Helen Baber, her life & final resting place

Helen Baber's grave stone, the English Church, Tellicherry. 

Photo courtesy of Jissu Jacob.

Throughout much of history there have been strong wives who have supported their husbands through thick and thin. These husbands would not have been nearly as effective as they were without their wives.

It is quite clear that Thomas Hervey Baber, was extremely fortunate in his choice of wife, and that Helen Somerville Baber must have been a remarkable woman in her own right.

Like so many of these wives, however it is extremely hard to discover their complete story because she was essentially a private person in the manner of those days, and one who was hidden away from sight. She only very rarely appears in the official records, and then we only occasional catch tantalising glimpses into her life. Yet when she does enter the records, the strength of her character, and the enduring nature of her love and support for Thomas Baber comes though very clearly.

Thanks to a great deal of good luck, and a great deal of kindness on the part of Jissu Jacob a local man from Periah, Helen has suddenly been brought into view.



View of Helen Baber's table tomb, in the newly cleared church yard.

On my visit to Thalassey in 2006, I had been so overwhelmed by hospitality, that I had run out of time for adequately exploring the town. Reaching the fort as dusk fell, and only able to view over the fence into the overgrown churchyard as dusk was falling, I had feared attempting to climb into the churchyard, lest I fell down a hole, or encountered a snake.

As a result of this blog, I have been having a substantial correspondence with quite a few local people from Kerala and especially Thalassey. One of these Jissu Jacob, a local historian and tour guide was good enough to go recently to the churchyard and to take the photos in this post.

We know very little about Helen Baber's early life beyond the following passage in a note book kept by my great great great grandfather Henry Hervey Baber, Thomas Baber's elder brother.

On February 7th 1798 Henry in England, records that his father had received the following letter from his brother: -

“Feb. 7 Father hears from Tom -- Letter dated Bombay August 1797 – about the same receives a letter which came overland enclosed (by just favour) with government dispatches, requesting his consent to marry a Mrs Cameron (wife of a Major Cameron who was lately killed in an excursion down the country) she is not 18 the daughter of Mr. Fearon of Edinburgh & niece of Mr Douglas of Fitzroy Square London. She had been married to the Major about a twelvemonth.
” [1]

Thomas’s fiance, whose maiden name had been Helen Somerville Fearon, had previously been married during 1795 at the age of only 15 to Captain Donald Cameron, of the Bombay Army at Portsmouth. With the East India Company recruitment camp on the Isle of Wight nearby, this many have been a last minute affair prior to Cameron boarding an East Indiamen before setting out on the long journey east.

It had not been uncommon for girls, especially daughters of soldiers aged 15 or less to marry soldiers during this period, however it was much less common for officers to marry such young girls. Her father came from Edinburgh, and one wonders if she had perhaps run away with the Captain.

Following her marriage, she must have almost immediately boarded the East Indiaman for the voyage to India. One can only imagine what it must have been like for a teenage girl, who would still have been at school had she been born today. She would have travelled in a tiny cabin constructed towards the stern of the ship, divided from her fellow passengers by temporary timber and canvas curtains.

The ship would have been crammed full of soldiers, sailors and fellow travellers.

Conditions on-board would have often been cold, wet, and the air fetid with the smells coming up from the other decks. The relative seniority of her new husband probably meant that she ate with the ships captain and the other senior passengers in captains stern cabin. She will have been able to visit the upper deck for exercise, where no doubt she would have been an object of curiosity to the sailors.

The war with France was raging, and Britain had not yet achieved naval supremacy, so she faced not just storms and the possibility of shipwreck, but also capture by the French.

Helen will have arrived in India during 1796, probably arriving first and Surat where her husbands Battalion was stationed.  Very soon after her arrival, the Battalion was mobilised to proceed to Tellicherry. Presumably Helen travelled on with the Major to Tellicherry. Given the smallness of the fort, at Tellicherry, it is quite possible she lived in tents with the Major. However, she was not to experience married life for long, for hardly had she arrived in India than she had become a widow.

Major Cameron was killed on the 18th of March 1797 whilst fighting his way down the Periah Pass. (See http://malabardays.blogspot.com/2006/12/death-of-major-cameron.html )

One can only image the pain and grief that she must have experienced at that moment, on learning that her husband was missing and was believed to have been killed.

One can only imagine how frightening, must have been her situation, she was only 17, widowed. She was in a foreign town thousands of miles from her family, and she was dependant on the charity of others.

It is not clear how Thomas first met Helen Cameron. However it is very likely that she was staying either in Tellicherry, or at Cannanore with its fort and cantonment.

As Helen had only become a widow in March 1797, and that we know that Thomas was already writing to his father via Bombay by August 1797, we can only presume that their courtship was brief and intense as are many wartime courtships.

There were very few unmarried European women living in India at this time, and those that were their were considerably out numbered by European men, so Helen Cameron must have attracted quite a lot of attention from the single officers and officials in the settlement, who would otherwise have had little opportunity of marrying, until they either went on leave after ten or more years, or chose to live with a local woman.

Aged only 20 and with only a very small salary, it must be wondered how Thomas Baber expected to be able to support his new wife. East India Company staff generally had to wait for many years and have achieved promotions before they were in a financial position to be able to marry.

Helen will have had only a very small pension entitlement from the annuity that the East India Company would have set up for her following the Majors death, and a sum from Lord Clive's fund.

This would only be payable in England, and Helen would have been expected to return to Great Britain on the first available ship.

The Major's uniform and associated belongings would have been auctioned and the proceeds handed over to his widow following his death to his fellow officers, and in other similar occurrences, it was not unknown for very high prices to be paid for items like swords at these auctions by brother officers as a way of giving support to recently widowed survivors.

Sadly we don’t know what Thomas father wrote in reply to his letter. Thomas however had not waited for his father’s permission, for as Henry wrote on 24th August 1798: -

“Father heard from Tom – when he informs us of his being married Jan 16 – 1798 to Mrs Helen Cameron – soon afterwards was appointed assistant in the revenue department at Callicut - Mrs Baber writes to my Mother.”

During December 1798 Helen was delivered of a daughter, possibly on the 1st of December, or shortly before. It has not been possible to trace this daughter beyond this brief notice, so we must presume that she died shortly afterwards, like so many other children in India in those times.[2]

Throughout the early years of their marriage Thomas was fighting the Pazhassi Rajah who was trying to oust the English from his territory. Helen must often have been left on her own, and with every chance that she would become a widow once again.

We don't know where they lived before 1809, but by then they were living in the fort.

Thomas was by then a magistrate.

Most of Thomas Baber's East India Company colleagues would have lived in houses in the fort or in bungalow's nearby. The unmarried ones would have shared houses, and probably lived a male dominated life, which probably included a fair amount of drinking and hard living.

Surviving Bungalows inside Tellicherry Fort, one of which may have been the home of Helen & Thomas Baber

It is very likely that Thomas had missed out on much of this communal life, with its echos of an English boarding school common room. This was because following his arrival in Calicut in 1797 he had almost immediately been sent out into the district near Ponnani many miles down the coast to the south, in the company only of his Indian bodyguard and subordinates.  Once he married he was living with his wife and was therefore living away from the other officials.

This may account for his having very different attitudes to those held by his colleagues on many issues such as slavery. These attitudes in turn may well have had the effect at setting him at odds with these same officials.

His ability to retreat to his home and to the support of his wife, probably enabled him to survive in the face of the active hostility of his fellow officials. for years.

Thomas and Helen Baber’s first son, Thomas Francis was born on the 12th of May 1802 at Tellicherry.

Writing in 1832 [3] Thomas recorded how he had first learnt of the existence of slavery in the Malabar quite by chance, when out riding one day in 1803, he had met a man by the roadside who tried to sell him two slaves.

Appalled, he bought the two slaves, a boy and a girl in order to free them. He appears to have sheltered them, and to have provided them with an education, as he recorded how one later rose to become a gentleman’s butler and the other an ayah.

Helen must presumably accepted these two children into her household, and to have played a large part in developing them. One begins to wonder if she was not just as committed a reformer as he was.

By 1808 Thomas and Helen’s eldest boy had reached the age at which he was old enough to travel back to England to commence his education. Henry, the boys uncle, recorded his arrival in England on 27 August 1808: -

“Returned to town & saw my nephew at Mrs Jones’s – this little fellow arrived in England 14th augst: he went to his grandfather augst – 29.”

Aged only six this little boy must have had some tales to tell to his uncle and grandparents when he arrived in England. He had just sailed half way around the world in the midst of a convoy at the height of the Napoleonic Wars.

The boy appears to have been sent on to school almost immediately. On 14 October 1808 his uncle Henry recorded: -

“Took my nephew to school at Mr Rowes’s Bromley – Kent.”

It must have been a terrible moment for Helen as she had to part with her boy, knowing well that they would not see each other for many years, and quite possibly never again, should either of them die.

Life must have often been very anxious for Helen, as for instance when smallpox raged through Tellicherry and the district.

Judicial from 29th February 1809. 59261.

Soon after he was established in his Cutcherry at Tellicherry the smallpox broke out and raged with considerable violence, throughout the Zillah, Mr Baber made great efforts to stop its progress by the introduction of vaccination, in which his conduct was highly approved by the Court of Directors. [4]

Thomas and Helen's attitudes towards the Indian's and slavery caused a substantial rift with his fellow English & Scottish colleagues, and I expect that a lot of the local EIC officials came to see him as both as a threat and well as a very great nuisance.  After all, judged by the standards of 1809, what was wrong with having a few slaves? There were masses of slaves in the Americas, and West Indies, and the Indian’s had had slavery themselves for centuries.

Everybody knew that you went to India to make money. The previous generation of Nabob’s like Barwell, Clive and the others had been able to make many thousands of pounds.  Why shouldn’t they too also have the opportunity to make a fortune?

What was all the fuss about?

One of the disputes that Thomas had entered into came to a head in 1809, and led to his eventually fighting a duel.

Thomas Lumsden Strange later recounted the story of the duel.  The local officials and offices had taken such a dislike to Thomas that they recruited a army office who had a reputation for fightinf duels.  This was with an officer by the name of Fortune.  The two were placed back to back to measure out six paces each, when Fortune, after taking but a step or two, turned round and fired and wounded Mr Baber on the thigh, before immediately bolting.  Strangely enough his second encouraged him, saying “run Billy, run!”

Billy however in his hurry to escape fell, and Mr Baber came up to him and shook his pistol in his face saying that he would be justified in blowing his brains out. [5] 

Thomas survived the duel, and was morally vindicated by the mores of the time, but he was in mortal danger. Helen immediately began to nurse him back to health. She realised that it would greatly help if he could be taken up the Ghats to a higher and cooler location.

She travelled to Ponnani, and it was there that an extraordinary event occurred, which was related to me by one of the descendants of the Brahmin priest who had taken part in the events.

During 1809 the Rajah's of Travancore and Cochin had been ousted from power, by an official supported by the East India Company.  This official had them begun to persecute many of the inhabitants of Cochin and the surrounding districts.  The Queen Mother and Aunt of the deposed Rajah had at first tried appealing to the EIC official in Cochin to prevent these abuses, before writing to Madras to no effect.

After several months they determined to try another way of getting help. They had somehow learned that Thomas Baber was an EIC official who was sympathetic to the plight of the Indian's so they determined to send three local officials to seek him out, and to try to get his support.

The story goes that these officials found Baber at Ponnani in a house with two floors.  They arrived at the house to try to meet him, but were told that they would have to wait as Thomas was too ill to come down to see them.  After a few minutes Helen arrived at the head of the stairs carrying a baby in her arms, and invited them to come up the stairs to see Thomas Baber.

As the three Indians climbed the stairs, all of a sudden the baby gave a great wringle and fell from Helen's arms.

Fortunately at that moment the Brahmin was stood immediately below Helen and was able to catch the baby, preventing its tumbling to the foot of the stairs.

As the Brahmins descendant related to me in 2006, this broke the tension for them.

Eventually the truth of the situation in Travancore and Cochin came out and an expedition was mounted to remove its abusive ruler.

Helen was to go on supporting her husband for many years ahead, through both thick and thin, as I will relate in future blog posts.

[1]Henry Hervey Baber’s Memoranda relating to the life of Henry Hervey Baber.

[2] The Asiatic Annual Register, or a View of the History of Hindustan, 1799. Page 147.
[3]Thomas Hervey Baber “An Account of the Slaves Population in the Western Peninsula of India”, page 36.
[4]OIOC O/6/9 folio 6.
[5]OIOC Mss Eur D.358, 20^th Sept 1870 Page 131 to 133.

Day Three, Was a Transylvanian in Cochin?

Photo 1, the Dutch Palace

As evening drew near the Raja and his brother arrived at our hotel. We had decided to brave the Bandh, and see if we could visit Fort Cochin.

My son was placed in the passenger seat in the hope that any picket might be confused enough to let us pass.

Driving through the almost deserted streets was a real pleasure, as we headed for the bridges onto Mattancheri island. These bridges date from the 1920's and are a fantastic testament to their original builders. They cannot conceivably have been designed for the axle loads they have taken over the years, and must be past any design life they were ever specified for, and yet the still stand, bent and battered.

As we arrived in Mattancheri we immediately began to see old Dutch buildings very reminicsent of buildings I had seen in Malacca. Today they are run down and have many lean to's and later additions tacked on.

What potential these buildings would have could they be freed from their bonds and restored.

We almost immediately passed a gateway to a particularly fine building on our right.

Asking if we could stop and go and look at it, the brothers said, yes, we could, and started to drive into the complex. The gate guard looked surprised at our heading into the grassy and dirt track, but he obviously recognised my hosts because he immediately straightened up and let us pass.

This was the lovely Dutch Palace. A building originally built by the Portuguese in about 1557 to enhance the status of the Cochin Raja their ally in the Malabar Coast.

In those days only temples, and the Portuguese warehouses were built of stone. The Rajas had allowed the Muslim traders to have stone walls around there compounds in the years up to 1498, but they themselves felt more comfortable in their traditional housing complexes.

In 1663 the Dutch defeated the Portuguese at Cochin and took over the complex, which they reconstructed at some point after this.

Cochin had been the home of a Jewish community since at least 70AD, and quite probably before. By 1500 this population had become dispersed and lived in a number of other towns like Cranganore [today called Kodungallur] [1]

During the 16th Century it would appear that a new wave of Jews had arrived in Cochin from the Sephadi communities in Spain and Portugal. Quite possibly, the Portuguese in their unceasing search for labour to work their ships, till their soil, and fight their wars had bought these exiled and displaced peoples in their ships to Cochin, home of that most tolerant of rulers.

At the centre of this complex is a small but very beautiful Hindu Temple called I believe the Bhagarathi Temple. This has a conical central building over the holiest inner sanctum, surrounded by an outer square cloister like building. This temple complex is not open to non Hindu's, so we forebore entering.

Walking along the wall of the palace



Photo 2, the other defensive wall of the Palace complex and the Synagogue roof beyond.

we turned at the foot of the steps to climb up to the museum on the upper floor



Photo 3, the entrance door to the Palace museum

as I looked up I was presented with a painting on the door that really puzzled me



Photo 4, close up of museum door showing "Transylvanian" flower paintings

for this door didn't look at all Indian, or even very Dutch to me. It looked Transylvanian.

This could not be true. Sadly we were too late for the museum, so turning once more we walked on towards the estuary and water front. Reaching the front of the building I turned to look east, towards the tower and the Jewish synagogue.

And there staring me in the face was another "Transylvanian" building.



Photo 5, the gatehouse tower and synagogue roof behind


Why did this door and these buildings strike me as Transylvanian?

My wife has Transylvanian connections, and I have travelled to the region and studied it's history with interest for many years, for it too was an area affected by colonial activity over many centuries.

The door painting for instance have many similarities with the panels at Nagyajta Church [3] below.





Photos 6 and 7, Transylvanian painted panels inside Nagyajta church.

Nagyajta is a village in the south east corner of Transylvania about 35 kilometres north of Brasov in modern Romania. [4]

With the rolling back of the Ottoman Empire during the period after the defeat of the Turkish seige of Vienna in 1683 and following the Battle of Zenta in 1695 on the Tizsa River, when Transylvania was finally liberated from the Ottoman threat, the area with repopulated with military and other settlers from Germany and Hungary.

Many of these were Protestant and Unitarian refugees or exiles from southern Germany or western Hungary, moving east to escape the Catholic led Counter Reformation in the Habsburg world, or in lands controlled by the Catholic German Prince Bishops.

These refugees had three main places where they could move to; England, Holland and Transylvania which was traditionally open to Protestant settlers.

Following the Battle of Zenta many of the soldiers would have faced unemployment with the disbandment of much of the Austrian army. The opportunities that would have been there in a war when soldiers were always needed whatever their creed, would however have been limited for a Protestant soldier in a reduced Catholic run army in peacetime.

Perhaps this is why he went into the Dutch service like so many others.

The Dutch East India Company faced a cronic manpower shortage throughout the late 17th Century and 18th Century. Dutch men were in such demand in the booming Dutch economy, they did not want or need to go out to the colonies except for the best of jobs. Soldiering was not the best of prospects at the best of times.

As early as 1622 out of 143 soldiers in the Dutch garrison at Batavia for example, 60 were German's Swiss, English, Scots, Irish and Danes. The Dutch being Protestant preferred for obvious reason's not to employ Catholic soldiers, although instructions to this effect had to be issued and reissued by the Dutch VOC authorities, because they were so often breached.

Even the roof line of the synagogue behind the tower has many similarities with churches being built in Transylvanian in the period between 1699 and 1720.



Photo 8. As the above photo of Csikrakos church about 55 kilometres due north of Nagyajta, demonstrates at the right hand end of the church in this photo, it has an almost identical roof form and slope to the Synagogue in Cochin.


Look at the bottom of the tiles on both roofs, they both have a short broken slope at the bottom.

Other Transylvanian churches display very similar tower proportions to the gate house. The tower has been heightened during its life time.



Photo 9, shows Csikrakosrol church. The bit above the top of the tree line was added to the tower after about 1750 in a Baroque style.

Compare the base of the tower with the following photo of the side of the gate house directly outside of the synagogue entrance.



Photo 10, the gatehouse tower with the synagogue entrance on the left hand side.


The panels in Nagyajta church have been recently restored, and are therefore brighter than they would have been. They also are unusual in one other potentially very significant thing.

The vast majority of Transylvanian furniture which have these flower paintings have a bottle green painted blackground.

Whilst there are some other blue backgrounds, and in some cases the green paint fades with age towards a dark blue, it is quite unusual but not infrequent to see blue examples.



Photo 11, Transylvanian ceiling panels in unrestored colours.

So who was this architect and painter?

I believe he was a Unitarian who had lived and worked (and possibly fought) in Transylvania near Nagyajta in the period between 1699 and 1720. He had then left for India in the Dutch VOC service. He was probably a gunner.

In the English forts of this period like Fort St. David, with which I am familar, the building works were normally under the control of the Master Gunner. He was expected to be able to lay out fortifications and to be able to build gunpowder storerooms and barracks. He prepared estimates for work and supervised local labourers. In this case probably Indians.

I expect that a Dutch Master gunner would have been required to be similarly accomplished, especially as the English and Dutch armies had worked together very closely against the French during the period from 1689 to 1712.

The settlers in Transylvania were normally either German or Hungarian at this time. They were normally Protestant, and they could originate from a wide band of Europe stretching from just East of Strasburg along the northern slopes of the Alps through the Palatinate to Upper Austria, or be from Hungary where Unitarianism started.

Similar paintings can be found along this belt of land. Can anybody else work out from the style is exact origin?

The Portuguese had been brutal to both the Indian's and the Jews on many occasions during their rule.

Tradition has it that the Rajas of Cochin had on one occasion offered the Jews shelter after one of these attacks under the immediate walls of this palace. The synagogue itself is supposed to date from 1557.

In the fighting between the Portuguese and Dutch in 1663, the town had suffered damage, and quite possibly the synagogue and palace too. The Dutch are said to have rebuilt the palace in 1663.

A plaque on the tower suggests that the tower was repaired in the 1720's.

Has anybody researched the Dutch Records for Cochin in this period?

Are they as good as the East India Company ones in London for similar settlements?

Is it possible that we could find out who this "Transylvanian" gunner, architect and painter was?

If you do have anything to add on for or against my hypothesis, please contact me on nicholas.balmer1@ntlworld.com





[1] See the following website for some very interesting 18th Century drawings of Cranganore http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/
1700_1799/malabar/cranganore/cranganore.html

[2]A Sephardi is a Jew originating in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) , including the descendants of those subject to expulsion from Spain by order of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella (as codified in the Alhambra decree of 1492), or from Portugal by order of King Manuel I in 1497. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardi_Jews

[3]http://www.archimedia.hu/content.php?content=199;set_lang=hu

Which although in Hungarian contains several pictures of the interior of the church, and the fortifications around the church.

See also the following Hungarian website on castles and forts which has a drawing of the layout.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://mars.elte.hu/varak/
nagyajtate/nagyajtakephezosszesito.jpg&imgrefurl=http://mars.elte.hu/
varak/nagyajtate/nagyajta.htm&h=307&w=400&sz=28&hl=
en&sig2=V7rmPx3hDFt3djraX4PN9g&start=17&tbnid=qdxVLgYpJ_reAM:
&tbnh=95&tbnw=124&ei=PdOzRdKGIMH6wQGP09HiDQ&prev=/
images%3Fq%3DNagyajta%26svnum%3D10%26hl
%3Den%26lr%3D%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3
Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG

[4] Nagyajta 45 degrees 57" 53.83" N 25 degrees 33' 53.01" E, the church and fortified church wall shows up clearly on Google Earth. Transylvania [English] is known as Siebenbürgen in German, and Erdely in Magyar.

Copyright Nick Balmer, 5th January 2007.

Day two, 13th December 2006, Colombo

Two thirty A.M. is never a good time to arrive anywhere, and it was with a great deal of trepidation that I arrived at Colombo.

With all of the recent news about the renewed unrest in Sri Lanka, I had had distinct reservations about even transiting through this country. However it must be done, if our tight schedule was to be met.

What I had not anticipated, having visited a considerable number of south Asian airports over the years was just how pleasant and friendly place Colombo would turn out to be. The terminal was light and airy, and the airport staff were far more pleasant and attentive, than would have been the case for instance in Luton or Stansted.

For a country engaged in a bitter war, the security was either very light, or extremely unobtrusive, although as we flew out in daylight, it was evident that the airport is surrounded by a dense set of field fortifications.

Our flight to Cochin was due to depart at 7.40 am, so we had hours and hours to kill.

Fortunately, we were not the only travellers so placed, and it was obvious that the locals were well prepared, so as they say, “when in Rome….”

We soon found a row of chairs in a remote part of the terminal and bedded down. Our companion’s were middle-aged Sri Lankan’s (?) who appeared to be travelling on business.

Quite where they were going, we sadly never discovered, but we did discover that they were taking prodigious quantities of duty free drink and cigarettes.

Where ever they were going must have been ready to take these goods in plenty, as small groups of these men spent the night in huddles on the floor, disassembling the duty free packaging, and elaborately consolidating the cigarettes and drink into more compact parcels.

The skill and confidence with which these men carried out their repacking, spoke of years of experience.

What with the snores of my companions, and the tearing sound of sellotape being deployed, it was not the most restful of nights, or the most comfortable, but it will be remembered for quite a while for its fascination.

Buoyed up with anticipation, and a certain amount of apprehension we moved at dawn to the departure lounge. Airports are a great place for people watching, and people watching has long been a fascination of mine.

Working twenty-five years ago in the Gulf, one of our pastimes was to visit the bazaars on a Friday, and to try to identify where all of the myriad of expatriates came from, going by clues contained in their appearance and dress. This past time has proved surprisingly profitable in succeeding years, as I have often been able to break the ice at business meetings, by correctly guessing a person’s original place of origin.

Sometimes I have been extremely accurate, and at others less so, but it always breaks down barriers.

As in ancient times, Colombo is a melting pot of peoples from all the parts of the Indian Ocean fringe. Where does Air Sri Lanka get such a set of elegant hostesses?

Line upon line of the most elegant young ladies passing to and from their planes.

As the morning drew on, an ominous gap appeared in the departures flight announcement board where our flight should have been. Our gate changed, and the staff grew steadily more edgy. Something was amiss with our onward flight. As those who know me will attest, I hate being late, and I am not the most patient of people.

I left Sri Lanka feeling that I would love to go back there, and next time to go past the airport doors.

Our host in Cochin, the Raja would be waiting.. at this point steam would have normally have been coming from my ears, but so much was I enjoying Colombo airport, that I was enjoying even the wait.

Totally out of character, I found myself telling myself to relax, this is Asia, these things happen.

Soon enough, and only two hours late, we were in the air for the 55-minute hop to Cochin. My son and I had contested the window seat, and he had won. Still it was with great anticipation that we both craned to look down past the clouds as our descent began.

A world of watery beauty, juxtaposed to mountains came into view. The coastal plain was one mass of palm trees, with dozen’s upon dozen’s of houses scattered evenly amongst the trees. Running through the inland mountains where long narrow treeless light green strips. These soon resolved themselves into paddy fields.

Soon we were on the tarmac. The first hour in any country is always the worst, and transiting any Asian frontier can be a nightmare. As the doors opened, the entire planes passengers, with the exception of two rose on mass and commenced a mad scramble for the exit. And how could I blame them, for two or more years, these men have been stuck far away from their families in some Middle Eastern hell hole, being treated like dirt, by people far less intelligent and cultured than themselves.

The sight of these men leaving the plane took me back twenty years to the huge sense of liberation and relief that I had felt on that last Air France flight home out of Riyadh.

Arriving at the immigration, it appeared that we had filled in the wrong card, ours was intended for returning Indian’s. At this point my heart sank as I realised that I would have to rejoin the scrum again at the back.

Something totally expected then happened, the immigration official smiled, and said “is that your son?”, to which I replied “yes”, and turning resignedly to go to the back of the queue, the official said, that will not be necessary, I can give you a card here, and you can fill it in on the adjacent counter.

I wonder how many government tourist boards consider the effect the frontier officials can have on their countries reputation? This delightful and polite official should be receiving an award from his countries tourist board shortly, for promoting his countries best side.

It was with great relief that we spotted the Raja even as we collected our bags. Our meagre bag paling into insignificance amongst the other huge cases and monstrous cardboard parcels on the carousel. What presents where in these, and with what delight would their families be opening these boxes over the coming hours? I do hope that my fellow travellers had as happy an arrival as we did.

Soon we were being introduced to Menon, the Raja’s driver, or Jeeves as he was described to us. And off into the maelstrom of traffic that is the Ernakulam road.

Whilst I had been in India twenty-five or more years ago, and was to some extent prepared for the traffic with its eccentric ways, nothing had quite prepared me for the sheer madness of it all. The volume of traffic beggar’s belief, and it is all squeezed into an infrastructure built forty or more years ago.

Driving about 30,000 miles a year, and experienced in driving in many countries, I have developed a fast but defensive driving style, and one that has saved my life on more than one occasion.

Almost every minute I spent in a car in India caused my heart to leap and I instinctively braced myself for the impeding crash. My foot was repeatedly plunging to the floor seeking out the brake in an instinctive reflex brought on by the sight of yet another truck or bus careering towards our car….

Can Menon really think he can squeeze his car through that gap…?

Oh God protect us…

F---! Where on earth did that lunatic rickshaw come from... ?

Oh Lord, look at that idiot driving headlong against the traffic, and at that man sauntering out into the traffic wilfully looking in a fixed way away from the oncoming traffic, as if in the belief that if he does not see the oncoming bus, then in some divine way it cannot not hit him.

By the time we reach our hotel, I am reduced to a shaking wreck.

Our host who had most generously made arrangements for us that can only be described as being fit for a Maharajah, then took us to lunch. His concern for our welfare, and the evident reason why he had been testing out our palates in restaurants in London in the previous year, became immediately apparent as we commenced our first genuine Malabar meal.

The afternoon was ours to enjoy. Richard and I managed a brief stoll along the MG Road and down to the cornice. The faded buildings, and collapsing dock infrastructure spoke volumes of a failing local government, starved of resources, and one which has been increasingly been overtaken by events. Our host who lived and who was educated within yards of our hotel spoke wistfully of the area in the 1950’s, when apparently the population had numbered perhaps 10,000 at most.

Currently Ernakulam has a population of some 2.8 million, and growing at perhaps 25% or more this decade.

Suddenly sleep and the time spent travelling overwhelmed us. Richard and I had to beat a retreat to our room….