Surely no braver man has ever existed than that primitive ancestor of ours who first dared to climb on to a fallen tree and drift on the waters of a flowing river. He must have been the first animal to move on anything but its own limbs; all mammals propelled on their own feet, all birds on their own wings and all fish on their own fins and tails. He alone, that courageous, pioneering man, used an outside agent, a log of wood...."one small step but a giant leap for mankind."
Other innovative men have followed, and will yet follow, his heroic example. The log has led to all kinds of craft, from canoes to the Queen Mary and the giant oil tankers and submarines; man's skill at riding on horse-back led him to attach a cart to the beast and later he discovered motor cars, steam trains, electric trains, airoplanes and,most recently of all,space-craft that have whisked men to the moon, making yet another small step, another giant leap.
But when all our wondering hero-worship and applause have died down, we have to recognise that the most magical mode of travel is still on that superlative vessel, the human mind; it travels not only in space but also in time; it cannot be high-jacked or crashed or shot down, and it knows no limits. Occasionally, it is true, a mind may go off the rails or have its big-end blow, but such catastrophes usually result in even wilder flights of fancy than before. No, as a means of happy wandering, the human mind remains supreme. Thus it is with a great sense of liberation and relief that I attack this next chapter, for it will deal with my own memory, unfetterd by research into facts and figures; for I intend now to give you some impression of Shapurji as a Father and a family man. He and Sehri had five children, three sons and two daughters, of whom I am the youngest and, alas, the only lonely survivor; and, no doubt, each of these five minds would have carried its owner on a different journey and would have shown Father in five different lights. But here is my version of my father, for better or worse. I shall not only relate my direct memories, but also incidents and impressions passed on to me in later life by my mother. For Father was already in his middle forties when I was born so that I remember him only as a comparatively older man and I was only sixteen when he died. Whereas I shared my life with my mother until I was fifty-eight and she was eighty-eight, and I depend greatly on her recollections for my knowledge of Father.
Like his Uncle Jamsetji, he was a creative dreamer and idealist; he was not, however, endowed with the same measure of pragmatism as that industrious, industrial magnate. He shared with his uncle an unquestioning and unquestioned determination to have his own way in all matters both public and private, which was seen as strength by his admirers and as obstinacy by those less sympathetic to him. He had an impish, ebullient yet quiet sense of fun and humour, and often used jocularity to prick the bubbles of pride or false dignity in
others. Wide reading and powers of observation together with a prodigious memory and a facility with figures bestowed upon him an encylopaedic knowledge which enabled him to make long political speeches laden with accurate statistics, ex tempore and without reference to written notes. He was affectionate,loving and sympathetic, with an understanding of and a deep concern for the problems and sufferings of others; and when he was dealing with human deprivation on a massive scale and talking in terms of millions, he always saw their collective misery as the plight of individuals; people remained people and were never diminished by their numbers into mere statistics. He loved the beauties both of nature and of the arts and was enriched by his enjoyment of both. He always stressed the need for honesty and honourable conduct in private as well as in public life. He was a deeply religious man while not subscribing to the tenets or doctrines of any one religion; but he tried always to steer a course of good against evil; his religious ardour finally found expression in Communism which became his fervent belief as a vehicle for the ultimate good of all mankind. He believed in the universality of man and that no one man or group of men or a nation should seek to improve their own lot to the detriment of other men and other nations; hence his defiant and progressive fight against all forms of imperialism; this was, I think, the guiding force behind all his political thinking, and the main spring of all his endeavours. ?
He does not appear to have engaged in any physically active recreations. In one edition of Who's Who he gives "playing chess and silence" as his hobbies. He was a contemplative man and certainly there was no natural physical violence in him.
He was always lucidly logical and was able to touch upon the centre and fundamentals of even the most complicated issues of any debate. His transparent sincerity and his sacrifice have never been questioned even by those who were opposed to everything he stood for, and his unblemished integrity gained the respect and admiration of both followers and opponents. I think the only man who could have been regarded as an enemy and one who was always personally antagonistic towards him, was his cousin, Dorabji Tata; this feeling of animosity was engendered during their boyhood more by jealousy due to Jamsetji's loving disposition and admiration for Shapurji, than by any particular trait in Shapurji's own character. Jealousy is such a self- destructive emotion, that as I found out more and more of the bitter enmity that Dorabji displayed towards my father, I could not but help feeling sorry for him; for although he did much to damage my father's career as a business - man, I am convinced that he made himself more miserable than he made Father. In many ways, we are all indebted to him; for had Shapurji flourished in the family business, his political career might never have been fulfilled; and, so far as I personally am concerned, he may well never have met my mother, and where would I be then? In the void, I suppose, in the abyss, and without a mind to travel on.
