Bernard

Baptist Mission Press was founded in 1818, so I understand, at least that was the date that was always put on their publicity, which your Uncle Norman designed.

They never had any publicity brochures put out at all until he arrived in 1931, and he immediately set to and got it knocked together, and it was very effective.

He was the one who developed print production outside Christian literature, although they did a lot with Oxford University Press, in fact they put out some of the most valuable publications that Oxford University Press had printed in Calcutta.

Your Uncle Norman went on, and he went on and developed it with all these various advertising agencies, Stronnacks, D. J. Keen, J. Walter Thompson, Jessop & Company crane manufacturers, engineers; all these big different firms.

Ronald

Well what was it doing before he went out there, if he developed all that?

Bernard

Well it was mainly Christian literature production.

Ronald

What, and university examination papers?

Bernard

Well that was slowly built up, but eventually all that of course was really a security press inside the press, about which no one knew anything outside, even the Baptist Missionary Society didn't know much about it.

But the security arrangements of the security press, for that's what it was, inside the press, were so tight, that in many cases neither the Superintendent, nor the Assistant Superintendent, knew what university the examination papers which they were proof-reading belonged to. He just read, the Superintendent or the Assistant Superintendent, read the final proofs and gave the OK to print sometimes in a range of 20,000... 30,000 copies... 4 page... 6 page... 8 page papers; and the only person who knew who the papers were intended for was literally the head of the department, who was responsible not only for that type of security, but also for every single sheet of paper that was issued. Every single sheet of paper in a 20,000 run had to be accounted for and if one sheet or two sheets were missing then a search had to go on until they found where it had got to. The reason for that was to check and make sure that there were no security leaks.

Ronald

Were there any security leaks while you were there?

Bernard

Not in our time! There were no security leaks in 20... 30 years that I knew of. But there was a case once brought in North India which your Uncle Norman had to go to court about, and that was under a great local security, no one knew where he had gone to, but he had to go to court to give evidence to prove that there was no leak could have happened in the Press where those particular examination papers were printed. The leak was proved to have come from the university. So that was why there had to be such intense security arrangements, but of course that was outside the range of Christian literature or ordinary commercial printing. In fact there was many a press of equal size in Calcutta that didn't know that Baptist Mission Press did so much security work.

Ronald

But it was just university examination papers, it wasn't anything else, you know, any other sort of security printing like tickets, or whatever?

Bernard

No, no, that could normally go through the ordinary channels, not channels but the ordinary machine department, but all the men who were employed in that security department were hand picked.

Ronald

And it was all closed off from the rest of the Press was it?

Bernard

It was a press inside a press. If any was shown round that press inside a press then it was considered to be a great privilege to see.
Ronald

Because I don't think I ever went in there did I?

Bernard

There was nothing 'Security, Danger, Keep Out, only Authorised Persons Allowed', none of that business, there wasn't, not at all. But a customer normally who came in connection with ordinary commercial work, whether it was B. I. News or even business cards of course they could hear the machines, they didn't know where they were, they were just behind the door, that was all there was to it.

But, they were all hand picked men, men of integrity, and they were all sorts, Hindus, Christians and Muslims, and they were all good men, all reliable, and especially the most reliable of all were two: one was Suresh Babu, of course a high caste Hindu; and Pipe Babu, who always looked as if he hadn't got a hair out of place. Do you remember Pipe Babu?

Freda

Yes, I do.

Bernard

He always looked so sleek and trim and neat and tidy. He really was a model of tidiness, and no one could imagine that he used to have to do all the bazaaring before he came to work, he did all the buying, for his house, and his household, because he had got 8 children, 8 or 9 children. But he was the type of clerk, that was his job he was a clerk, he was the type of person who looked as if nothing would ever knock him out of his stride, yet he had all the weight of his household, large household, on his shoulders, apart from his work. But he really was and extraordinarily calm and reliable individual. He used to type all the bills and the confidential correspondence that went on with the registrars of these different universities, and he did it all with one finger. Not one finger of each hand, but one finger! It really was tidy beyond words.

