Knowles Jenny - Cor blimey!: where ave you come from?

by Winifred Tovey with sections by Frank Tovey

When the London cabby asked the Tovey family, Where on earth ave you come from? it was not the first, nor the last time that they had to cause to ask themselves the same question.

Winnie and Frank started their married life in China just after World War II, and, following the birth of their first child, they had to flee from Maos Red Army; an experience that they have written about in their book Strangers in Chaotung. After a brief stay in England, undaunted by their earlier experience, they got back on a passenger ship, this time bound for India with two-year-old Rosemary and a new small baby in tow.

When they arrived in the recently independent India of 1951, the old mission hands took them aside to instruct them in the protocol inherited from the Raj, and strictly remind them that they were there to listen, learn, and on no account express an opinion.

But in no time at all Winnie and Frank were involved in work that extended beyond Franks role as a surgeon at the Holdsworth Memorial Hospital, with projects to alleviate sickness and famine in the areas outside of Mysore City.

Their children, likewise, mixed with both the very rich and very poor, on one day attending nursery school in the Maharajas Palace, and, on the next, visiting remote villages, where the last few miles could only be travelled on foot.

With the advent of Dapsone (in 1950) as an effective treatment for leprosy Winnie and Frank helped establish village clinics, providing reconstructive surgery and rehabilitation for leprosy sufferers, as well as practically eradicating new cases from local districts. With help at home from an ayah, cook and mali, Winnie took on other projects as well, bringing bore wells and cottage industry to drought-stricken villages that had previously suffered regular famines, and assisting in the resettlement of Tibetan refugees in nearby Bylakuppe.

Now, both in their nineties, Winnie and Frank have written their story. It is an exceptional tale about some of the events and people that have shaped the India of today.

by Winifred Tovey, with sections by Frank Tovey

Copyright belongs entirely

to the author and her husband Frank

and succeeds to their children

Rosemary, Jennifer, John and David

Editing assistance by

Jenny Knowles (nee Tovey)

Published by

Little Knoll Press

Second imprint January 2012

ISBN No. 978-0-9565359-4-8

Copies of this book can be obtained from

Tel: 023 8084 2190

E-book produced by Firsty Newbury

Acknowledgements by Winnie

I would like to convey my thanks to the people mentioned in the book, without whom there would be no tale to tell. Many have been most generous in letting me include parts of their own personal stories.

A special thank you goes to Frank, who has contributed two chapters and several inserts within the book, as well as looking out many of the photographs from our collection and helping with revisions. He also has been my mainstay throughout the time of writing, getting most of our meals and most of our shopping, because I can no longer manage long periods of standing.

Frank and I are very grateful to the Dalai Lama for his generosity in permitting, through his agent, the reproduction of some sections from his book, Freedom in Exile, and to Victoria Hislop, for her encouraging words and for allowing us to refer to her award-winning novel, The Island.

We have been most fortunate to have access to facts and details from old Holdsworth Hospital reports and from the letters that were kept by our relatives at home in England.

In writing this account we have had continuous editorial support from our daughter, Jenny, and the indispensable help of our son, David and our dear friend, Helen Rolton, who proof-read our manuscript.

Our other children, Rosemary and John, and the extended family, have been wholeheartedly behind us in the long task of compiling the book and its illustrations. It has been an enjoyable journey for us and we hope you will have pleasure in reading the result.

Winnie & Frank

with place names as they were in 1951 to 1967

A more detailed map of the Mysore City area can be seen on page 131

In 1955 on the 19th of December, London was drably wrapped in the grey, chilly cloak of a short winters day. Cloud drifted across the sky and the sun intermittently showed as a white orb, washing the streets and buildings with its watery light. Our three little children, Rosemary, then six years old, Jenny, aged four, and John, a wide-eyed two and a half year old, peered through the dull glass of the taxi window. John had been born in India, and neither Rosemary nor Jenny could remember anything of England, our family unit having left for India when Rosemary was two years old and Jenny a baby of just two months. They were agape at their first views of the country that we had always referred to as home. They looked out for any familiar landmarks that they had seen in the black and white pictures of the book on the Coronation of the Queen that had been sent to us by airmail by kind relatives.

John was always especially inquisitive and he turned from the misty taxi window to look at us in bafflement. Why is the moon shining in the middle of the day? he piped in his high voice. The girls laughed. Dont be silly John, thats not the moon, its the sun. John looked puzzled for a moment, and then said, Why is it that funny colour then?

We could see the cabby stifling a guffaw as he wagged his head from side to side. A few minutes later John called out again, Oh look! Theres Big Ben! This was just too much for the cabby. He turned his head around to look at us in disbelief. Cor blimey! Where on earth ave you come from? he exclaimed. Frank and I tried to ignore his remark to spare the childrens blushes. We had actually just driven past a small clock tower that stood in front of a flight of steps that led down from the pavement to a public convenience!

This experience brought home to Frank and me how very different our life in India was, and how, although the children had already seen and done many things that probably could not be imagined by our cabby, their thoughts and concepts were already shaped differently and would always be so.

The 1950s and 60s, the time when we worked in India, were years when the country was emerging from the days of the rule of the British Empire and, as a young and vibrant democracy, was taking over the reigns of its own destiny. We were privileged to be there and to be part of so much friendship and growth, and we would like to share this with you in the story to come.