius, 17 July 1979

A very brief background to this travel adventure is covered in the overview posting linked here, which contains links to photos and cine.

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…

In July 2019, writing up these pieces around the 40th anniversary of my visit, I managed to trace Lynford Smith to St Barnabas Church, an Anglican community in Vancouver – click here.

If anything changes at St Barnabas, here is a link to a scrape of that page taken in July 2019.

… from where we went to Port Louis for the day .
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.
Anyway all the best, have fun, lots of love Ian

First Letter From Mauritius, 16 July 1979

A very brief background to this travel adventure is covered in the overview posting linked here, which contains links to photos and cine.

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.

Confirmed Mauritius, The Overcrowded Barracoon, 10 April 1979

So this was the day that I confirmed that I would spend five weeks of the summer of 1979 in Mauritius.

The kind Biltoo family gave me an extraordinary opportunity, in 1979, to visit the beautiful island of Mauritius as a family guest, not as a regular tourist, for five weeks, along with Anil (my school friend at Alleyn’s) and his father Dat. It proved to be a life-changing, life-enhancing experience for me; an act of wonderful generosity and hospitality on the part of that family.

I have written up the visit extensively, starting here:

First Letter From Mauritius, 16 July 1979

There is a placeholder posting with links to photos and film – click here or below:

Mauritius, July & August 1979, Overview, Summary and Picture Links

As far as I can tell, this is the one and only one reference to my trip to Mauritius in my diary, prior to the visit:

Saw Anil today. Confirmed Mauritius…

I want to use this date to record my thoughts about VS Naipaul’s extensive essay/article about Mauritius, written in the early 1970s, The Overcrowded Barracoon.

Actually I cannot remember when I read The Overcrowded Barracoon at Dat Biltoo’s request. I am fairly sure that Dat more or less insisted that I read the article before making my decision as to whether or not to join the Biltoo family for five weeks in Mauritius.

It’s not a very complimentary piece. Perhaps Dat thought it would put me off. Or rather, that if it did put me off that it would be better that I didn’t join them. Or rather, that if the essay sparked my interest rather than put me off, that I would be a suitable companion for them. It did the latter; I was fascinated.

I think Dat lent me the book and I think that both my parents read the article too.

I remember thinking that the politics of that island sounded incredibly complicated and I remember not really understanding many of the points that VS Naipaul was making. For example, his comments about South Africa and Mauritius not being a place that would appeal to the anti-apartheid protester only made sense to me once I got to Mauritius.

In fact, the only point from the article that really stuck in my mind for 40 years was the notion that young, unmarried women of South Asian origin were chaperoned on Mauritius. Perhaps that point stuck because chasing girls formed a fairly major chunk of my brain space by the spring of 1979. I was 16 for goodness sake. Perhaps that point stuck because my father warned me quite sternly to be careful in my behaviour towards girls.

I do recall asking Dat some questions about the article before we went and that he answered my questions kindly, with brevity, mostly in the style of “you’ll see when we get there”. He was right.

I also recall one of my questions relating to the swastika symbol which I found perturbing but which Dat explained is a good Hindu symbol that had been misappropriated and used as an evil symbol by the Nazis.

On rereading The Overcrowded Barracoon 40 years later (August 2019) I realise what an insightful yet flawed essay that article was. The thoughts on Mauritian post-independence politics were fascinating, with the benefit of my direct experience and then hindsight in the following years.

But I think VS Naipaul’s derision about hopes for the tourism industry and the risk of overcrowding on the island have proved misguided. Naipaul was sniffy at the idea that Mauritius might increase its annual tourist footfall from 20,000 per annum to 300,000 per annum. Within 50 years of independence, Mauritius was happily accommodating over 1.3 Million tourists per annum. The population has also grown, from c800,000 to just over 1.3 Million. Almost exactly one tourist visit per Mauritian resident from 2016 onwards.

Whether or not the place is now overcrowded is a matter for conjecture, but it is certainly no longer a de facto slave colony, nor is it dependent upon munificence from dodgy neighbours and/or former colonial powers. Indeed Mauritius is now perceived as an economic success story and a major tourist destination.

But I had the opportunity to visit the nascent independent Island state (just over 10 years after independence) through and with a large, diverse Mauritian family. As my travelogues attest, that was a very special experience for a 16 tear old kid. I shall be forever grateful to the Biltoo family for giving me that experience.

Visits To Greenwich and Brighton With Mum and Dad, 29 to 31 August 1977

I actually set out this morning (I am writing on 31 August 2017) to Ogblog 31 August 1997, in the form of a “what were you doing the day that Princess Diana died?” That I shall do once this piece is writ…now done – click here!

But once I realised that Janie and I went to a Greenwich tavern to meet John Random and Jenny Mill on 31 August 1997…

…and then realised that my previous visit to Greenwich for such purposes must have been about 20 years earlier…

…and then looked up that my previous visit had been EXACTLY twenty years earlier…

Time Traveller. Dad at the Greenwich prime meridian line, 31 August 1977

…I thought I’d better Ogblog both anniversaries and start with the earlier of them.

