'A Grandfather's Tale: Memoirs being mainly concerned with service in the Indian Army and the Indian Political Service in India and the Persian Gulf from 1932-1947' [‎10r] (19/118)

stop us from taking further exercise of some sort in the afternoon.
In mid-June 193 j? I went on leave to Kashmir, and spent the first
fortnight with Hugh Pettigrew on a houseboat near Srinagar bathing, playing
tennis, dancing and generally relaxing. By the end of June, however, I
was ver y glaa uo join '’Bonzo” Moore of the Regiment and friends of his on
a trek^up the Sind Vaj.±ey as far as the Zoji Lai Pass, camping at Sonamarg,
abouu 9» 000 ft up and fifty or so miles from cjsrinagar. It was marvellous
country, and we took unings fairly easily, arriving at Sonamarg in about
three days and returning to Srinagar on the eighth day. On arrival I
was sad to xind that Pettigrew had been recalled from leave, owing to
someone falling sick in Jhelum. By that time Major Rogers and Ryder were
up in a laxge houoeboat on another lake, Nassim Bagh and they persuaded
me to join them. Go'ergie Rogers had a car, so we were able to"visit a
number of places some way out of brinagar, including the Trout Hatcheries
at xiarwan. These were run by the Kashmir State Government, and stocked
all tne rivers round about with both rainbow and brown trout. True to form
Georgia always wore a hat when ne went out, and on one occasion was observed
wearing his sola topee at 10 p.m.l
[We, ray way down from K a shmir, at the end of July, I spent a few days
with*Border Regiment at Kuldana near Murree and much emjoyed seeing many
Ox my oj_d friends of all ranks, and they were very hospitable.
During that summer the 1 st Battalion returned from garrison duty in
Bengal, where there had been a fair amount of unrest, and both 3ns. were
in Dharamsala until mid-October when the 1st went off to Landi Kotal in
the Khyber Pass. It was pleasant to meet them all, and the Station was a
far livelier place with so many more officers and wives around. In August
and September there were all sorts of rumours of our being sent off on
operations on the Frontier but in the end we were not needed, and so on
November 7th ’33 we marched off (less A Coy. on detachment in Amritsar Fort)
on the annual trek down to the Plains to do our winter training, company,
battalion and brigade, in the Hoshia-*Pur area and then on 30 miles into
Jullundur just before Christmas, where we stayed under canvas until the
end of February '3^+. It took us six days easy marching to reach Adamwal,
our camp near Hoshia-npur, over atrocious dusty roads. We would normally
be in camp by lunchtime, and then go off shooting in the afternoon. Roughly
halfway down we crossed the Beas River. On the north side of the river
was Hindu country where the peacock was sacred, but on the south side,
where Muslims predominated, it was fair game, and very good eating. When
'’inadvertently" birds were shot on the wrong side of the river they were
hastily concealed under the men’s shirts.
Jullundur, though much smaller than Rawalpindi, was a fair sized
Cantonment, and that winter, after Brigade Training was over, there were
there besides ourselves, the 1 st and 2nd Bns. of the 4th Gurkhas, 1 st Bn.
the Northamptons, 2nd Bn. 8 th Punjabis, 10 th (Training) Bn. of the 17th
Dogras, some Gunners and an Indian Cavalry Regiment. It was a pleasant
change from the splendid isolation of Dharamsala, and it was good, also,