Because our surname is a distinctive one, even in India, all through my life I have always been asked if I am related to Saklatvala the M.P. And I have found nothing but admiration for him as a speaker and as a man even among those who had no sympathy whatever with his political ideals. On one occasion when he was having a ding-dong with the then Home Secretary in the House of Commons, the Speaker thanked him for his unfailing courtesy in Debate. And while he was always emphatic and outspoken in political exchanges, he never wittingly gave anyone personal offence.
Alas! He was not always quite so delicate in his dealings within the family. He was generally somewhat stern and aloof towards his children but we all were aware of his warmth and affection; his strictness was itself a measure of his concern. He was, in fact, very fond and proud of all of us. The baby of the family always sat next to him at meal-times and it was he who fed us and taught us how to feed ourselves in a mannerly way. He frequently took my eldest brother Dorab to the office with him from when he was only about eighteen months old. He often took me with him on his travels when he was addressing meetings up and down the country from when I was only about three. He even helped Mummy to cut out the clothes she made for us all; he was, in fact, much more personally involved with our day to day upbringing than most men of his generation.
The first baby was born in Brookwood because Daddy's mother was buried there and he wanted to be near her grave. This attitude towards the dead changed completely when he was an older man. Indeed, on the very day that he died, he had been arguing with an Indian friend and journalist in favour of cremation and had said to him: "Well, I hope when I die they will put me in the dustbin along with all the other rubbish." But in 1907 and 1908 he was more sentimental on the subject. He must have been terribly excited to have a son and when a neighbour asked him what the baby was, he mischievously told her it was twins! And she canvassed the news up and down the whole street, so that there was a great wave of sympathy for the fragile young wife. When Daddy finally admitted that it was just one baby boy, they were all so delighted that they forgave his teasing.
When Dorab was still only an infant, the family moved to a cottage in the Vale of Health in Hampstead some time towards the end of 1908. There, their neighbours were an elderly couple, Mr and Mrs Marriott, who also hailed from the north. They replaced to some extent my mother's parents, whom she sorely missed, and they were a great support and guide for her as a young mother; she was always glad of the older woman's advice and they remained life-long friends.
After about a year, when Father lost his job with British Westinghouse, the family moved to 373, Stainsby House, Barker Lane, Ashton-upon-Mersey, Sale, Cheshire. On the 10th of September, 1909, on my mother's twenty-first birthday, their second baby, Candida was born. She was the only one of us who ever openly defied Daddy, but she was as determined as he was; she always spoke with great authority and it never occurred to me to question her any more than I would have questioned my Father.. She was, of course, ten years older than I was which helped her in the sibling hierarchy. But more than any of us she inherited Father's authoritas.
When Candy was a few months old, Daddy wanted to concentrate on his legal studies and so Sehri set out to visit America without him. He also wanted his two brothers who had settled in America, Pherozeshah and Beram, to meet Sehri and the two babies; he was proud of all of them and always enjoyed showing them off. It was agreed that the naming of the new baby girl should be left to the choice of Shapurji's brothers; meanwhile they had been to see Shaw's "Candida" and Mummy playfully called the baby Candida. When she arrived in the States she told the immigration officer that she had come to stay with her brother-in-law. Because he was not a blood relation she was told she would be sent to Ellis Island. She had never heard of it and did not understand what was happening. Then Pherozeshah came on board and said he was her brother - because in the family no distinction was made between brother and brother-in-law. This made the authorities even more suspicious and it was only after a stormy altercation between Pherozeshah and the immigration authorities that Sehri and her two babies were allowed to land. The imperturbable young Mum took it all calmly in her stride.?
She got on well with the two brothers and also with Pherozeshah's secretary,Mae, whom he married some years later. There was a musical running in New York at the time called "The Candy Kid", so the name Candida was cut down to Candy and her name was formally decided upon. After a few months the family was re-united in England. It was from Kaikoo Mehta and not from Father direct that my Mother learned that Shapurji had not taken his legal exams as planned. So far as I know, the legal career was never spoken of again.
I think that it was at this juncture that they moved to 93, Great Clowes Street, Broughton, Salford, for it was there that baby number three was born, another son, named Beram after Father's youngest brother. Beram the elder was a metallurgist in America and was making a name for himself there; he was undoubtedly the brains of his generation. My brother, his namesake, proved to be the brains of his generation also. He became a successful writer and had pictures hung in the Institute of British Artists, as well as being a successful business man, making his career in the family firm, chiefly in the Iron and Steel Company which Father had done so much to found. He was a colourful, imaginative, tender-hearted boy and man, very family -minded and always at hand to help in any crisis or distress. He was always a great spinner of tales, and from when he was only three years old, Daddy would stand him up in the drawing-room to entertain guests with stories of his own creation. He apparently once held everyone enthralled and helpless with laughter by relating a saga about a 'chocodile' that bit a lady's bottom; this was not a word currently in vogue in the drawing-rooms of the day. My mother was very pregnant at the time and her laughter led to her having to escape in haste to the bathroom to avoid embarrassment. Candy also did her share of entertaining but she was content to recite verses that she had learnt rather than to invent stories of her own. The two younger children were always close friends and allies and rather ganged up against Dorab the oldest, who was of a much shyer and more timid disposition.