Pipe Babu, I had great admiration for him, and of course, of Suresh Babu. His desk, Suresh Babu's desk, it was an absolute pig stye of a desk. It was a little desk that he was at, and he got bits of paper all over it but, by golly, he knew where everything was. If the Press started at nine o'clock, which it did, nine times out of ten he would be in the office by eight o'clock in the morning, and if you happened to go in or you wanted to see him about something before actual work started, it was quite likely you'd see him at his desk doing his pujas, doing his prayers or what not, then you'd sort of back peddled and started again. Of course that was all outside ordinary Christian literature.

Of course if the commercial printing programme was heavy, and there were the machines to spare in the confidential department, then of course you'd use those machines in the confidential department to do ordinary commercial work on too.

But they were good machines, they were Albert Automats, that could do a few thousand impressions an hour. Then of course the day came when the Government of India, after Partition, decided to clamp down on imports to save foreign exchange I suppose, and the only machinery that could be bought was with Government permission and it came from East Germany. In fact we had one or two machines from East Germany, automatics, and they were so... well they were not solid that was the top and bottom of it. Albert Automats of course were from West Germany and they were very good machines.

But we had got one flat-bed that was very slow but reliable, and it was one of the earliest models that Linotype and Machinery built. It was one of their machines, flat-bed printing machines. They were so proud of the fact that one of these old machines was still in daily use that when their burrah-sahibs came out from England they'd come round to Baptist Mission Press and have a look to see one of these old machines still turning it out. Of course they were well maintained. That was one reason.

But the East German machines were flimsy compared with the others.

Ronald

Did you have an East German there to help you rig it up, or was it left to you?

Bernard

No, it was done through agents.

We had a Bremmer sewing machine, a section-sewer, that was the latest, one of the latest ones that we had put in. That was before the import licenses were required, and that was built in the machine department, and it never did work! No, the agent and his engineers they could get it to go at all. They stripped it down and rebuilt it and it just wouldn't work as it should. I mean if it did go at all it promptly broke down and finally they got in touch with the manufacturers in England and they sent a chap out specially and replaced the machine with a new one altogether.

Ronald

Was it that machine that stapled Len Hazleton's hand?
(Len Hazleton, the Machine Room Manager, was one of three Englishman who lived and worked at the Press. The others were Bernard and Norman Ellis)

Bernard

That was the one. Len Hazleton who was the expert production manager. What he didn't know about wasn't worth knowing, and he committed the elementary mistake of not switching the electric current off before he checked the machine, which one of the workmen said he couldn't get to go. All he'd got to do was to switch the electric current off and he didn't. And PHHH down came the needles and went right through the palm of his hand. I never saw such a mess. He bled like a stuck pig. We wrapped it up fast as we could and bunged him off to hospital, but he never fainted. That was outside working hours. I was no first aid gent.

Ronald

But was he trying to get it working?

Bernard

Yes, and the needle suddenly came down. He'd not switched it off. Simple. So it proved, just elementary, absolutely elementary to switch the current off before you start fooling about with a machine.

Anyway, the press was formed in 1818, and it just went on and on and on, and the range of languages was increased until they were doing a lot in Tibetan. One Superintendent, I don't know his name, oh, was it Percy Knight, it may have been Percy Knight, or perhaps his predecessor Thomas, he offered 30 rupees to any compositor who could learn to set in Tibetan. A young compositor took it up because 30 rupees was a lot of money, and he taught himself to set from the written script, in Tibetan, and he set at the case, in Tibetan, and he earned his 30 rupees. Well, I should think the chap would be in his early 20's. I met him, and he was then about 90, and he used to appear about once or twice a year to prove he was still alive. He was pensioner, he'd been a pensioner for about 30 years, and he told me how the burrah-sahib had said you can have 30 rupees if you can learn to set in Tibetan.

Ronald

You set in Chinese as well didn't you?

Bernard

We had got a range of Chinese type, but we hadn't got anyone who could set it. Of course they'd soon learn how to do it, but it wasn't worth it, but we did used to have sometimes Chinese characters that were necessary and the simplest thing then was to get them drawn by an artist and make a line block of it, that was the cheapest way of doing it. Of course we employed our own artist. He used to do these geometric figures and others that were required in confidential work. Roughs were supplied by the customer and he used to work from them.