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.
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.
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.
My urge to write this posting emerged unexpectedly today (5 May 2016) after an emergency trip to the Retro Shop to try to find an appropriate pair of trousers for a 1960’s party.
Result: success, before you ask. Bright red, before you follow-up with the obvious next question.
The Retro Shop is at 28 Pembridge Road and the likely source of the party trousers was the basement of that shop. Despite its change of purpose within the “Exchange Empire”, I recognised the space immediately as the old bargain basement of Record and Tape Exchange. I inhabited that basement a great deal in my youth. Initially and several times subsequently, those visits were with Paul Deacon.
It was probably the pull of Record and Tape Exchange and my resulting familiarity with Notting Hill Gate that drew me to the neighbourhood in the late 1980s when ready to find my own place. With the benefit of hindsight, a most fortuitous draw.
But when did those visits start? I remember visits to The Slipped Disc in Clapham Junction with Paul perhaps as early as 1976 and certainly 1977. I’ll write that up separately once I have researched it.
But it isn’t until 1978 that I mention Record and Tape Exchange in my diary. 29 April 1978 to be precise.
Saturday 29 April – went to Jumbly’s, Record Exchange & Portobello with Paul.
Paul might remember what Jumbly’s is/was – I certainly don’t.
But I think our first attempt to go to Notting Hill Gate was a couple of weeks earlier during the school holidays. This entry from 12 April has got my brain ticking.
Wednesday 12 April – went out with Paul – bit of a disaster.
I have a vague memory of a day out with Paul when we were attempting to see Portobello and these second hand record shops we’d heard about, but somehow we got hopelessly lost and ended up wandering aimlessly around West Kensington and Olympia, until we returned home exhausted and unsatisfied. Paul might be able to fill in the details.
At the time I probably thought that any blame for such a “disaster” must rest with Paul. But nearly forty years subsequent experience of my personal geographical challenges suggests that the fault must have been at least as much, if not more, mine. The sat nav might have been invented just for me.
One more intriguing diary entry a few months later, but not (I believe) to do with Paul:
Saturday 29 July 1978 – Lazy day. Went to Record and Tape Exchange,
Very pithy. Doesn’t reveal much at all. I am pretty sure this must have been the day that I went up to Notting Hill Gate with a young lady known as Fuzz, with whom I’d had a gentle squeeze at Anil & Anita Biltoo’s party a couple of weeks before. This visit was especially memorable because it was a hot summer day and Fuzz became overwhelmed by the mustiness and dustiness of that basement, fainted, banged her head and needed to be revived by worried staff in the shop.
But apart from that, Mr Harris, how was your hot date?
I’m going to guess that I hadn’t been entirely straightforward with my parents (in particular my mum) with all the details of where I was going/had been and with whom, hence the pithy entry in the diary.
I am delighted to report that health and safety has improved a little at the 28 Pembridge Road basement in the past 38 years. Today it still had a musty, dusty atmosphere, but it was much mitigated by the back door being open to let in some fresh air.
Meanwhile, to support the comment below (triggered by a delightful Facebook message exchange with Paul) – here is the first page of my Record and Tape Exchange Transaction notes – there are pages and pages of them gathering dust in a file under the bed:
Writing forty years after the events (January 2018), I find it hard to recall clearly my jubilant mood in early January 1978.
I returned from my first BBYO Convention is very high spirits.
January 1 – Finished convention. Came home late in evening – had the most terrific time overall.
Indeed, the language in my diary for those two weeks is relentlessly upbeat. Here are the pages. I’ll translate the relevant bits later, for those who struggle to read my beautiful but slightly unconventional calligraphy:
I was a fairly positive kid, but some of the language doesn’t really sound like me – or certainly doesn’t sound like the far more retiring 1977 me. Especially the material relating to club/BBYO:
10 January 1978 – Gave talk at BBYO with Graham on the cartoon. Went down well
Graham Majin and I made a couple of cartoon films in the school holidays 1976 (Basher Rasher) and 1977 (Speare Trek). There’ll be more on Ogblog about those eventually – for the time being click here for a bit more on that.
11 January 1978 – …Committee meeting of BBYO – Fantastic work done, though force 12 gails [sic – surely gales?]
I’m not sure what the “fantastic work done” at the Streatham BBYO Committee might have been that night. My guess is that I was asked to take on some more responsibility for running the club and that I was very pleased with the outcome.
I’m trying to remember who might have been at that committee meeting – an early, perhaps my first, committee meeting. Dave Young I think was in charge by then, although he didn’t go to that convention. Barry Freedman, Dave’s predecessor, was almost certainly there (and had been at convention). Karen Harris was a mainstay of that early committee – (no relation of mine, nor I believe a relation of Jacey’s – there were a lot of separate Harris families in Streatham) – I recall attending at least one committee meeting at Karen’s house – perhaps this meeting. Sue Leyens I think would have been there.
I think some of the original founders of the club, such as Lisa Benjamin (sadly deceased) who had encouraged me to join in the first place, had finished by then. Or were going through the process of handing the club over to the next generation.