Here is a link to the Flickr album with the photos we took on those three days.

The diary page helped me a lot with this one:

Technicolor-style diary solves temporal mystery

I had wondered, when looking at the photo batch, whether I had got some negatives mixed up, as it looked to me as though some pictures of my dad in Brighton had got mixed up with a day trip to Greenwich.

But the diary reminds me that we went to Greenwich twice, going to Brighton on the day in-between.

That summer was the first time in my childhood that we had no family holiday.

Dad must have been very short of money at that time – the business had been doing badly for a few years by then. Dad probably couldn’t justify the expense of getting someone else to run the photographic shop for any amount of time during those commercially better end of summer weeks, even if he could have afforded the holiday itself…which he probably couldn’t.

So he/we simply took a long bank holiday weekend – I suspect he just kept the shop closed until the Thursday.

I have done this as a photo piece using the picture captions to tell the tale; I think the pictures themselves tell most of the story.

Dad in the Trafalgar Tavern, 29 August 1977

The diary suggests that we very much enjoyed our lunch at the Trafalgar Tavern.

Me in the Trafalgar Tavern, 29 August 1977

Probably we enjoyed the lunch so much so that we didn’t get to see all the things we’d intended to see in Greenwich that day.

Old Royal Naval College – 29 August 1977 – seemingly taken from a boat – how many times did I see that glorious panorama from the deck of a boat in later years?

29 August 1977 was a beautiful sunny day by the looks of it

29 August 1977 – Old Royal Naval College in the sunshine

On 30 August, we went to Brighton. Only three photos from there that day – all of my dad being blown or blowing in the wind:

Dad being blown around in Brighton, 30 August 1977

Dad blowing in the wind, Brighton, 30 August 1977 – I like this picture a lot.

We clearly decided to return to Greenwich to finish our sightseeing on 31 August. We took lunch in the Cutty Sark this time, which I don’t think we liked as much as the Trafalgar Tavern back then, if I am reading between the lines of my diary correctly.

The weather looks miserable in the 31 August pictures, as does my mum:

Dad and Mum, the latter looking wet and cold, in Greenwich, 31 August 1977

Major General James Wolfe looks hardier than my folks, 31 August 1977

The top of Greenwich Park had a truly grimy, industrial view back then

Time Traveller. Me at the Greenwich meridian line 31 August 1977

Holiday In La Manga, Spain, With Mum And Dad, 21 August To 4 September 1976

This turned out to be our last family summer holiday together. The following year dad was brassic (skint) so we just did some day trips and stuff, e.g. Greenwich:

Visits To Greenwich and Brighton With Mum and Dad, 29 to 31 August 1977

Then the year after that, I did BBYO camps while mum and dad went off and did their own thing early autumn.

I turned 14 on this La Manga holiday and I do remember feeling, even at that tender age, that I had sort of outgrown those family holidays. I sensed that mum and dad wanted some prime time together and I was no longer intrigued by going off and doing stuff with random youngsters who just happen to be on holiday with you.

We stayed in the Hotel Entremares – not the sort of place I might stay in now, but it is still there and looks OK. Mixed reviews now.

The hotel (and to some extent the resort) was brand new then and I suspect my dad picked up a late booking at low cost for a place that hadn’t yet gained a reputation.

Clearly we were treated like visiting celebrities:

There is a movie for this holiday which, believe it or not, actually did yield some “famous for 15 minutes material” many years later, when Visa rewarded me handsomely enough and used some clips in one of their adverts and vines. Here is the whole movie:

https://youtu.be/k_XVsDXFhHM

Here’s the Visa ad, which shows dad slapping on the tanning oil:

https://youtu.be/9olHdXZF6LI

While here is a link to the Vine (remember those) of me and mum looking silly on a pedalo.

This blond girl features in the movie too. I wonder whether I had latched on to the blond girl or whether she had latched on to me. Rohan Candappa probably wants me to track her down and write a story about her.

In those days La Manga was positioning itself for tennis in particular…

…but latterly (he says writing in February 2019) it has superb cricket facilities by all accounts – at least Middlesex CCC bowlers have just toddled off there to train.

In fact it was reading about Middlesex training in La Manga that made me reach for the 1976 file and Ogblog this holiday.

1976 was the cricketing year the the West indies thrashed England in every conceivable way. I missed the ODI thrashings by being in La Manga.

It also looks as though I missed a thrilling London derby at The Oval too – click here for the scorecard. I do like a match with a happy ending…

…and a season with a happy ending too – see the 1976 final table. So hopefully La Manga will be auspicious for Middlesex again in 2019.

Here is the full stack of photos from our 1976 family jaunt:

Ongka’s Big Moka, Television Documentary, 11 December 1974

Koteka by Billga, CC BY-SA 3.0

My diary entry for 11 December 1974 includes the phrase:

Disappearing World. Ongka’s Big Moka. Rather amusing.

In October 2016, while pondering the idea of Ogblog but before I had started the project in earnest, I uncovered this diary entry and vaguely remembered the television programme to which it referred.