Father's great preoccupation with honesty made him seem all too often to be an intimidating parent. When Dorab was about six, he came home from school one day with a little cork from a bottle in his pocket. When Father was undressing him at night, he asked him where the cork had come from; Dorab, in all innocence, said it had come from the school lab. If he had stolen the Crown Jewels, Daddy could not have been more angry. He explained that the cork did not belong to him but to the school and that it was, therefore, stealing to remove it from the school. The next morning being Saturday, Daddy trotted the poor little shame-faced boy to the private home of the Headmaster, told him that Dorab had stolen the cork, that he had become a thief and that he had come to apologise and to return the property to the owner.
Shortly afterwards, Candy came home and Daddy found a piece of chalk in her pocket. He stared at her sternly and demanded to know where the chalk had come from. "O," she said, with feigned surprise, "it must have fallen into my pocket by mistake!" She got away with it. She got away with most things! When she was only a toddler, she would often loiter by shop windows when my parents were taking their two small children for a walk. Daddy would say, "Just walk out of sight round the corner and she'll soon follow." But she never did follow, and it would end with Dorab in tears, wailing that they would lose Candy; the stubbornly independent little girl did not even notice that the family had disappeared. Once, when they were living temporarily with Ratan Tata in York House, Father found the children talking after they had been put to bed; to punish them, he took Candy on to the landing and laid her down on cushions there; as usual, he mistakenly thought that she would beg to be taken back to bed; as usual she did not. "O, thank you, Daddy," she said, "I like it here because the light will be on all night, won't it?" Defeated, Daddy went downstairs and appealed to my mother to go and put the unrepentant rebel back to bed, as though it were a conspiracy between them both against Papa. So long as she was convinced that she was putting one over her stern parent, she was content!
Beram was only eight months old when the family went to India in 1912, expecting to settle there. Father was a poor sailor and was not much use to Mother on the voyage. Mercifully, she always enjoyed sea travel and remained her usual robust and competent self, looking after the three small children and a sea-sick husband as to the manner born. She always delighted in her brood; I used to tease her and say that motherhood was a disease with her. She certainly never felt, as many modern mothers appear to do, that to be with her children was boring. She treated them as an artist would treat his creations; they were her diversion, her delight, her life's work. When she was in her late eighties, shortly before she died, she once said to me that her greatest happiness (among many) had been when she held her first baby in her arms; indeed, I have a photograph of her, holding her tiny prize triumphantly above her head, like any Goddess of Victory. So she coped with the journey, adequately and joyfully.
Before they arrived in Bombay, Father told Mother of a dream he had had. In his dream he had warned his beloved Sehri that it was ??
the custom among Parsis to give money as gifts; it was likely, therefore, that the family would give money to her and he did not want her to feel either insulted or embarrassed by this. Sehri, even in Father's dreams, acted with unfailing candour. "Why should I be insulted?", she had asked, "I love people to give me ANYthing!" . Wide awake, Sehri assured him that his dream expressed her waking feelings exactly. It was true - any gift to Sehri was an act of love, and love was her favourite currency, no matter what container it arrived in. So, with the recital of a dream, Shapurji tactfully tested Sehri's reaction to any possible future present giving - I wonder if he really DID dream it all? Anyway, they both enjoyed the joke and any anxiety Father might have felt evaporated in their early morning laughter.
1912 was a year of triumph for the Tata Iron and Steel Company; in January of that year, during the visit to India of the King-Emperor, Lord Crewe, the then Secretary of State for India, visited the steel works at Sakchi (which was later renamed Jamshedpur in honour of the founder) and saw part of the operation of production. But, although Father had contributed in large measure to the foundations of the company, he was not given any position in T.I.S.C.O. by Dorabji. Instead, he was appointed to investigate irregularities that were suspected in the running of the Taj Mahal Hotel. He must have been hurt by this slight but never complained about it to anyone; unless, perhaps, he confided in his father with whom the family was staying in Bombay. It says much for Father's family allegiance, love and loyalty that throughout the legal battles and antagonisms with Dorabji, my father would never say a word against the family in any social context; he remained loyal, loving and proud and would never countenance any outsider to voice any criticism of his cousins without his challenging it; of course, politically and with his solicitor and Counsel, it was a different matter. But on the whole, despite the disappointments of his work and future prospects with the firm, this was one of the happiest periods in Shapurji's life. He had returned to his beloved India, bringing with him the most cherished prize of his life,his adored Sehri. And, to make his happiness complete, she was not only accepted by his family but was welcomed affectionately as a daughter and a sister; and, most important of all from Shapurji's point of view, his wife and his sister became close friends and always remained so.
One story that he related to Mother of his work in the hotel always amused her; he went down to the kitchens one afternoon and found one of the chefs asleep on the table with his head pillowed on a loaf of bread. One can only give the unnamed fellow the benefit of the doubt and hope it was a stale one, destined only for the birds! Another memory of which I never tired was the story of how Shapurji had presented Sehri with a peacock and its hen to adorn the garden; but the ill-fated peahen fell into a barrel of tar and died; the devoted peacock died three days later of starvation and, presumably, a broken heart. Mother seemed to enjoy telling me this sad tale; perhaps that devoted pair of splendid birds became a symbol of the devotion of the giver and receiver of this ornithological gift of love.
Father upset Granddad by telling the servants that he did not require them to take their shoes off in his or his family's presence; Granddad complained bitterly to Mummy - "He can do whatever he likes in his own house, but I will not allow him to upset the routine of mine!" But all the servants assigned to Shapurji continued to be allowed to wear shoes. Father was revolted at the thought of anyone being expected to humiliate himself before another human being in any way, however trivial. On the whole, servants were treated very harshly in those days and Granddad was no exception. He expressed the opinion that you had to hit them, kick them,if need be, to get them to work properly. But both my parents treated the servants as they treated all human beings, with courtesy and respect; and they certainly responded by working happily for them. It was a subject on which father and son never saw eye to eye.
I have so far not mentioned that Shapurji, also, had a violent temper. This found public expression in his passionate oratory but at home it manifested itself simply as bad temper. Very often it was matters outside the home that were upsetting him but some minor domestic incident could trigger off a spate of shouting that frightened us all. Of course, like his Uncle Jamsetji before him, (whom in many characteristics he closely resembled), he not only liked, but expected always to get, his own way; he therefore demanded absolute obedience from us children. Most of us gave it to him unquestioningly; my sister, however, shared this trait with him and always, from babyhood, defied him. My eldest brother Dorab was five when they were in Bombay; he was always, both as man and boy, very shy. Daddy told him to thank Granddad by saying 'Ha-ji' but Dorab said his thank you in English. This blew up into a major confrontation and ended with Father hitting the little boy with a cane. My Mother intervened and she became the target of his shouting. One of the servants went to the house of Ali Fui (Daddy's sister) and related the story to her, no doubt with dramatic embellishments. When Ali Fui saw my mother afterwards her sympathies were all with her English sister-in-law and she said that he should have married a Parsi girl who would not have put up with such nonsense! However, my Mother somehow rode these storms but they were terrifying episodes. When Mother remonstrated with him after one of these outbursts he said that he only bothered to lose his temper with those he loved, namely, his mother, his sister, his wife and his children; other people, he said, were not worth expending his energy and passions on. Well, this was small comfort; although I see what he meant. I myself am never very much moved by what strangers and casual acquaintances say of me - it is only those I care for who have the power to hurt me.
This bad temper was offset by an impish and ebullient sense of humour which was often evident in many of his House of Commons speeches. He stood very much alone in that august body, being the only Indian as well as the only representative of the Communist Party and his humour became a keen and potent weapon of self defence when he was besieged on all sides, from right, left and centre. That was the one place in which he almost never lost his temper, but he was at all times courteous and correct, though often, roguishly, taking the micky out of his political opponents.
Dorab was made much of in India as the future head of the family. Granddad had a grown-up Parsi suit made for him with the traditional hat and he was photographed in all his adult finery. I think both the boys were very much spoilt by all of Daddy's relations, his sister and brother and old Aunt as well as by his father. I never heard much about the reaction to the little four year old Candy. Perhaps the unusual surroundings finally daunted her, as nothing else had done. Baby Beram succumbed to the heat and was so desperately ill that Sehri was sent to Ootacamund by train with the three children. It was only a long time afterwards that she was told that no one had expected the little baby to survive the journey; but mercifully, he did, and in the cooler air of the hills fully recovered. Perhaps this near loss of his infant son was in Shapurji's mind when, years later as an M.P., he devoted much of his attention to the unacceptably high infant mortality rate in British India; he complained of it again and again; as always, while speaking of the deaths of thousands, he understood that each individual death was a grief and a loss to each of the sorrowing parents. Babies remained babies even in their thousands - they were never impersonal statistics.
Sehri was never told how Shapurji's employment with the firm in India came to an end. One day he sent a messenger to the house and told her to start preparing to return to England as they were to leave within a week. When he came home that evening, he tried to persuade his father to sail back with them. Finally, Granddad agreed. The next day, Sehri told Granddad that he had better start making preparations for the journey ; but Granddad said quietly that he was not going. "But you told Shapur last night that you were coming back to England with us." "I only said that," the old man said, "to keep Sapoo quiet - but I am staying here." I have no knowledge of the exact date of their return, but I have a photograph of Mummy and the three children with Granddad's sister, Bachubai Fui, taken in March 1913; they were in Bombay for a year or so and probably returned to England in May or June of 1913.
On their return to England the family moved into York House, Twickenham, with Ratanji, as ever, a kind and affectionate friend to Shapurji and his family. The Saklatvalas had a wing of the house to themselves, but Ratanji and Navajbai spent alot of time with the children. From this period up to the time of Ratan's death in 1918, was a happy time for all of them, except, of course, for Ratan's increasing ill health. They remained for a few months in York House before moving to 51, Lebanon Park, just round the corner. Early in 1914, Shapurji made a journey to Bombay on his own, returning in April (when, as already related, he and Sehri met in France and enjoyed a brief holiday together unencumbered by the children) This trip was probably made on behalf of Ratan; I do not think that it was yet another attempt to persuade Dorabji to take him back into the fold in India; his year in Bombay had finally dispelled all hope of reconciliation in that direction, I think.
Once back in England, Shapurji threw himself once more into the political arena.He and Sehri settled down happily to their life near the river in Twickenham, a stone's throw away from Ratan's York House.
Father had always said he wanted all his children to marry partners of different nationalities - he envisaged fathering a tribe that would be truly international and free from jingo-ism. Once, Mother had gone to visit her parents and sisters in Manchester, and when she returned to Lebanon Park, she found awaiting her a beautiful Chinese lacquered cabinet about six feet high, as a surprise welcome-home present. "Where has THIS come from?" she asked. "Oh," said Shapur with his usual serious playfulness, "while you were away, Candy's future husband brought it as a gift from China." This cabinet adorned our home until 1972 when Mother and myself moved into a small house; it was too big for the little rooms and, in any case, the lacquer was beginning to show signs of wear. Needless to say, no Chinese husband ever turned up for my sister or for me either, come to that.
They went quite frequently to the Richmond Hippodrome and the Chiswick Empire, sometimes on their own and sometimes with Kaikoo Mehta and other friends. Their neighbours were a Mr and Mrs Mitchell who had boys about the same age as Dorab and Beram; parents and children all got on well together; Sehri and Mrs Mitchell often went shopping together. Apparently when they saw well-to-do elderly matrons trying on fine clothes and fur coats, Mrs Mitchell would say, "You and I would look alot nicer in that than SHE does! The trouble is, by the time we can afford to buy things like that, we'll be as old and ugly as they are!" When Mummy herself was elderly, she often used to quote Mrs Mitchell when she bought anything new and she laughed and saw the funny side of growing old. Actually, she never lost her good looks, even though she lost her youth, of course, like anyone else; but she maintained her finely chiselled countenance and perennially looked a good twenty years younger than she actually was.
Once when Mother was having tea with a somewhat elegant and conventional neighbour, Beram had had a rough and tumble with other boys in the street and got a bad cut on his head; he was brought to the house of the spic and span neighbour, bleeding and unconscious and looking like a disreputable street urchin. He was laid in the spare room bed, all frills and lace and satin cushions in his muddy and blood-stained clothes. He was always accident prone and always in trouble and disgrace as a small boy. But the incident did not sever the friendship between the refined hostess and my mother.
Father was again somewhat ahead of his time in that he did not believe either in baby-talk or in serving up fairy tales and illusions to the children. So one winter's afternoon, when Sehri and Shapurji were going up to town by train, they took their eldest-born with them. Dorab, unused to being out after dark, asked Father why there was only half a moon. Father, glad of the promising scientific curiosity displayed, went into astronomic detail and the child seemed satisfied. But when they emerged from the train at the end of their journey, Dorab looked into the sky and said, "THERE'S the other half of the moon all the time, Daddy!" So his hopes of producing a little Galileo were dashed.
In 1910 Shapurji had resigned from the National Liberal Club. He joined the Independent Labour Party in 1909 in Manchester. Now, soon after his return from India and with Europe plunged into war, his political involvements increased and he was less and less at home at week-ends; for he was already addressing and attending meetings of the various groups he supported. Even when he was at home, much of the time he was entertaining those who were sympathetic to his numerous causes. Once when he was discussing the role of the conscientious objectors, he addressed a little group of like-minded enthusiasts gathered in the house. He said: "And when your children ask you what you did in the Great War, you will be able to say you stood firm like men!" And the five-year-old Beram, precocious as ever, said to Mummy, "Oh, no, he didn't. He went out and bought honey and chocolate for us, didn't he?" This was because Father had indeed bought a large barrel of honey and packets of chocolate as a stand-by for the children, 'Because,' he had said, 'you never know, the war may last for six months.' It says little for his political insight that he looked upon six months as a possible long-term duration of a war that was to rage for four long years.
It seems to me in retrospect that he was surprisingly unworried by the conflict; so much so that he and Sehri planned their fourth child. Up to then, they had wanted a boy, followed by a girl, followed by a boy; and each time, their wishes had been fulfilled. They both began to take their good fortune for granted and the next baby was to be a girl and she was to be called Sehri, sentimentally, after her mother. But in 1915, after a particularly prolonged and difficult labour, they were presented with their third son; this one was called Kaikoo, after Kaikoo Mehta. He was a somewhat skinny little fellow, never very strong, cursed with a quick-firing temper but, as time passed, with an equally quick-firing wit. By the time he came on the scene, the sibling pattern was already established - the eldest son, Dorab, told he must as the eldest son be responsible for the good behaviour of the others, was consequently rather cut off from their companionship; Candy and Beram were constantly together, and I fear the puny little new-comer was condemned to loneliness. He was, therefore, made a fuss of by Sehri, who always doted on him and, probably, spoiled him.
It was about this time that Father was making a name for himself as a speaker for the Independent Labour Party and was much in demand; consequently he travelled a great deal up and down the country, addressing meetings and carrying on propaganda for the party. He was less and less at home.
There were many visitors of a purely social character to the house as well as the politically involved ones. Kaikoo Mehta was with us almost every week-end, Granddad Saklatvala was spending more and more time in England and often stayed at Lebanon Park for long periods. There were several Indian couples with children who joined in our family life, with picnics in Richmond Park and outings on the river. The scottish nurse, first recruited in 1908 in Brookwood was much in evidence. Mother's sisters took it in turns to come and spend holidays with her and Grandma and Granddad Marsh also came periodically from Oldham. There were visits to the London zoo. The hard working Sehri would be up at dawn preparing sandwiches, boiled eggs and kebabs and off they would go, a whole tribe of children and cousins and friends, for the journey across London. Grandma Marsh, for all her poverty, liked to keep in fashion and spent much time sewing and stitching to keep up with the times. Granddad would tease her and say, "Eh, aye, Annie-Jane, tha'd best be out o' this world than be out o' fashion!" And before one of the excursions to the zoo, she had busied herself for a whole afternoon, titivating and trimming a hat, which sported, amid the bows and ribbons, a sweeping ostrich feather. Alas, Grandma approached too near to the monkey's cage and a long arm streched out through the wire netting and grabbed the feather and would not let go; the hat was held firmly in place by a closely fitting veil; there was quite a scene until Granddad stopped laughing long enough to rescue both Grandma and the hat - but the feather fell in the battle.
In 1916, Mother's father died. He was ill for some weeks and Mummy went up to Derbyshire where he was staying with her sister Annie. All his children were devoted to him and their grief was profound as they all stood round his bed and he said good-bye to them all. "Tha's all been good childer", he said. Aunty Annie, in tears, answered him: "You've been a good Dad!" "Aye," he said, thinking it over, "Aye, I think I 'ave." In less than a year, Grandma was also to lose her eldest child, Lily, in childbirth. What sorrows people are called on to endure. The baby lived and was adopted by the childless married sister, Annie, always a close friend to Mummy as they were next to one another in age. The baby, called Lily after her dead mother, was to be a constant visitor to our house and she and I were as close as sisters as time went on, and I am thankful to say that we remain in sisterly friendship even now.
In 1918, death was to visit the family yet again, taking this time Father's cousin, Ratan. In Frank Harris's biography of Great-Uncle Jamsetji, it is said that the old man hastened his own death by his one indulgence, a love of good food. His son, Ratan, perhaps damaged his own health also but by other equally compelling appetites. These are warm-hearted failings and it seems to me hard that they should be punishable by death; I look upon them as weaknesses that go with warmth and compassion and a loving disposition; I contend that those who suffer from them are far better people than the cold or stony-hearted who are often full of puritanical righteousness. So in 1918, Daddy's closest cousin, died in Cornwall and Shapurji's links with the family became even more tenuous and even more dependent on the toleration, if not exactly the good will, of Dorabji. His death was indeed a bitter blow to Shapurji; fortunately his widow, Aunty Navajbai, continued to visit us whenever she was in England, always much loved by every one of us. my Mother included; indeed, she was such a favourite that when my middle brother Beram was a boy, he always said he planned to marry her! She was daintily petite, with a pretty, small- featured face with a mischievous mouth and merry eyes. She dressed most elegantly with sarees and blouses made from French fabrics, very chic, very graceful. To her, Shapurji's politics and high principles were something of a joke and she loved to provoke and tease him, usually through us. When I was four, Daddy sent me to join my youngest brother to a convent school. Since he had been taught by Jesuit Fathers, he had implicit faith in them as teachers and was convinced that nuns, also, being unencumbered by family and emotional entanglements, were able to give their undivided attention to the children in their care. But he did not want to be reminded of the accusation that he had once become a Catholic; and he had stipulated that we children were not to receive any religious teaching at the hands of the nuns. But I loved the stories, the prayers and the hymns and Aunty Navajbai would sit me on her knee and have me recite for her my Hail Marys and the Our Father and would watch my Father's consequent discomfiture with obvious glee. I, of course, was too young and innocent to realise that anything was amiss and merely basked in her adoration and praise.