Possibly David Heller was at the committee meeting that night; I am pretty sure that David was involved at that time and was (along with me and Barry) at that convention. Most of the people I think of as “my contemporaries” at that club; Sandra, Linda, Ivor, Natalie, Mark, Jacey, Liza A, Andrea, Wendy, Mandy, Martin,…I think got involved a little later, but perhaps some of that group were on the committee by then.
Just a few months later
So what was it about convention over new year 1977/78 that brought on that lengthy bout of optimism and self-confidence?
The diary doesn’t help me on this matter – I simply record, for the days I was at convention, that I was “at convention”. Naturally, I was having such an amazing time, I didn’t write up my diary. In any case, the experience was so unforgettable that it hardly needed writing up…
…did it?…
…I think I might need a little help from my friends, 40 years on, but here is what little I remember.
Harrogate was the location. I saw very little of Harrogate itself, although I did wander far enough from the hotel on one occasion to buy a tin of Harrogate Toffee – click here to see a likeness of the tin – to take home as a small gift for my parents. That tin ended its life, back in my hands, as a sort of ashtray/stashtray – not a dignified ending for a tin of Harrogate toffee. But I digress.
The real point was that convention exposed me to the leading lights, recent past, present and future, of BBYO nationally at that time. They were a pretty impressive bunch – certainly to me at that time but in any case, I think it was probably a golden era of leadership in the British Isles for that organisation.
I met for the first time the Rose brothers (Mike and Jonathan), the Spector brothers, (Martin and the late, much missed Jeffrey), plus David Wiseman, who was elected National President at that convention. Those five were all National Presidents in the mid to late 1970s.
David Wiseman, with chain of office, second left, thanks to David for the picture
I also met many super people from other groups who either were or went on to be local and regional leaders.
I remember being quite overwhelmed by the scale of the convention – I had never been let loose with that many fellow teenagers before. The only people I knew there were Barry and David from my own club; they were older and they seemed to know plenty of people.
I remember Lynda Singer – Stanmore – (latterly Lynda Jackson, also sadly deceased and much missed), perhaps spotting that I was a bit lost, telling me that everyone finds it a bit daunting at first, pointing me in the right direction and offering to help if I wanted more advice. I remember Judy Wolfson – Hampstead Garden Suburb – being similarly older-sister-like that convention – our paths crossed again at Keele but not since.
I remember chatting at length that convention with Sara Wiseman, David’s sister, not realising that she was sister to the President Elect to be. At first she seemed as shy and as daunted by the convention as me.
I remember meeting Paul Corper and Robert Garelick from Cockfosters for the first time, although it was at camp later that year that we formed a bit of a comedy trio. I also remember meeting Drewey for the first time and not understanding any of his jokes…OK I’ve just made that last bit up.
In truth I met dozens of people for the first time there, many of whom I got to know a lot better over the following three years. In truth I don’t remember meeting Terri Phillips (nee Vine) – Stanmore – at that convention but I remember meeting her at events soon afterwards and she has kindly supplied a group photo of all of us for this piece:
I’m standing towards the right hand side…yes I am wearing THAT banana jacket
My injection of optimism, energy and confidence was not restricted to my BBYO activities , btw. I note the following diary entries:
4 January 1978 – went to West End with Graham and Anil – had a good time there.
5 January 1978 – went to BFI library on John’s card – had a good day there.
6 January 1978 – went to Graham’s for the day – played D&D v good…
Cousin John kindly lent me his BFI Membership card – minors are not allowed access to the library. The staff must have known/guessed that I was under age and using someone else’s pass, but they were incredibly helpful and that project benefited enormously from the reading I did there and the help the staff gave me. Respect.
“D&D v good”? Please. I never really got the point of D&D. I remember that Graham, Gareth Mills and some others at Alleyn’s School were really into it. I remember going with the flow of it and clearly I sometimes enjoyed it. But D&D was not really me. Honest.
I also note my references to watching TV starting to diminish as I took on more interests. But that fortnight I did mention:
The Two Ronnies – gosh I remember liking that show – I suspect I’d find the humour simple/childish now but it was good family entertainment;
Coronation Street – which to my mum for many years (long after I tired of it) was as a “family together must” to the same extent as eating. After dinner, the refrain, “watch Coronation Street with us first and THEN go upstairs to do your homework/do your own thing” was quite common;
I also note that Grandma Anne was in hospital in early January that year, but I don’t think her affliction was that serious on that occasion; she must have been 86 or 87 then – she was to live just short of four more years after that.
I also notice that my confidence and upbeat demeanour extended to Alleyn’s School extra-curricular activities by the end of the first week back at school:
Friday 13 January 1978, Got a talking part in the school play – I’m the innkeeper – V pleased
Yes, I was relentlessly upbeat for at least two weeks. Blue Monday hadn’t been invented back then I guess. In any case, I suppose I need to write up week three of 1978 to see what my actual “Blue Monday” mood was like. Still pretty positive I’ll guess. That fine bunch of people from the 1978 BBYO convention had a lot to answer for…in a good way.
A few more memories of that convention from a few other people wouldn’t go amiss. Do be aware, BBYO folk, that comments on Ogblog are public whereas comments on the BBAK Facebook Group are private to the group.
