Trajectory

By Paul Malcolm

Born of Armenian parents in 1924, Paul Malcolm lived his first 20 years in Bombay. He first visited Australia in 1944 while in the Merchant Navy, and settled there three years later. After exotic Bombay he found the Fremantle of 1947 dull, but went on to a much livelier Sydney, then to Broken Hill & in 1959 joined Weapons Research Establishment in South Australia. As a key figure in the Skylark rocket project, he describes how British scientists focused first on the upper atmosphere, and went on to other areas of interest, e.g. radiation from the sun and stars. Paul retired in 1984 and now enjoys an active lifestyle including walking, dancing, Tai Chi and lawn bowls.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReadOnTime BV
• Release date: Dec 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781742844619

Book preview

Trajectory

Bombay to Australia & the rocket range

Paul Roy Malcolm

Trajectory: Bombay to Australia & the rocket range

Copyright © 2014 Paul Roy Malcolm

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The information, views, opinions and visuals expressed in this publication are solely those of the author and do not reflect those of the publisher. The publisher disclaims any liabilities or responsibilities whatsoever for any damages, libel or liabilities arising directly or indirectly from the contents of this publication.

A copy of this publication can be found in the National Library of Australia.

ISBN:  978-1-742844-61-9 (pbk.)

Typeset in Palatino Linotype 11

Published by Book Pal

www.bookpal.com.au

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my appreciation for the help and encouragement I received from several people while writing this book. First and foremost are my son David and daughter Jean, whose support and assistance, especially during the latter stages of this enterprise were invaluable. In particular, Jean did a great job of proofreading the entire manuscript, and David came up with Trajectory for the title. I also consulted my sisters Elise and Joan from time to time, and Elise was particularly helpful with earlier parts of my story.

My old friend John Treloar helped with some detailed information that went into the chapter on Broken Hill.

I must also thank my work colleagues Hew Barnard-Brown and Alan (Dan) Matthews, who read relevant parts of the manuscript and made helpful suggestions. In particular, Dan made many useful comments and supplied a lot of relevant information.

I am indebted to Ivan Winter, who had previously written his own autobiography, for help in preparing my book for publication.

I am also indebted to Andrew Hall for his graphic design work in the production of the paperback’s cover. It was a great pleasure to work with Andrew and to make use of his artistic ability.

The picture of my old school in Bombay was very kindly supplied by Gita Simoes, a former student of my school.

Finally, the book, The Sandcastle Girls, which presents a chilling view of the Armenian genocide of 1915, was brought to my attention by Walda Barwa, a fellow member of my two dance groups.

To Jean and Susan, who got me started on this book;

also to my son David, and my sisters Elise and Joan

About the Author

Paul as a young man in Sydney

Having grown up in India with Armenian parents and an English education, Paul first visited Australia in 1944 as a Merchant Navy seaman, and settled in Fremantle in 1947. He then lived in Sydney and Broken Hill before joining Weapons Research Establishment (WRE) in Salisbury, South Australia.

He spent many years on a British scientific project, firing Skylark rockets from Woomera to explore the upper atmosphere. He also ran sea trials which eventually led to the Barra sonobuoy system which is still in use by the Royal Australian Air Force.

Paul married Yvonne Welke in 1960, and they had two children. The family spent three years in England while he was attached to Australia House in London. He then returned to WRE to provide technical support to top management until he retired in 1984.

Sadly, Yvonne developed motor neurone disease, and passed away in 2008. Having had two or three years to recover from his loss, Paul now enjoys an active lifestyle, which includes walking, dancing, Tai Chi, and lawn bowls.

Contents

About the Author

Prologue

Chapter 1 India and Armenia

Chapter 2 Family background

Chapter 3 My childhood years

Chapter 4 Origins of Mumbai

Chapter 5 More about my schooldays

Chapter 6 Growing up

Chapter 7 Bombay University

Chapter 8 A time of confusion

Chapter 9 The Panamanian

Chapter 10 The Samadang

Chapter 11 In Western Australia

Chapter 12 Living in Sydney

Chapter 13 Broken Hill

Chapter 14 Adelaide and WRE

Chapter 15 The Skylark rockets

Chapter 16 With Yvonne in Adelaide

Chapter 17 Skylark and Sparta

Chapter 18 Sea trials near Darwin

Chapter 19 More rockets & sea trials

Chapter 20 Three years in England

Chapter 21 Back in Australia

Chapter 22 Cruising towards retirement

Chapter 23 Enjoying our retirement

Chapter 24 A difficult time

Chapter 25 Recovery

Appendix

Glossary

Bibliography

Prologue

We were sitting in a tram, Mum and I, but it seemed we were not going to move on from this tram stop, well, certainly not for a while. I was perhaps five years old, so the year would have been 1929, and we were in Bombay, India, now known as Mumbai. We were near Flora Fountain, in the Fort district, and I became aware of a vast crowd of people in the street. They were everywhere, completely surrounding us and extending in all directions as far as the eye could see. They were shouting and gesticulating, waving their arms about, and some were even pointing their fingers at us! I noticed some men moving towards us with the intention of boarding our tram. I was puzzled and a little bit scared because they all looked so angry.