At last, in 1918, with the war still dragging on, it was decided that another attempt should be made to produce a baby Sehri. The still lonely little Kaikoo was told that he could expect a baby sister in June, 1919. When, in March, the clocks were put forward to summer time, he said with a sigh that would have been more fitting in an old man, that he wished they would put the clock on to June so that he could play with the new baby. Mother was always touched by this because she felt it showed a non-jealous and loving nature. But I see it as a revelation of that poor little boy's loneliness and isolation within the family. I think it was still quite unusual for small children to be told all that much in advance of an impending new arrival. At last, on the second of June, 1919, I put in an appearance. Mummy's youngest sister Lottie was staying with us at the time and deeply offended my mother by taking one look at me and giggling, saying, "Oh, what a funny little thing! What a funny little thing!" Mummy, always convinced that the latest arrival was the acme of perfection, never fully forgave her for this lapse into tactlessness. My father spoiled me from the word go and bored all the family by constantly talking about me. This was not due to any particular virtue in me but simply, I am sure, because I bore the same name as his beloved wife.
Granddad Saklatvala came down from Manchester to inspect me when I was six weeks old. Apparently he was convinced that I was a re-incarnation of his grandmother whose name had been Jeevanbai; this second name was, therefore, added to my certificate of birth in accordance with his wishes. Granddad superstitiously always carried a photograph of me as an infant and never signed any important letter or document without placing my picture in front of him on his desk. Normally my father would have remonstrated with him for such superstition but he seems to have been pleased by this particular manifestation of a credulity he would in other circumstances have condemmned. It so happened that Granddad was planning to visit his two sons in America and he wrote to my parents from Manchester, asking them to have another photograph taken of me since the one he had, through constant handling, was very worn. He was told when the picture was taken and he was promised a copy as soon as it arrived from the photographer. He therefore sent the old photograph to Uncle Pherozeshah in New York. The next morning, while packing his trunk, he had a heart attack and died. Daddy said that, had any other disaster overtaken him, he would undoubtedly have ascribed it to his having parted with my photograph. In a letter addressed to my brother in 1937, a year after Father's death, one Mr Colin Cannie wrote and described how Daddy had stayed with his family in Glasgow in 1935 and how he had been talking of matters occult and related the story of Granddad's death. Mr Cannie wrote: "This aspect of his life you should bring out as these were genuine experiences indeed, though he, of course, couldn't or didn't endeavour to explain them. That may seem queer to those who accept the old type of dialectic materialism, yet "Sak" (as he insisted on our addressing him as that and really I look on it as a very dear name to me) was not prepared to scoff at it and dismiss it as baloney; I think he looked upon it as something at present he was or we are unable to explain because of certain gaps in our scientific knowledge. Anyway, his mind was not prone to superstition and his analytical power was highly developed...."
Granddad Saklatvala had always doted on the boys in the family but had left Candy out in the cold. He would give the boys a half-crown and give nothing to my sister and cruelly told her she was just a stone. No wonder, then, that she disliked him. She was staying with friends in Belgium when he died and they relayed what they thought should be the sad news to her. She used to tell me years later,( when we were very good friends and close companions,) how she felt that her hosts expected her to show some grief; so, although she felt nothing except perhaps relief at his passing, she sat in front of a mirror, trying desperately to make the tears fall - but none came!
It is equally not surprising that when I made my appearance in her world, fussed over by Daddy, doted on by the Grandfather who had despised her girlhood in favour of the male progeny, that she felt hurt and angry and frustrated by my arrival. She resented deeply being asked to take me out in the pram and she and her friend used to see who could make me cry first on these enforced perambulations. When we were grown up she used to relate these episodes to me and we both laughed about them; mercifully, the resentment passed with my childhood and, as adults, we were the best of friends. Thank God she was of a forgiving disposition. But I do not think she ever felt the same devoted affection for my father as I had and, indeed, still have. Perhaps she wondered, as I have often done, why SHE was not called after my mother, as the first-born daughter. Neither of us ever asked the question out loud and therefore neither of us ever knew the answer.
In 1921 or 1922 when I was about two, Father bought their first house. Up to then they had always lived in rented accomodation. Number two, Saint Albans Villas, Highgate Road, N.W.5. (always known to us all as "number two"), was a large, Edwardian villa,having four storeys including a basement.
