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'AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR HERBERT TODD, C.I.E. 1893-1977' [47r] (93/498)
The record is made up of 1 file (247 folios). It was created in 1976-1978. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
- 45 -
then iry to carry it through the opponent’s goal. A clever player would
nit the ball into the side wall hoping it would bounce up v/hen he v/ould
catch it and ride hell for leather to the opponent’s goal. A player catching
the ball would be im ediately set upon by the opposing team trying to wrest
the ball from him.
The locals continued to play v/ith their ready-made sticks of almond wand
but we British got up proper bamboo-shafted polo sticks from India, having
to cut down the length of the handle to suit the small local ponies.
The local polo teams would never play polo without their local orchestra
screeching out native tunes throughout the period of the chukker. They
maintained that the ponies wouldn’t gallop enthusiastically unless they had
their own exhilarating tune. There certainly seemed to be something in it.
I had three polo ponies - a Kalmuk black from Turkestan and two Arab
Badakshanis from the Russian Pam#r country.
As I have said, Gilgit was some 5,000 feet above sea level but lay in the
valley of the junction of the Hunza and Gilgit rivers some twenty-five miles
north of where the Indus River emerged from the western Himalayas and ran
south-west through Chilas into north-west India and so on south into the
Indian Ocean. Visible from Gilgit were the permanent snows of Nanga Parbet
2o,000 odd and Rakaposhi another 25,000 feet peak. In the summer, therefore,
it caught the full glare of the sun and could be very uncomfortably hot and
muggy. Luckily we had two summer escapes - one ; a stage up the Hunza valley
at Noraal, a bridle track led up the mountainside to the valley of Naltar
where there was a State bungalow to which we went to escape the heat of one
summer. There I tried vainly for a red bear which were said to inhabit the
valley.
XXXIII. RAMAH
Another hot weather v/e spent at Ramah, up from Astor to a height of 9,000
About this item
- Content
Memoirs of Sir Herbert Todd (1893-1985) of the Indian Political Service The branch of the British Government of India with responsibility for managing political relations between British-ruled India and its surrounding states, and by extension the Gulf, during the period 1937-47. , later of the Iraq Petroleum Company. Written during the years 1976-78, the memoirs begin by recounting Todd's childhood on his family's farm in Kent, his education and entrance into the Home Civil Service in 1912, and his entrance into the Indian Political Service The branch of the British Government of India with responsibility for managing political relations between British-ruled India and its surrounding states, and by extension the Gulf, during the period 1937-47. in 1913. Roughly half of the memoirs (ff 10-137) covers Todd's career up to 1947, which can be summarised as follows:
- Posted to the Indian Police, Burma [Myanmar], 1913-17 (ff 10-22)
- Served in the 11th Bengal Lancers (Probyn's Horse), Indian Army, in Mesopotamia [Iraq], 1917-19 (ff 22-24)
- Remained in Baghdad as Assistant Commissioner of Police, Baghdad East Subdivision, 1919-20 (ff 25-31)
- Transferred to Indian Political Service The branch of the British Government of India with responsibility for managing political relations between British-ruled India and its surrounding states, and by extension the Gulf, during the period 1937-47. , holding positions in Baluchistan, 1921; Gilgit, 1927; Quetta, 1931; Bharatpur, 1936-39 (ff 31-67)
- Served in the Home Guard during extended leave (1939-40), first in Canfield, Essex, and later in Blackheath, London (ff 68-72), followed by a spell as an air warden while awaiting re-posting to India (ff 72-78)
- First attempt at passage to India abandoned when the ship he was travelling on, SS Simla , was torpedoed, September 1940 (ff 79-88)
- Returned to India, holding positions at Udaipur, 1940 (ff 93-97); Baluchistan, 1941 (ff 97-101); Cochin [Kochi] and Travancore, 1943 (ff 101-111); and Calcutta [Kolkata] and the Eastern States, 1944-47 (ff 111-134)
- Returned to London on leave, April 1947; career brought to an abrupt end in June 1947 with the announcement of the handing over of power and Indian independence (ff 135-137).
The last hundred or so folios relate to Todd's employment in the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), 1948-59 (ff 138-227), and his subsequent retirement in Oxted, Surrey, 1959-78 (ff 227-248). As Chief Representative of the IPC, Todd and his wife spent much of their time in Baghdad. The memoirs document Todd's relations with prominent Iraqi politicians, diplomats, and visiting British MPs, as well as Todd's visits to Beirut, Damascus, Palestine, Jordan, Kuwait, Persia [Iran] and the United States. Also included are Todd's thoughts on the Suez Crisis and the 1958 revolution in Iraq (Todd was holidaying in Austria at the time and never returned to Baghdad).
Aside from his career, Todd writes about his hobbies (polo and hunting) and comments on UK and world events, such as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the death of Winston Churchill, and the first moon landing in July 1969; he also mentions in passing meeting Professor Max Mallowan and Agatha Christie at the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud (Iraq) in April 1955.
The text is typewritten with annotations and crossings out in pencil and ink. It includes some offensive terms and language in its descriptions of members of colonised populations.
- Extent and format
- 1 file (247 folios)
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: the foliation sequence (used for referencing) commences at the front cover with 1, and terminates at the inside back cover with 249; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. The file also contains an original printed foliation sequence. It should be noted that number 13 in the original foliation sequence is missing (in between folios 14 and 15).
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- English in Latin script View the complete information for this record
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- Reference
- Mss Eur F226/30
- Title
- 'AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR HERBERT TODD, C.I.E. 1893-1977'
- Pages
- 2r:248v
- Author
- Todd, Sir Herbert John
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