An Indian gentleman in front of us turned around and explained what was happening. ‘They want you to take your hats off,’ he said, and only then did I realise that these people were all shouting ‘Topi nicaalo’, which means ‘Take off your hats’. So Mum and I took off our hats, and some other passengers who were wearing hats did likewise, and not long afterwards the tram got going again.

We were told workers at a certain factory were on strike, and some of them had lain down in front of the factory gate to prevent vehicles from entering. However, a policeman had commandeered a lorry, driven over one of the strikers and killed him. The crowd wanted hats removed to show respect for the dead man. I remember I was wearing a khaki-coloured sola topi, but I cannot remember what Mum was wearing.

Chapter 1

India and Armenia

This is the story of my life, mostly for the benefit of my children and relatives, but also for me to revisit my past. This is not easy for me because I cannot avoid remembering all the awful mistakes and bad decisions I have made along the way. But one cannot change the past. As the poet Omar Khayyám said in his Rubáiyát (as translated by Edward FitzGerald):

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Anyway, to get on with my story, I was born in India in 1924 of Armenian parents, went through school and two years of university in Bombay, joined the merchant navy and sailed away in 1944, then settled ashore in Australia in 1947. Before going on with my story I shall tell you a little about the India in which I grew up, and in addition, something about Armenia, the country of my ancestors, though I have never been there.

My India

I was born and bred in Bombay at a time when the Indians were struggling for independence from Great Britain, and that was not achieved until 1947. However, for my family, friends and acquaintances, life under the British Raj during this period was fine. The political demonstrations and strikes hardly affected us. I remember one very big general strike, as well as various actions by the civil disobedience movement from time to time, led by Gandhi. All through my time in India there were protests, demonstrations, organised rallies and so on taking place. It just seemed a normal part of our existence. There was also the underlying tension between Hindus and Muslims, which resulted in occasional intercommunal riots and some fatalities.

Although the general population was very much against the British Raj, oddly enough there was generally no personal animosity towards individuals. In fact, it seemed the Indians I came into contact with almost considered us white people as allies who, jointly with them, had to put up with an indifferent and at times oppressive government. The population had a highly stratified social order, with white people at a higher level than the Indians, and the Indians had their very complicated caste system.

Growing up in Bombay made me completely bilingual in English and the language we called Hindustani, which was in fact a dialect of Hindi. It had a simplified grammar and contained words from other languages, mostly Marathi, but also Gujarati, Konkani and English. The language we spoke in Bombay is now called Bombay Hindi, Mumbai Hindi or Bambaiyya. At home we always spoke English, although my parents more often than not spoke to each other in Armenian.

Gandhi, the undisputed leader of the Indians, was revered as a sort of saint, and over a long period of time he wore down the resistance of the British authorities until finally they gave in. His full name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and although he was born in Gujarat he started his professional career as a lawyer in South Africa. Then at some point he felt impelled to move back to India in order to take on the British Raj. He was mostly referred to as The Mahatma or Gandhiji. Mahatma is a reverential term for a great leader, and is in some respects equivalent to ‘saint’. The ‘ji’ is merely a respectful suffix.

Just in passing I must mention my disappointment at the way the British botched the transition to independence for the Indians, which took place in August 1947. The leader of the Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, wanted a separate state for Muslim Indians, who were a minority group (but a very large minority group) and would therefore suffer discrimination, he thought, if they remained in a Hindu-dominated India. Gandhi, however, was against partition, saying there was room for both Hindus and Muslims in the one country.

With the benefit of hindsight, it would appear that Gandhi’s approach was unrealistic. After much palaver it seems the British lost patience and gave in to Dr Jinnah’s demands. At that time there were Muslims and Hindus spread around all parts of the country, and all of a sudden there arose a need for a lot of Muslims to migrate to the new Muslim state of Pakistan and for a lot of Hindus to migrate to the new reduced state of India.