Because of our association with the Tatas, it was always assumed that we, too, were wealthy; in fact, we were anything but. Father was still, at this time, working in quite a modest capacity in the Tata office in London. Kaikoo Mehta was also there and the two men remained staunch friends. Kaikoo was unmarried but had a most elegant house-keeper called Mrs Milton; she was a very aristocratic-looking lady who had been driven to earn her living because a dissolute husband had abandoned her; her only son had been badly gassed in the war and consequently was an invalid. She was a dignified, methodical lady, with a flower-like complexion and a dignified aristocratic face, surmounted by a high edifice of white, silky hair, cascading in waves from a high crown to the nape of a long and graceful neck. She always rose at about five o'clock and had most of the work finished before anyone was about; she would have felt it infra dig to be witnessed performing menial household chores. More often than not she came with Kaikoo Mehta on his week-end visits to us and she and my mother were intimate friends. From time to time, we children would spend a week-end with her ... always only one at a time. Father was a great believer in sending us to stay with friends and relatives so that we learned how to conduct ourselves in the company of others, away from parental guidance.
Father had grand plans for the house but money was scant and everything had to be done bit by bit. We were nearly five years with no floor covering on the stairs, and my mother used to sweep and scrub the bare boards of flight after flight of stairs. Indeed, she only managed to have them covered when Daddy was safely housed in Wormwood Scrubs in the 1926 General Strike; she had saved all her birthday and Christmas present money for years and drew it out of the Post Office for the lino. Shapurji had walls knocked down to make rooms bigger and he had other walls built to make rooms smaller. The garden was dug out in front of the basement so the basement was level with the garden. The coal cellar was transformed into a large entrance hall, the steps leading up to the old front door were excavated away. What had been a rambling old kitchen became our dining room and a new kitchen was built onto the back of the house. The old entrance hall on what had been the ground floor, with a dividing wall demolished, enlarged the front room which housed a billiard table, bookcases full of books and Beram's 'museum' of fossils and stones that he had collected. This was always known as the children's room.
In the drawing room, ( behind the billiard room and overlooking the large back garden,) above the Adam marble fireplace, he erected a life-size statue of Venus rising from sea-waves of plaster, her hair, swirling in the sea breezes delicately hiding anything that might be deemed indelicate in a drawing-room of the period. She, like many oil paintings of some beauty and worth, including a full length portrait of a statuesque lady by Burn Jones, came from York House after Ratan's death; we also had a full-sized reclining figure of Psyche with cupid at her feet, luxuriously bedded down amid her marble cushions on a plinth in the back garden; another York House momento.
A job lot of marble bought in an auction (my Father haunted auction sales which was another trait he shared with my sister), lined what had been the basement, the floors were of white and gray marble, the walls of pink. A miniature marble Taj Mahal bought at the Wembley Empire Exhibition adorned the marble mantelpiece and a marble table top inlaid with colourful mother-of-pearl was inset in one wall. Four oval plaques of white marble with draped and dancing figures in relief were set in the hall and dining room walls.
All these alterations were done bit by bit, often standing half finished for months on end while Father managed to accumulate the money to carry on. But one room he did immediately on arrival. For the first few weeks of our occupation of the house, the room that was to be my parent's bedroom was kept locked and Sehri was only allowed in on her birthday, when she was presented with grand French Empire furniture, heavy mahogany emblazoned with brass ornamentation, The walls were covered in wooden panels of shaded cream and a magnificent dressing table set of amethyst -coloured, cut glass shimmered on the dressing table; a plain cut glass toilet set lay resplendent on the polished green marble of the flamboyant french empire washstand. It was not for use; forming an "L" shape off the main bedroom was a dressing room. housing a wash basin, a huge wardrobe for Father's things and an exquisite chest of drawers inlaid with a geometric design of different coloured woods. In the large window, there was a shell-shaped sofa in black and gold, with deep rose silk upholstery with classical designs woven in gold silk. The same fabric had been used to cover the bed quilt and the chairs. What a birthday present! And what a far cry from the cottage at Fox-holes where Sally had been born. Such was Sehri's welcome to their new home.
Like his Uncle Jamsetji, Shapur wanted the benefit of all the best in modern inventions. His was one of the first houses to be run entirely on electricity; all our heating (which we could ill afford and only switched on for visitors - who, mercifully, were frequent!), our cooking, lighting and hot water system were all electric. In those early days there were frequent calamities; on one occasion when Mummy was entertaining a Parsi priest to dinner with other friends, the cooker was going full blast to cook a four-course dinner, the heating was on and the house was ablaze with lights; when the whole system, grossly over-loaded, succumbed to a power failure. We were suddenly plunged into total darkness, with a cooker full of half-cooked food and a swiftly cooling house. But mercifully, in those days, repair men were always at the ready and were soon at hand to rescue us.
.So much then for Shapurji, the doting Father and husband. happily settled at last in a home of his own. Let us now take a look at "Sak", the politician.