I Googled the programme name and read the Wikipedia entry, which, at that time, reported that the programme was first broadcast in 1976 – probably when it received its first US airing. A bit more Googling enabled me to confirm 11 December 1974 as the first airing date so I (in the form of Ged Ladd who is an occasional but keen Wikipedia editor) corrected the Wikipedia entry.

At the time of writing this (November 2018), I am delighted to note that the Wikipedia entry for Ongka’s Big Moka retains my fine detective and editing work. I was reminded of this whole matter by a visit to see the Oceania exhibition at the RA:

Klimt/Schiele and Oceania, Royal Academy, 16 November 2018

Anyway, since my October 2016 detective work, someone has, helpfully, uploaded the Ongka’s Big Moka film to YouTube:

It might have been this television documentary that sparked my lifelong interest in the tribes and cultures of Oceania.

I do also remember being inspired by the exhibits from the Pacific South Seas in the Horniman Museum, on an Alleyn’s School visit, probably around that time, but I do not recall which of those inspiring introductions, television or museum, came first.

Perhaps I’ll find a reference to the Alleyn’s visit somewhere in my diaries, but it might be pre-diaries or during one of my irritating diary-writing-intervals in those early years.

One of my old school pals might just help me to date that school visit, although I suspect there were plenty of such visits on field days “back then”, as the Horniman was such an easy place to visit from the school. So unless I did something memorable on that trip…

…I dread to think what memorable thing I might done, but my lifelong interest in that part of the world does include a fascination with koteka.

Still, I suspect that the date of my visit to the Horniman is either in my diaries or lost in the mists of time.

A Two Week Mediterranean Cruise Ahead Of Starting At Alleyn’s School, late August 1973 –Day Fourteen: Rimini & Then Home

For the context, itinerary and links for this entire holiday, click here or the link below:

A Two Week Mediterranean Cruise Ahead Of Starting At Alleyn’s School, late August 1973 – Context, Itinerary, Links & Day Zero: Porto di Rimini via Luton Airport

The cruise was advertised as a fifteen day holiday, but as I named the initial travel day “Day Zero” I think I have accounted for them all.

I have no idea whether the pirate party was actually the last night party, but they are the only photos I haven’t yet used.

We have fewer than 90 photos of the whole trip – times have changed. More recently, I have a feeling I have had meals that have yielded more photos than that, albeit perhaps adding together the snaps taken by several diners.

*The quality of my dancing has been consistent throughout the decades*

I remember almost nothing about the journey home. We were tired. We had very much enjoyed our holiday. I was super-excited (to use the modern phrase) about starting at Alleyn’s School a few days after our return.

A Two Week Mediterranean Cruise Ahead Of Starting At Alleyn’s School, late August 1973 –Day Thirteen: Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik From the City Walls

For the context, itinerary and links for this entire holiday, click here or the link below:

A Two Week Mediterranean Cruise Ahead Of Starting At Alleyn’s School, late August 1973 – Context, Itinerary, Links & Day Zero: Porto di Rimini via Luton Airport

The tenth and final port of call (before the return to Rimini) was Dubrovnik.

Mum, Dad & I all really liked this place. Indeed, we returned to Dubrovnik a couple of year’s later, so we must have liked it a lot. I also have a feeling that the touring time for Dubrovnik was quite limited, so we felt that we hadn’t had a chance to take a good look at the place.

*Beside Orlando’s Column (right of picture)*

*Me On Main Street With Orlando’s Beyond*

There’s also two or three minutes of cine, from 15’30” until around 18’00” or so.

It seems my young friend joined us in touring Dubrovnik – possibly her mum wasn’t feeling good or just didn’t fancy touring that day. You can see my mum buying a plaque facsimile, which ended up on the dining room wall at Woodfield Avenue for nearly 40 years. I think it depicts the Exodus or something of that kind.

In the remaining minute or two of the film, you can see us back on the boat, at one point speaking with the girl and her mother. The film beyond the 20 minute mark is of the following year’s holiday.

A Two Week Mediterranean Cruise Ahead Of Starting At Alleyn’s School, late August 1973 –Day Twelve: Corfu

Corfu Town

For the context, itinerary and links for this entire holiday, click here or the link below:

A Two Week Mediterranean Cruise Ahead Of Starting At Alleyn’s School, late August 1973 – Context, Itinerary, Links & Day Zero: Porto di Rimini via Luton Airport

The ninth port of call was Corfu.

It looks from the photos and the cine footage that we toured in a fairly relaxed manner.

*Achilleion top, Governor’s Residence bottom*

Dad had clearly “fixed ” his cine camera, even though that meant losing some of the footage that had got jammed within it. He took a lot of cine on our last two stops, presumably because he had a lot of film left!

There is four whole minutes of film from Corfu, between 11’30” and 15’30”. I very much remember the sweet girl you can see between 15’00 and 15’30” – we became good friends towards the end of the cruise. I cannot remember the girl’s name – unfortunately we don’t have stills of her – mum was very good at labelling up the stills.

Actually I failed to keep in touch with any of the friends I made on that cruise. I started Alleyn’s a few days after our return and I suppose the experience felt like ancient history very soon after it ended.

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