The above paragraphs present an overly simplistic summary of events. In fact the situation was very complex indeed. At the outbreak of WWII in September 1939 the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared India was a belligerent nation on the side of the Allies without consulting the Indian leaders. This autocratic action infuriated the Indian politicians, and all the Congress members of Parliament resigned. Things were going from bad to worse, not only in India but also for Britain in her conduct of the war, so the British government sent a mission out to India led by Sir Stafford Cripps in 1942.

The Indians were offered self-government leading eventually to complete independence after the war in return for India’s support of Britain’s war effort. Linlithgow objected to the Cripps mission. Jinnah was in favour of supporting Britain, but demanded a separate Muslim state. Gandhi was not keen on supporting the war effort, and wanted immediate independence, but since that was not forthcoming, he started up the Quit India campaign.

In spite of this apparently chaotic state of affairs, the Indians did, in fact, provide a great deal of support for Britain’s war effort. A number of Hindu leaders disagreed with Gandhi and, like Jinnah, were keen to support Britain in her time of need. A large number of Indians joined the armed services and took part in overseas operations. But after the war the political problems were handled very badly by the British, leading to dire consequences which are still in effect today.

Since the country had been partitioned rather suddenly into two separate states, Pakistan and a reduced India, without arrangements for the orderly movement of large numbers of people, there were massacres in many parts of the country. There was an enormous loss of life as Hindus fled one way and Muslims fled in the opposite direction.

The newly created state of Pakistan consisted of two portions, one in the west including the four provinces of Sindh, West Punjab, Baluchistan and North-west Frontier Province, plus some tribal territories in the north-west. The other part was East Bengal, which later seceded from Pakistan after a rather bitter war, and became Bangladesh. As if that were not bad enough, the British failed to deal with the question of Kashmir. Now it is more than 60 years since Partition, and even though India and Pakistan have fought three wars over the Kashmir question, it has still not been resolved.

Armenia

The Republic of Armenia is a tiny country, slightly smaller than Belgium, in the westernmost part of Asia (or perhaps the easternmost part of Europe) and wedged between Iran, Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan. The latter two countries used to be part of the USSR, i.e. the Soviet Union, as was Armenia also. Located in the Caucasus mountains, Armenia lies between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, but its boundaries reach neither of these inland seas. The capital is Yerevan, with a population of a little over one million in the city proper. The population of Armenia is about 3¼ million, with a greater number of Armenians in various countries around the world, chiefly the USA. These people may be collectively referred to as the ‘Armenian Diaspora’, and estimates of their numbers range from four to ten million.

Armenians call their country Haiastan (Hy-as-TAN), which means the ‘Land of Haik’, and according to legend, Haik was a great-great-grandson of Noah. Chapter 8 of Genesis tells us that Noah’s ark came to rest on Mount Ararat, which used to be in Armenia, but is now in Turkey. The name Armenia, which has been in use for 3000 years, derives from Aram, a great leader and a descendant of Haik.

Location map of Armenia.

Map Data ©2014 Basarsoft Google, Mapa GISrael

The Armenian language belongs to the Indo-European group, but appears not to resemble any other language. It has its own alphabet of 38 characters, many of which bear some resemblance to Greek letters. There are several dialects, but the two main versions of the language are Western and Eastern Armenian. See the Armenian Alphabet chart in the Appendix, which shows upper and lower case letters in print and handwritten forms, plus pronunciation for Western and Eastern Armenian. The chart, which is subject to copyright, was produced by John Semerdjian, whose website is www.HyeEtch.nareg.com.au

.

What are the origins of the Armenians? It is not clear, but they very likely came from Europe. Most of them came in 1165 BC to the eastern part of what is now Turkey and then spread over other parts of Turkey as well as parts of the Soviet Union, Iran and Iraq. It seems that they merged partly with the Urartians, who had lived in the area since about 2300 BC, as there is evidence of cultural interaction between the Armenians and the people of Urartu. In the first century BC the Armenian king Tigranes the Great established an empire stretching down to Syria and the Holy Land, but it did not last long.

Armenians have a very sad history due mostly to the location of their country and the small size of their population. They were taken over by the Persians, then by Alexander the Great in about 331 BC, and later on they became the meat in the sandwich between the Roman and Persian empires. Armenians managed to preserve their national identity because whether they were under the domination of Persians, Alexander, or Romans, for most of the time they had their own king ruling the nation, although being subject to the conquerors.

Over the centuries Armenians have suffered invasions, occupations, deportations, massacres, and all kinds of bad treatment at the hands of numerous bullies. The bullies came not only from east and west, but also from north and south.

