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[ismenin]

Queen Victoria - very fine gentleman. She has a place in my story, and this it approx how she looked, then, as Empress of India. My next story, Udom Singh, is set in the India of the Raj. :D




This is a true story.

After the First World War, when my Great Aunt Jessamine was left a widow with five children and no money, one of the things she did to keep her family fed and clothed was to open a tea-shop in the front parlour of her house in the Mumbles, a pretty sea-side village, in Swansea, Wales.

The other thing she did was to go to work in the big local hospital as a cleaner.

One day she was busy with mop and bucket in the corridor, listening to the very faint cries of a sailor who had been brought in after being badly burned on board ship, when the doctor in charge of the case, dressed in his tailcoat, and followed by his minions, swept past her into the ward, leaving the door open.

She continued mopping, until she heard the exasperated surgeon cried out, "does no-one in this benighted place speak Hindustani?"

Jessamine smoothed down her apron, and went to the door.
The surgeon glared at her. "What do you want, woman?"

"Er, I do sir. Speak the Hindi of the Bambaiyaa, I mean. That's what he's speaking. And two other dialects, too." She had no liking for being addressed as woman.

Jessamine was instantly elevated to the position of a lady.

"Come in, madam. It may be you can help him. He is most distressed about something. If we can put his mind at rest, he has a chance."

Jessamine spoke in a quiet voice, soothing the man, who, hearing his own tongue, burst forth with his tale of woe. "He is worried, sir, that his pay will not get back to India, where his wife and children will starve if it does not," said Jessamine, understanding completely the man's concerns.

"Assure him that I will personally see to it, madam." She did so.

The sick man smiled and closed his eyes, and Jessamine curtseyed and went back to her mop and bucket.

The surgeon came out and stood before her, bowing gracefully. Jessamine thought that the man had placed her as a volunteer lady, not a person working for pay. She was well-spoken, always careful of her appearance, and looked as neat as wax.

"Thank you, madam, for your assistance. I am most grateful."

Aunt Jessamine curtseyed in return. "You are very welcome, sir. If you should need me again, I am here in the mornings."

He asked her name. "Jessamine Statler, sir." She did not ask him his.

"And how many years (he pronounced it yars) did you spend in Indiah, madam, to become so fluent in three strange tongues?"

She smiled. "Never been out of the Mumbles, sir. I was born here. My father** only spoke to us children in Hindi. I never heard him speak a word of English to anyone in the house, except my mother."

He bowed again. "Most unusual, madam. I shall see you again, I have no doubt. Thank you so much."

Aunt Jessie went back to her mopping.


I did not find this out until 2000. My grandmother, after whom I'm named, was her younger sister, and I was gathering a bit of family history from Jessie's daughter when she came up with this revealation. I was amazed.

I went back and said to my mum, "so your mother spoke Hindi, then, Lily said?"

My mum smiled. "Oh, yes, she did! Whenever she wanted to swear she'd do it in Hindi, so none of us would understand, she thought. But we'd picked up a lot of it, as kids will."

"Did you not think I'd be interested? You never mentioned it."

"I forgot all about it. It was so natural, I didn't think it was unusual. I thought everyone's mother did it."

It was then that I realised how many Hindu words and phrases had come down to me through my mother's mother, even though Nana Ruth died when mum was twelve. And I knew exactly what she meant about not thinking it unusual.

Even my dad had picked up some. We often ate tiffin not lunch, the grown-ups drank a chota peg, not gin, or a burra-peg - whisky - at Christmas, and after a hard day's work, dad would come home sweating like, he groaned, a dhobi-wallah - a washer-man.

I have resisted putting all these phrases in this story - well, most of them, any way. Some have crept in - the ones I use here - but I have been firm with myself.

Now you know why I've written this story. For two valiant ladies, Jessamine and Ruth Harwood, who knew all the joys and sorrows of life, and lived it, as best they could.


Footnote. Jessamine had married Reynard Statler. Raynard - or Rainalt as it is on his birth certificate - was born here shortly after his parents arrived with their children from Germany. He joined the army - although he was exempt as he was technically above the age, and had a protected position in the railway - because of the taunts of his work-mates.

He died, of course, and is the only German name to be found on the War Memorial, overlooking the Mumbles, where his wife and children lived.

** Frederick Harwood, Jessie's father, the Hindi speaker, was born in Dublin in 1851. He married Ruth Parker in Chard, Somerset in 1877. In those twenty odd years he had gone to India and learned the language so well he never spoke - at least at home - anything else. Why or how, I have yet to discover. But it'd make a fascinating story, I bet!

Comments

[aussiepeach.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful story! You couldn't make those sorts of tales up, no-one'd believe you.

And I look forward to your India story. :)