Memoir of the Career of Sir Reginald Michael Hadow [‎13r] (25/26)

Indian trainees and this was rewarding and great fun. I remember in particular
young Bajpai and Jagat Mehta who both did very well in later years.
Social life was fairly hectic and my wife and I boarded with Sir Conrad Corfield
the Political Adviser to the Viceroy, so I met many members of the Political
side in his house. He was a great friend on my sister and brother-in-law the
Daunts, hence the connection. [My sister married him in the 1960's some years
after the death of her husband].
It was fairly easy for us on the Foreign side under Nehru - one of our extra
tasks was to organise a mammoth "Asian Relations Conference" which he covened
in Delhi well before Independence. But for the Political side life was very
awkward in view of Nehru's views on and plans for the Princes - Conrad Corfield
left India well before independence a dispirited and borken man. I then moved in
as a boarder with Douglas Currie, the Viceroy's Military Secretary, in his house
in the Viceroyal Estate.
I was in the Secretariat until 2-3 days before Independence. Under the terms
offered one could opt to continue service in India or Pakistan or take compensa
tion and go. At the time I would have been happy to have stayed on in India as
I could envisage no other career. Some colleagues in the F & P opted for Pakistan
and were accepted, Tarlok Singh, a friend of mine in the Dept, whom Nehru had
introduced as his Private Secretary encouraged me to opt for India which I did.
Followed a rather awkward interview with Nehru (awkward for him, not for me) at
which he informed me that much as he liked me my face was the wrong colour to be
acceptable in the new Indian Foreign Service. He wished me well in the UK Foreign
Service which he advised me to join.
I was present at the Independence Day Ceremonies on August 15 and on August 17,
my birthday, found myself temporarily attached to the British High Commission and
administered by the C.R.O. I returned to the UK in 1948.
Again under the terms the F.O. were prepared to take on a certain number of
ex F & P officers directly transferred. they obviously lost their compensation.
But only officers born before August 1915 were eligible.
After some fairly heated correspondence with the C.R.O. I was told that if I wished
to join the F.O. I must sit the entrance exam all over again with the new post-war
entry. In fact ehe exam apart from an essay consisted in the "houseparty" system
at Stoke d'Abernon. So I was flown home in late 1947 to go through this process.
I was then 33 and disgusted at the whole business and must have behaved very
badly. In particular I remember objecting strangely to paying £10 for the medical
which I pointed out had been free in 1938. I also remember the doctor's face when
he read my form: amoebic dysentery, quartan malaria, sandfly fever, jaundice. He
told me most of his clients were aged 23 or 24 ana apart from war wounds confessed
to little much graver than measles and chicken pox.
However I passed, and was accepted into the Foreign Service with the rank of
2nd Secretary (some F & P colleagues, junior to me in the service, but born
before August 1 1915, had been taken in without exam as 1st Secretaries). My
arguments that I had procured myself alternative Government Service and that I had
also lost seniority thereby were of no avail. I never saw that compensation!
But it was well worth it. A great service and a great life. I have had a wonder
ful time since then in the Diplomatic Service, wehre the fact that one had been
in the F & P assured oen of a very warm welcome, but perhaps for a young man the
Indian service was more rewarding and exciting. The responsibility was greater.
Later on, of course, the Diplomatic Service offered great responsibility and
excitement. So it is difficult to make comparisons. All one can say is that one is
proud and happy to have had the fortune to be a member of three great services
(I.C.S., I.P.S., Diplomatic).