The first invaders from the south were Arabs, followed some centuries later by the Mamelukes from Egypt. From the north the first lot were the Seljuk Turks from central Asia, then there were the Mongols, and finally the Ottoman Turks, who took over Armenian territory by about AD 1530. A century later the Turks ceded the eastern part of Armenia to the Persians and a part of southern Armenia to the Kurds. In 1722 Peter the Great of Russia appeared on the scene, and there were battles between Russia, Turkey and Persia in the general area that included Armenia. This activity of course had devastating results for the Armenians as the warring armies tramped back and forth over their homeland. By 1828 Persia had withdrawn completely, and the remaining Armenian territory was divided between Turkey and Russia.

Turks have always treated Armenians very badly indeed, mainly because of their Christianity, but for other reasons too, including Turkish resentment of many Armenians doing well in professional careers and commerce. In addition to the restrictions placed on Armenians as second-class citizens within Turkey, there were several massacres over the years and even an organised program of genocide in 1915. The book The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian (see the Bibliography) would give the reader a pretty good idea of what the situation was like. The slaughter was going on with unimaginable brutality, and no other country did anything to help the Armenians.

Many books have dealt in one way or another with the plight of the Armenians during World War I, a famous one being The forty days of Musa Dagh. The original German version was published in 1933, and an English translation was published in 2012 by David R Godine—see the Bibliography. The book focuses mainly on the defence of a small Armenian community in a mountainous region in southern Turkey on the Mediterranean coast. MGM made plans to produce a movie based on this book, but ditched the idea due to persistent protests by the Turkish government.

After the Great War ended in 1918 the Great Powers made it known they would establish an independent Armenia, but they dithered, and then lost interest, so the Turks took advantage of the situation and massacred many thousands of Armenians in 1920. Finally in December 1922 the state of Armenia was incorporated into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). At first Armenia was bundled together with Georgia and Azerbaijan into the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, but that was abolished in 1936, when the three states became separate Soviet republics within the USSR.

Then, following the dissolution of the USSR, both Armenia and Azerbaijan became independent republics in 1991. The two countries have engaged in warfare at various times, in the period 1918–1922, and more recently, mainly due to territorial disputes. As a result both countries have suffered much damage to property and loss of life, and there are still many issues remaining to be settled. In addition, Armenia suffered a disastrous earthquake in December 1988. Anyway, a ceasefire was established in 1994, and as far as I know it is still holding, though both Turkey and Azerbaijan have closed their borders with Armenia. Turkey is supportive of Azerbaijan as they are both Muslim nations.

As I said previously, the main reason why the Turks have treated Armenians so badly was because of their religious differences. Early in the fourth century AD the Armenian king Tiridates the Great had established Christianity as the state’s official religion. This was probably in the year 314, just two years after the Roman Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity, though it was possibly earlier, perhaps in 301. Prior to this, most Armenians were most likely Zoroastrians like the Persians. Armenia was the first nation to formally adopt Christianity.

The Armenian apostolic orthodox church is not connected in any way to the other orthodox churches, e.g. Greek and Russian. Not all Armenians belong to the orthodox church. Over the years the Roman Catholic Church has converted some Armenians to Catholicism, and American missionaries have managed to convert some to Protestantism. Nevertheless, I believe most Armenians who are religiously inclined are presently adherents of their orthodox church.

It is not at all surprising that Armenians have been fleeing in large numbers from the lands they used to call home but which were taken over by other people. This process of emigration has been going on for many centuries. They have also fled from homes in Turkey, Iran and Russia, so that their numbers in those countries are now very much reduced.

The cruel treatment by the Ottoman Turks of people professing faiths other than Islam contrasts sharply with the way the Moors ruled most of Spain and Portugal for about 600 years until the late 15th century AD. The Moors were also Muslims but by and large were tolerant of other religions including Judaism and Christianity.

Chapter 2

Family background

Wedding bells

My parents were married in Basra, Iraq on 30 Nov 1918, less than three weeks after the Great War ended on 11 November. My father was a purser (but usually listed officially as Ship’s Clerk), working for the British India Steam Navigation Company, or BISN for short. Based in Bombay, he was for most of his career on the Basra run, going up the north-western coast of the Indian subcontinent and then through the Persian Gulf right up to Basra and back, carrying freight and passengers to and from ports in between. Sometimes he went on other runs, for example to ports on the east coast of Africa or in the Far East. During WWII he made some trips to Egypt to fetch Italian prisoners of war for detention in Bombay. Incidentally, BISN was at some point in time absorbed by the P&O Line, but it continued to operate under its own name.

