Bernard

But, he went back, your Uncle Norman went back to the Press you see when the War finished and he was demobbed. Bingham didn't like the idea of playing second fiddle having held the fort for four years. Norman of course was the natural successor, so Bingham retired and came back to Guildford (Surrey) and took a job with a big press in Guildford. Hazleton, in the meantime, had also come out; gone out as Production Manager.

Ronald

You hadn't had a Production Manager before?

Bernard

No. Well, yes, there'd be an Indian in charge, but it needed someone with a bit more authority, and Hazleton came out, so he was the junior of the three. There was your Uncle Norman, and Bingham, and Hazleton. Percy Knight then having retired. So Bingham retired, and Hazleton went down to Cuttack (Orissa), I think it was, to run the Press down there. Your Uncle Norman was on his own, and his furlough was due. The Society didn't know what to do about getting someone else to rally round the banner and take over while your Uncle Norman came on furlough. So the Indian staff, senior members of the staff, said to your Uncle Norman "Can you get your brother to come out?" It had never crossed your Uncle Norman's mind. I'd only been back in England a year, and you'd only just been born. He didn't know whether we'd come or not. He relayed the message to the Society, and actually we were one of the few who ever were invited by the Baptist Missionary Society to join the staff. We accepted the invitation where upon we had to offer, which sounded to me to be a bit of a cock-eyed way of doing it. We were invited, then we'd got to offer our services to the Society.

Ronald

Which they promptly accepted.

Bernard

Ah, it were promptly accepted all right. And that's how we went.

Ronald

So Bingham left before you got there?

Bernard

Bingham had gone before I got there. Oh yes. Your Uncle Norman was on his own.

Freda

We had to go quickly didn't we.

Bernard

Yes.

Ronald

You did.

Bernard

We did. We got everything settled up in about six months, which was quite a long time really, well short time really.

Ronald

What were prospects like in England if you'd stayed on?

Bernard

Well everybody was trying to get organised after the war. Everywhere was 'ultapulta' as you might say, upside-down, 'stone-cold-dead-in-de-market'. I was doing this flaming reporting, flogging up and down, doing these parish councils and I'd only got a bike... a cycle. I wanted to buy an Austin Seven from Freddy Farnsworth because I knew he'd got it for sale, and then he said his mother wasn't selling after all. Flogging up and down on a cycle... Ripley, and Alfreton, and Pinxton, and murders, suicides, inquests sudden deaths, county councils, urban councils, weddings, funerals, accidents, you name it we did it. Cor... what a life? Lighting up you lamp at Pinxton after a Parish Council finishing at half past nine and riding along cutside with your oil lamp burning on your bicycle and coming home. Getting home about half past ten and then starting to and writing copy. What a life? It wasn't a life at all!

Ronald

Then you settled into life in Calcutta fairly rapidly did you?

Bernard

Well I had that advantage you see. I knew what we were going to. Your mother didn't. I knew what we were letting ourselves in for.

Ronald

And you quite enjoyed the responsibility did you?

Bernard

I didn't enjoy it. I did it, because everybody thought it was very gracious on my part to be Assistant Superintendent to the younger brother. I said I only look older because I've been married longer.
(Note. Norman was in fact the older brother)

Ronald

And Uncle Norman wasn't married then, or was he?

Bernard

No. I don't think he was married then.

Ronald

So Uncle Norman, his talent was design was it?

Bernard

Oh yes... and typography. Oh yes.

Ronald

And he was good with clients was he?

Bernard

Oh aye, they thought the sun shone clean out of him.

Ronald

So what was your side of it?

Bernard

Well, mainly on being... well what it says really... assistant, handling customers, and going out to see customers. If I got stuck with anything I used to just walk round and ask your Uncle Norman about problems of typography and design and whatnot or whatever and sort it out between us. He was editor of 'Indian Print and Paper' (the Indian print industry's trade journal, also printed by the Press) at the same time, and if he wrote anything he used to pass his copy to me and ask me to sort it out, so he was the print expert, and I was pretty well the writing expert. That was the success of the h..enterprise, as you might say. Because he never hesitated to pass his copy to me for me to make some suggestions for articles and stuff that he wrote.

There were three organizations... well two people and one organization I must say that gave me credit if I'd got any skill at all about writing. One was always your mother. Of course she could recognise my stuff in anything. She'd say "Well you've written that." And your Uncle Norman always did too. He'd recognise any, you know, facility, I won't say skill, facility for writing, or whatnot. And the other was the Army odd though it may seem (Bernard was a Military Observer on Mountbatten's headquarters staff in Kandy, Ceylon, and in Burma). They always gave me credit in the Army. I was on the same level of course as these Fleet Street chaps. You'd got to hold your own there. They used to say "Oh, pass that on to Bernard Ellis. He'll tell you how to go on with this, that and the other." So I was very pleased in a way about that. But I didn't care a great deal about what they thought what I could do and what I couldn't do in England. It didn't bother me at all. If I was good enough for the Army I was good enough for anybody else.

So when your Uncle Norman retired under the age limit. He was still quite young because he went out when he was 21. They had this General Committee in Derby at Broadway Baptist Church. I can remember it as clear as daylight. And it was on the minutes that Mr B. G. Ellis, on the recommendation of the Committee, be appointed Superintendent of the Baptist Mission Press in succession to his brother. The Committee minutes came up for confirmation and the Rev. William Craig Eady stood up and he said "Mr. Chairman may I have the privilege of proposing the adoption of these Committee minutes and saying in passing with what pleasure it gives me to notice that it says in etc. etc. minute that my friend... etc. etc." That wasn't like Craig Eady because he was a man of very few words. So somebody thump... thump... thumped approval, and then Colin Weller got up. The Rev. Colin Weller from Worthing (Sussex) who used to be at Cinnamon Gardens in Ceylon. "Mr. Chairman..." and off we went. He was a bit that way. A bit pompous. "...and nothing gives me greater pleasure to second..." Oh crikey my flaming heart dropped right down into my boots. I thought .... help us, what on earth am I letting myself in for? I was on my own. I knew I should be on my own when I got back. There was no one to help me.

Right up to half an hour before we ran into Howrah Station (Calcutta) I was cogitating how on earth was I going to cope with the financial side of it?. I'd got cashiers and accountants and all that sort of thing but I was responsible for seeing that there was no jiggery-pokery. If anybody could do a bit of jiggery-pokery with money Indians were brilliant at it. I thought "Who can I possibly think up to help out in that direction?" And then it suddenly came to me. I can see myself now lying on that top bunk, in that Howrah Mail, it suddenly came to me... Sham Howard. I know he's in a bit of a sweat with Studio Nash, and he's a Jew, and what a Jew doesn't know about money isn't worth knowing. When we got off Sham came round, because he was a friend, I said "Sham, how are you fixed?" He said "What do you mean?" I said "How are things going with Studio Nash?" He said "A bit tight, business is very..." I says "How about joining Baptist Mission Press and being in charge of labour relations and the money?" ...and he jumped at it. I said "We can't pay you what you ought to get, but..." And he did, didn't he? He came.

Freda

Yes. He did.

Bernard

It was a big relief to me because had the oversight all the financial side of things.

Freda

He was there when we were in trouble weren't we?

Bernard

What, with lockouts and things? Are, we were. He got in trouble too with the workers.