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9780349104973

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One of the most enjoyable books I have read ... It is an authentic record of the survivors of British India ... a book which takes on where Kipling left off ANTONIA FRASER If you read one book about the empire, let this be it -- Michael Wood Both a guide and an entertaining companion ... Humour, drama and regret fill its pages MAIL ON SUNDAY A lovely and compelling account of what India meant to the British between 1900 and 1947 ... One of the best THE TIMES

If you read one book about the empire, let this be it -- Michael Wood One of the most enjoyable books I have read ... It is an authentic record of the survivors of British India ... a book which takes on where Kipling left off ANTONIA FRASER Both a guide and an entertaining companion ... Humour, drama and regret fill its pages MAIL ON SUNDAY A lovely and compelling account of what India meant to the British between 1900 and 1947 ... One of the best THE TIMES

One of the most enjoyable books I have read ... It is an authentic record of the survivors of British India ... a book which takes on where Kipling left off - ANTONIA FRASER Both a guide and an entertaining companion ... Humour, drama and regret fill its pages - MAIL ON SUNDAY A lovely and compelling account of what India meant to the British between 1900 and 1947 ... One of the best - THE TIMES

The British in India filled the vacancy left by the preceding set of interlopers, the Mughals. While they had their own interests and convictions, they were as much made by the country as its shapers. They found this process - renewed in every generation - an enthralling one, as this pastiche of verbal history shows. In 1974 some fifty in-depth interviews were conducted with survivors of the British raj for a BBC program. Arranged topically (children, household, the Frontier, the day's work, the order of precedence), the book is the easiest possible reading - the uninhibited, unapologetic recollections of a time when everything had a heightened interest and importance. Editor Allen does not attempt to discriminate; the police officer who gave anyone shouting Mahatma Gandhi six of the best (he left India in '27) stands alongside the man who joined the Indian Civil Service in 1928 because he found the prospect of a transfer of power exciting. A nostalgic book about a group who, from the despised British soldier to the viceroy's court, felt themselves neglected by England and on guard in India. Offsetting much that is tawdry (and not always recognized here as such), are those perilous, golden childhoods or the touring district officer required by longstanding convention to talk at leisure with any of the thousands who might wish it. (Kirkus Reviews)

This is an insider's book. It is an enthralling collection of memoirs, first recorded as a BBC radio series, in which survivors of the Raj look back upon their lives and times in India. They range from Field-Marshal Auchinleck to Spike Milligan. Seldom sentimental, often surprisingly salty, their recollections throw a healthy light upon the mingled delights and miseries of the imperial experience not only in their own times, but throughout the three centuries of the British presence in the sub-continent. Review by Jan Morris, whose books include 'Lincoln: A Foreigner's View' (Kirkus UK)

'One of the most enjoyable books I have read ... It is an authentic record of the survivors of British India ... a book which takes on where Kipling left off' ANTONIA FRASER *** 'Both a guide and an entertaining companion ... Humour, drama and regret fill its pages' MAIL ON SUNDAY *** 'A lovely and compelling account of what India meant to the British between 1900 and 1947 ... One of the best' THE TIMES

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Charles Allen is an oral and military historian specialising in colonial matters. He is the author of several previous books and lives in north London.

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