The wedding apparently took place at short notice because we know that Mum had to borrow a wedding dress for the occasion. We also know that Dad’s ship normally stayed only a few days in Basra to unload cargo and take on a fresh load. They did not get married in an Armenian church, presumably because of insufficient notice, so it had to be some other church. I assume the two of them then went off to Bombay on Dad’s ship.

They were both Armenians, and related to each other. I used to think they were second cousins, but that is not right, as I shall explain a little later. Dad’s family lived in Baghdad, and Mum’s family lived in Basra. Dad’s name was Setrack (SET-RACK), probably related to the biblical Shadrach. Just cast your mind back to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who were put into a fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar, according to the Bible. Mum’s name was Anna, but she always called herself Annie.

Mumbai to Basra map.

Map data ©2014 Basarsoft, Google, ORION-ME

Their other names are tinged with some uncertainty. Dad was officially known in India as Setrack Kaspar Malcolm, but in Baghdad he was probably called Setrack Kasparian Melconian. The suffix ‘ian’, pronounced ‘yān’, indicates a patronymic, i.e. Kasparian means ‘child of Kaspar’. (The letter ‘a’ with a macron bar above it represents the sound ‘ah’.) Perhaps he just dropped the ‘ian’ to simplify matters. The name Malcolm is an anglicized version of Melcon, pronounced Mel-CONE. That was his grandfather’s name, and his father’s name was Kaspar, and I believe he had the option of using either Melconian or Kasparian as his surname.

Mum’s father’s name was David, and her paternal grandfather’s name was Minas, so her full name before marriage could have been Anna Davidian Minassian, but was more likely just Anna Minassian. By the way, her brother Minas used Minasian as his surname, spelling it with a single ‘s’.

Armenians used to have only a personal name and a surname, but it seems their association with Russia resulted in their adding a middle name. I gather that some people did not bother to do that. Since I have not had much to do with the Armenian community except in my early years, I am not sure of common usage in respect of names.

Now to sort out the relationship between my parents. Setrack’s father was Kaspar, son of Melcon. Anna’s father was David, and his father was Minas, son of Melcon and brother of Kaspar. So Setrack and David were first cousins, and Anna’s relationship to Setrack was therefore first cousin once removed.

Origins

According to my sister Elise, Dad’s father was a tailor, and that possibly accounts for his desire for Elise to take up dressmaking. When he talked about his life in Baghdad I formed the impression they had a large garden and orchard attached to their house. This puzzled me as a child because I thought the whole of Iraq was one big desert. He also talked about swimming across ‘the river’, presumably the Tigris. Incidentally, he used to say it had been predicted that his death would be by drowning, but that proved to be incorrect.

Mum’s people were city people, and she never talked about orchards or gardens. Mum had auburn hair and very fair skin, easily affected by the sun. She was only about 151 cm in height, and had brown eyes. She told us she got her hair colour and fair skin from her father. My dad’s skin was fair, but not as fair as Mum’s. He was about 175 cm tall, of medium build, and had brown eyes.

Dad was born in Baghdad on 3 Sep 1882, and went to Bombay in his late teens to finish his schooling there, at St Peter’s School in Mazagon. I believe he completed his school certificate and then got a job. I vaguely recollect stories about his bachelor days; one of his mates was a John Peter, and the two of them were possibly sales representatives. He may have had several jobs before taking a permanent position with BISN. He became a naturalised British subject in Bombay on 23 May 1930.

By contrast Mum had never been away from home, and had not even completed her schooling. She was born on 18 Mar 1904, so when she got married she was aged only 14 years and 8 months, and her husband was 36 years old. The big age difference and her lack of maturity certainly led to problems, and it is clear that theirs was often a strained relationship. The marriage was evidently in trouble right from the start. Anna was a 14½-year-old girl who had never been away from home, and immediately after marriage she went to live in this strange place Bombay, where she had to set up house practically single-handed. It is just possible her year of birth was actually 1903 and not 1904, which would make her 15½ years old when she married. Neither date has documentary support, and 1904 seems more likely to be correct. I believe she became a naturalised British subject at the same time as Dad, in 1930.

Anna’s new life

Language was undoubtedly a big problem for her. Starting life in Iraq, she only knew Armenian and a certain amount of Arabic, but in Bombay she had to handle two new languages, English and Hindustani. Public notices and street signs etc. in Bombay were in the three languages Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati, plus English to make a fourth, each with its own script, and there was even a fifth one. This was Urdu, with a script derived from Arabic and Persian, going from right to left. Hindi and Urdu are virtually identical in everyday colloquial speech, but their higher levels of vocabulary and grammar come from different sources, Sanskrit and Persian respectively.

Hindi uses the Devanagari script which comes from the ancient Sanskrit language. It goes from left to right, with the characters hanging from what looks like a clothes line. Marathi uses a modified form of Devanagari script, and looks similar to Hindi. Gujarati looks like Hindi without the clothes line. People one met in the street could nearly all speak Hindustani besides their own language, which would most likely be Marathi or Gujarati. Some of them would also have some knowledge of English.

Anna as a bride, 30 Nov 1918

I do not know whether Mum took lessons for English and Hindustani when she first arrived in Bombay. I remember her taking courses at Lentin’s College, a privately run college for secretaries and other clerical staff, but that was much later, when I was a junior schoolboy. It was close to where we lived at the time, and I too attended classes there during school holidays, learning typing and Pitman’s shorthand. Our instructor’s name was Gazder. Mum would most likely have taken courses in English language and letter-writing.

She would always have had one servant, and probably two at times. She would have nearly always done her own cooking, on a gas stove with no oven. With no washing machines in those days, she sent her dirty linen off with a dhobi on a weekly basis. The dhobis washed clothes by bashing them against the rocks at a seaside place near Mahalakshmi. They did not normally use soap, though they might have done so on occasion. Nevertheless, the clothes always looked nice and clean, but buttons did not always survive. The dhobis also ironed the clothes and brought them back neatly folded. I remember seeing our dhobi laying out the clean clothes in separate piles on a bed, and Mum going through her list to check she had got everything back. I don’t think our dhobi ever lost anything.

Another major problem was her husband’s job, which took him away for weeks at a time and did not give him much time at home. She fell pregnant within the first few weeks of marriage, so it must have been quite a struggle, even though she probably had one or two servants to help her.

Well, you have to ask yourself, whatever was my dad thinking, to bring his child-bride to this completely alien place and expect her to establish a household on her own? Compared with her, he was very well experienced. He had left home in his late teens, completed his school education away from home, had a few jobs and also experienced a certain amount of travel, both at sea and on land. Furthermore, he had a good command of English and Hindustani besides being fluent in Arabic and, of course, Armenian.

The answer to that question is disappointing and unsatisfactory. You see, Dad had a sister in Bombay, my Aunty Noosh (short for Vartanoosh), who was married to a jeweller, Onnik (OHN-neek) Lemonjian, and he thought she would be a great help to Anna. But that was not to be. I don’t know any details, but clearly the two women did not hit it off at all. I presume the antagonism was mutual, but anyway the result was a lack of cooperation, leaving Anna more or less on her own. I remember Mum saying at times she was not entitled to take communion in church because she was unable to forgive people who had wronged her, and I believe she meant her sister-in-law Noosh. I feel sure one of her problems was the fact that Noosh was eleven years older than Mum.

I suspect there was another factor making a negative contribution to their relationship. I believe Mum was often suspicious of people around her and that at times led to quarrels with neighbours and others. She was certainly rather quick to take offence, and I know of some such occasions where I was quite sure no offence was intended. Perhaps this was due to feelings of insecurity and hopelessness in difficult situations. Perhaps she also had feelings of inferiority due to doubts about her ability to cope with problems. This is just speculation on my part, but it does seem a reasonable possibility. She also had trouble dealing with her two daughters as they were growing up and even more so as adults, but never with my brother or myself.

I suppose Mum favoured her sons because of her coming from a very male-dominated culture. I mean the Armenians were that way inclined, and the Iraqis were even more so. My brother Cas went to a school in Deolali as a boarder, and my sister Elise went to France to finish her schooling, so I was the only one with Mum all the time. She did consider sending me to a boarding school in England at one time. I know this because she showed me brochures sent by a few schools, but it must have been too expensive, so I stayed at home. As I grew older she often relied on me for decisions and advice which were beyond my capacity. I was still a child, and lacked both experience and maturity.

She had rather a special relationship with Cas because he was her first-born child and also was nearer to her in age than her other children. I remember a day in Bandra (a northern suburb) when Cas was home on school holidays, and he had climbed up a tree some distance from the house to smoke a cigarette. He thought Mum did not know he had taken up smoking at school. But when he came in the house Mum asked him for a cigarette, and she smoked it, just to see what it was like, I suppose.

