I wrote letters to mum and dad which doubled as my diary/travelogue. Here is a scan of the fourth of them.
Tag: Biltoo
Gris-Gris, A Wedding Feast And More, Mauritius, 21 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:
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.
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
A Chat On The Telephone With Trevor Huddleston And More, Mauritius, 20 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:
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).
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.
Third Letter From Mauritius, 19 July 1979
I wrote letters to mum and dad which doubled as my diary/travelogue. Here is a scan of the third of them.
Watching Marraz Biltoo And Jan Sooknah Play Football And More, Mauritius, 19 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:
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!!!
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.
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:
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.
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 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
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.
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
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.
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:
There is a placeholder posting with links to photos and film – click here or below:
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 the point it 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.
Visiting Record & Tape Exchange With Paul Deacon, 29 April 1978
Chris Whippet / Music & Video Exchange, Notting Hill / CC BY-SA 2.0
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:
