British Christmas

The days of the British Raj ended in India in 1947 but in a slightly watered down version, remained alive in the British West Indies.

The Blip was taken on Christmas Day evening when the main “event” took place. I think that there was almost certainly a “traditional” morning golf tournament or children’s pool party at the local company social and sports club. As was so often the case, the ex-Pats did things more British than the British: Cocktail dresses for the ladies, white dinner jacket (anywhere south or east of Gibraltar, otherwise black) for the men and at least a bow tie and white shirt for the male children.

Aged 7 and 4 months, this was to be my last Christmas at home for seven years. Until 1969 all my Christmas’ took place in Germany with my grandmother and from memory, there was only to be one Christmas three years later, where I was also with both my parents.

That’s how things were in the colonial days! Children sent off to school in the UK and flown back once a year at the company’s cost, invariably the summer holidays. It wasn’t until 1967 that my father’s company British Petroleum paid for two trips a year. My parents were also paid their travelling costs to Europe but only every other year and so the holidays had to be planned together and ours meant I went home on Easter holidays in 1967 and 1968.

In the Blip our plastic Christmas tree, not something you could steal out of the local rainforest. In later years, they were imported in refrigerated ships from Canada! It looks like I got a pair of roller skates and a good old English Army “Brodie” helmet. I have often wondered why the British Army stuck with these ever so minimalistic helmets as opposed to the German iconic Stahlhelm which seemed to offer much more protection.

I am sitting with a couple, Mike and Heather Rendle who were our nearest neighbours and Heather and my mother were inseparable friends: as thick as thieves. They were to have four children; Sue, Claire, Jim, and James. Sue the eldest was a few years younger and I suspect that she was wrapped up in bed this evening.

I think Mike was to become the MD of BP Trinidad and probably the last one before BP sold up there in 1968. My father was to stay on until 1970 as the last employee and responsible for selling off all the lands and assets that the Trinidad Government/US Tesoro Oil Co consortium did not buy. I think it was Mike who asked my father to choose a piece of lovely local crafted wood furniture out of the official MD's home that was used to do official entertaining for visiting VIPs etc. I now have this furniture here in Germany in 2017 and have tried to get some contact to Trinidad to see if the piece may be of interest to a museum. Another day I will Blip and describe why.

So Sue was one of the last BP Trinidad children I was to see during the holidays. A lovely girl but I guess at our last play days we were about 14 & 10 so the very first sparks of a deeper relationship never developed!

We were to meet briefly again on 23rd August 1976 in London for dinner after she phoned out of the blue. It was exactly at that point that I was trying to rescue the remains of my 3-year long relationship with girlfriend Annabel, which did a few months later end. Shame she called a bit too early! No – I suspect she was herself in a relationship, I can’t remember now in 2017 as I post this!

On the map, the marker should be very much on our house. As we don't have the satellite version on Blip, can't be 100%

Just out of interest, one can see in the top of the photo, the type of construction of walls in Trinidadian houses. We had good quality houses but one can see it was pretty basic. Wood and the walls only as thick as one plank - didn't need any insulation.