Cas used to tease Mum in a way we others would never dream of doing For example, years later in Sydney, he came in one day with a couple of records, 45 rpm vinyls, specially for Mum. The titles were Leave the dishes in the sink, Ma, and Don’t throw the lamp at Mother, you’ll only waste the oil! He played these records on our gramophone, and we all had a good laugh.

Our church

The church we went to was in Medows [sic] Street in the Fort area of Bombay. It was an Armenian Orthodox church, and services were conducted in the Armenian language. I served as altar boy for many years, and could read the words in the prayer book but without understanding most of them. I was baptised in that church but confirmed in the Church of England (C of E). That was in St Thomas’s Cathedral, which was associated with my school, and where I served as a choirboy until my voice broke. I only knew a few words of Armenian because we always spoke English at home, but anyway the language in the prayer book was mostly classical Armenian, a dead language. My parents often spoke to each other in Armenian, so we children picked up a few words, but they never taught us the language. Mum did, however, teach me the alphabet.

The church was a focal point for the small Armenian community living in Bombay. I remember there were several jewellers in business for themselves, there was a medical doctor, some dentists, restaurateurs, import and export agents, various other businessmen, also some engineers and tradesmen, and many others whose occupations I did not know. They had come to India from many different countries besides Armenia including Iraq, Persia (now called Iran), Turkey, Lebanon, and parts of Europe.

Anna never had any really close friends within the Armenian community, but she did develop friendships with several women who were not Armenians. I particularly remember a Greek lady, Mrs Paraski, a Yugoslav lady, and an Austrian lady, Mrs Helle, who was an excellent cook.

Another one, whom I recall with much fondness, was a Mrs McLean. She was a ‘White Russian’ married to an English sea-captain. When her husband retired they went to live in England, I believe it was in Cheam, Kent. Mum stayed in touch with her for many years. She always wrote lots of letters to relatives and friends.

Mum used to take me with her when visiting Mrs McLean, who lived in an apartment near the Taj Mahal Hotel. I was six or seven years old, and I thought Mrs McLean was lovely, but she was envious of my eyelashes. She would measure the length of my eyelashes with a ruler, and then measure hers, and say it was not fair that mine were longer. I could not understand what the fuss was about. Then she would send me with some money to the hotel’s cake shop to buy a lot of fancy little cakes for afternoon tea. I had a great time deciding which cakes to buy!

Anna’s family

As mentioned before, Anna’s father David was the son of Minas (Mee-NASS), a brother of Setrack’s father Kaspar. Thus David was Setrack’s first cousin, and Anna was his first cousin once removed. One would expect Setrack to be visiting David and his family whenever his ship was in Basra. David’s first wife Eliza (Ay-LEEZ-a) bore him four children, but only three survived infancy: Kevork (Gay-VORK), known as George, Minas and Anna. His second wife Antaran (āN-Tā-Rān) bore seven children, those surviving infancy being Mary, Adam and Noah (Noh, with an aspirated ‘h’).

Because her mother died when Anna was quite young, she was brought up by her grandmother. She fell off a swing when young and broke her right arm. As a result, she learnt how to do things with her left hand and became ambidextrous to some extent. Even as an adult she preferred to use her left hand for some things, e.g. using scissors to cut out a dress. She used to make clothes for herself and also for us children when we were little. Anna’s father David was said to have blue eyes, very fair skin and auburn hair, and she said she took after him except for the blue eyes because hers were brown. We children were told we had a Russian ancestor somewhere along the line, and perhaps that was David’s mother, whose name is not known to me.

I might possibly have met Anna’s half-sister Mary, but cannot remember Adam or Noah. Uncle George lived in Bombay when we were there. He was a businessman of sorts, not very successful, and was often at the racecourse. He also spent a lot of time with Arab men, but he never talked much at all, so we had no idea what he was up to. I never met his wife or any of his children, who continued to live in Iraq. He was an occasional visitor at our place, and I was very fond of him, but never was able to get much out of him. Looking back, it seems he must have been rather incompetent at everything he did, but he certainly was a likeable man.

According to Mum, at some time during WWI, her brother George was with British troops in what used to be Mesopotamia. He was an interpreter, being fluent in Arabic and English, and possibly Turkish too. Anyway, he became separated from his unit after being wounded, and was picked up in an unconscious state by Turkish soldiers who were of course fighting on the other side. George was in civilian clothes and looked like a local resident, so they carted him off to a field hospital. During his stay in hospital, either whilst concussed or asleep, he was rambling on in English, which brought him into danger. Fortunately, the nurse who overheard him took pity on him and did not report him to the authorities.

Uncle Minas, by contrast, was a successful businessman who lived in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. He was endowed with loads of natural charm, and I was told he was a good musician, especially on the oud, an instrument of the middle east resembling the lute. Minas had set himself up as a contractor for the supply of goods and services to various companies including the American company producing oil over there. I first met him in Bahrain when I was 11 years old, in 1935. Dad had taken me with him on one of his trips to Basra, and as luck would have it, the ship called in at Bahrain. More about that later.

Dad, Elise, Joan, Paul & Mum, 1941

Uncle Minas gave me a radio in Bahrain, which I took home with great glee; I remember it had an enormous cabinet about 70 cm tall and made of polished wood. I next saw him in London at Christmas time in 1969, when I moved to England with my family for three years. We met him and his wife Catherine, as well as his children Elizabeth, David, Frederick and Alexander. They were living in a large flat in London, and we went there several times to have lunch (or was it dinner?—thereby hangs a tale) with them.

I have only recently become aware that my brother Cas and sister Elise had also gone for a trip on Dad’s ship. That was probably in 1924 when I was born, presumably when Mum went into hospital to have her baby (myself). Cas and Elise were 4½ and 2 years old respectively, and it is very likely that they got off at Karachi and were collected by Aunty Sat Martin to stay with her family in Lahore. It is also possible that Cas and Elise went on another sea trip with Dad, but if they did, no one ever told me. Elise has a vague recollection of such a trip when she was 3 or 4 years old.

By the way, Uncle Minas was not the only musically inclined member of our family. Mum had taken up the mandolin quite early in the piece, and she played it frequently. I just cannot remember her not having a mandolin. She used to buy sheet music and play all the latest songs. We never had a radio until I got one from Uncle Minas, so I mostly learned songs from listening to Mum playing and singing them. Of course she also played some Armenian songs. I don’t think she ever took lessons for the mandolin, but after the war when we were living in Fremantle she was for a while a member of a group playing mandolins, banjos etc. in Perth. So I bought a good quality mandolin as a birthday present for Mum. It was a Martin and is still in my family’s possession.

Setrack and his family

Dad’s position on the ship always seemed to be more important and prestigious than his job title suggested or implied. He had to keep track of all the passengers and items of cargo, and record when people and things came on board, and when they left the ship. Of course he had to keep records of everything, and was responsible for the passengers’ welfare. But there must have been something more to it, because he was treated with a great deal of respect by everybody including officials, passengers and the ship’s officers and crew. Things were different when he came ashore; he was just a family man, a nonentity. But on board ship he was a man of substance, a figure of authority.

Setrack’s parents Kaspar and Sara had thirteen children. The four who survived infancy were Ardashes (ĀR-DĀ-SHAYSS), Satenig (SAT-AY-NEEG), Setrack and Noosh. I never met Ardashes or any of his family; I believe some or all of them moved to America. Elise told me she had once spoken to a male descendant of Ardashes during her time in America, and that they used the surname Kasparian.

In Armenian, certain letters are pronounced differently, depending on where one was brought up. Consider for example the letters ‘g’ and ‘k’. Satenig was pronounced by my family as though the final g were a k, but other Armenians would stick with the g sound.

Aunty Sat, as we called her, settled in Lahore, a big city in a part of India taken over by Pakistan after Partition. Lahore is currently the capital of West Punjab province in Pakistan. I don’t remember her husband Aram (Ā-RĀM), who changed his surname from Martirosian to Martirose, and again to Martin, but I do remember their sons Daniel (Danny) and George. I must also have met their sisters Olive and Aileen when the family visited us in Bombay, but I have no clear recollection of them.

My wife Yvonne and I met Danny’s son Don Martin at his Sydney suburban home some years ago, but he subsequently moved to Malaysia and died there a year or two later. I have an email link with Danny’s daughter Jenny Roy in England, and have met her daughter Angela during her short visit to Adelaide in 2011. I was also in email contact with Olive’s daughter Leslie Hochhalter in California, but that link seems to have lapsed. Incidentally, Aunty Sat moved to England, probably after her husband died, and was known there as ‘Saturn.’ I visited her and her son George in Salisbury, England in 1962. At that time George was in the British Army.

While I was growing up in Bombay, our family had quite a lot to do with Aunty Noosh and her family, including her two children. The daughter Soorpik (SOOR-peek, also known as Sophie), became a schoolteacher. I was on very good terms with the son Arshak (ĀR-SHĀK, later known as Archie), my cousin, but he was one year