Bernard

The thing about it was, you see, that India has a very honorary garbage company comprising crows, and lizards, and rats and... So they eat up or dispose of the garbage that should otherwise be taken by Calcutta Corporation. Cockroaches could be eaten by lizards, and lizards, little lizards, lived behind pictures on the walls, so if there was a cockroach anywhere around a lizard would stalk it. If you could hear a bang, bang behind the store cupboard you'd know a lizard had got it and was trying to kill it, banging its nut on the wall.

Freda

Yes.

Ronald

Did you ever sleep with a mosquito net?

Bernard

Well we slept with a mosquito net in the Cold Weather but not in the Hot Weather. There were no mosquitos in the Hot Weather, but as soon as October came you had to start putting a mosquito net up. Then the thing of course was to tuck three sides in, and then you'd crawled under the fourth side, and tuck that in once you were in bed. If you'd already got a mosquito in the net it was hopeless to try to sleep. It wouldn't waken you up by buzzing round, it would waken you up by biting. So the thing then to do was to get up and switch the light on and have a handkerchief under your pillow, and as soon as you could spot a mosquito inside the net... you didn't wang round with anything to try and hit it, you waited till it settled on the net, inside, and then you smeared it with your handkerchief.

Ronald

And that squashed it.

Bernard

It didn't squash it. You sort of went like that and then it would leave a slight blood stain and that was your own blood that it had swallowed during the night.

Ronald

But did you ever find that cockroaches were settling on you during the night, or anything like that?

Bernard

Well they seemed to make a beeline for my bald patch. They always flew over your mother in the middle of the night through the open window... because the windows were open you see.

Ronald

They're quite scary when they are flying aren't they?

Bernard

Well yes they're quite big. And they'd sometimes settle on my nut. Do you remember? They'd go like that. They could bite as well.

Freda

They could.

Bernard

If you had one like that the thing to do was to have a whippy slipper and wait until... of course they crawled all over the floor... have a whippy slipper and then you bashed and bashed until you eventually slew it. You knew by next morning, the ants had come anyway, and by next morning it had gone because the ants had come and taken it away in the middle of the night.

Ronald

But did you have lizards?

Bernard

Little lizards. Little lizards that lived behind pictures.

Ronald

Crawling across walls and things.

Bernard

They just crawled. Well you could barely see 'em move they were so clever. If they saw a mosquito or an insect on the wall they'd very, very slowly approach it, and then out would flick their tongue, and that was that. But if you touched the tail, of course, it left its tail behind and dazzed off without it.

Ronald

What was the heat like out there? Did you get used to it in the end or was it always...

Bernard

Well it got to such a pitch when you didn't bother about such things. You see pre-War everyone wore a topee. Everyone. Right up to 1944. It was a punishable offence in the Army to walk across any open space in India without... any soldier, or officer... wearing a topee. Then it was slowly proved that the sun wasn't as dangerous as all that. They were very cheap too. A good topee didn't cost much.

Ronald

Did it help? Did it keep you cool?

Bernard

Yes it did. You wore 'em in Coonoor.

Ronald

I know. I can't remember much about it.

Bernard

A Calcutta topee was quite stylish. It wasn't heavy.

Ronald

You can still buy topees

Bernard

I expect you can. I suppose in some parts of India that its essential but these things go in fashions. No European really... daytime especially... never wore a topee. Not after the War had ended.

Ronald

But it was made of cork wasn't it?

Bernard

Cork. Yes. Locally made.

Ronald

Sort of light and it kept the sun off the back of your neck.

Bernard

Very light. Kept the sun off the back of your neck and just out of your eyes. They weren't these 'pig stickers' as they used to call them... 'pig sticking' type at all.

Ronald

Well how hot do think it got in Calcutta?

Bernard

Well when it was hot in the Hot Weather it could be 105 Fahrenheit.

Ronald

Would that be about June, July or...?

Bernard

Well the Hot Weather began April, May, June. That was when they played football. They played cricket in the Cold Weather. Football in the Hot Weather; cricket in the Cold Weather. They played cricket, and football, and hockey, all on the same grounds. They were really very good groundsmen Indians were.
But the most trying time was September which was the change of seasons and humidity. It could be 100%. Your mother used to go and practise on that American organ at Lower Circular Road and come back all of a sweat and change completely top-to-bottom. Sometimes in the humidity, if you were in the office doing any close work at your desk, sometimes you used to feel sweat drip on to your desk top.

Ronald

Did you ever feel it was so hot that you really couldn't concentrate on what you were doing?

Bernard

Oh yes many a time you couldn't concentrate on what you were doing. The only thing to do then was when you felt your head nodding, or swimming, or anything, was to get up and go out and wash in tepid water. Wash your face. Go in the flat and wash you face. Another thing was to put your hands in the water up to your wrists. That was one way of cooling down.

Ronald

But did you ever feel I've had enough of this I can't stand anymore?

Bernard

No, no.

Ronald

It never got that bad.

Bernard

No.