'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' [‎13v] (26/118)

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to the Governor General Gujarat States and Resident at Baroda, and should
proceed there as soon as my services could be made available. Colonel
Mockler, however, refused to let me go until this telegram had been
confirmed in writing, and so it was not until the 3rd November that I
finally left Dharmsala, arriving at Baroda on the evening of the 5th November
1936. There I was met by Alastair Low, the Secretary, and driven to the
Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. where I was to stay for my first few days. The Resident,
Colonel Weir, Mrs. Weir and their elder daughter Joan Mary were there,
and they were all extremely kind to me 0 Joan Mary and I discovered we
had met in Kashmir two years before and had a host of mutual acquaintances.
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As well as being Under Secretary and Personal Assistant to the
Resident, I found that I was also a First Class Magistrate, with powers
of up to 2 years' imprisonment, and Judge of the Small Courses Court and
ex officio Cantonment Magistrate. As a Company Commander in the Army I
had been limited to sentencing an offender to 10 days confined to barracks,
so I found my new powers somewhat intimidating. I was now just twenty-four.
However, there was not a great deal of Court work and very few serious
cases, so I managed to cope. Normally on first appointment to the Political
one usually served simply as Personal Assistant (i.e. A.D.C.) to a
Resident and no magistrating would have been involved, until later when
one was doing one's Civil Training under a Deputy Commissioner in a British
Indian District and passing the normal Indian Civil Service Law and Revenue
examinations.
Colonel Weir's previous posting had been on a special mission to
Tibet, and Mrs. Weir and Joan Mary were two of the very few European
women */ho nad ever been to Lhasa. They had an amazingly fine collection
of tibetan banners etc. and a large number of most interesting photographs.
In Baroda Cantonnment there was a small club and a European
population of about sixty all told, including the British officers and
• w i ves i thie 5th n. 7th Rajputs, Bankers, Missionaries, Europeans
in the Baroda State Services (Railways, Agriculture, Education, Police,
Hospitals, etc.) and us in the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. .
There was a good deal of tennis and golf, but little or no riding
as the surrounding countryside was mostly black cotton soil, most unsafe
or horses. Luckily for me there was a plunge bath in the Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. ground
m reality an irrigation tank. Baroda is about 300 miles North of Bombay
and never very cold. There were no fireplaces in the houses, and when I
got there m November the temperature was still 96 ° or so in the daytime
but down to under 600 at night. We were not much above sea-level, altogethe
L? r ® at COn ^ ra ^ f rom Dh armsala. We also had electric light, and in the
tnhf l 0 n f u baths ’ in contrast to the oil lamps and tin bath
duck- 1 OU ~ tWenty m ^ es outside Baroda there was some good
duck shotting, at least far better than I'd ever enjoyed before and I
really began to hit a few birds. J
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