… a day when in the tropics, in Burma’s tropical heat, yes in the swamps among the
croaking frog bound fields. The wind whistling with the trees, rustles the bushes no doubt swarming with lizards, snakes and reptiles.
It was usually an evening’s walk after going to Church after I had been pushing the hassocks around.
How mum used to manage it so regularly I really don’t know. I am never sure now how old I was then
but I imagine about six and perhaps my sister was about 2¾.
I usually managed to trot around playing with the locals, climbing up trees of which I was very
fond. Always fighting or getting involved in a fight, snaring animals and catching butterflies.
My
father seemed to be a freelance engineer, sometimes with the rice mills and sometimes Burma Oil. He
seemed also very mixed up with the Freemasons from whom he got a lot of help. This is an aspect I
don’t remember much about but I don’t think my poor mother knew much about it. Perhaps they
took
them out there after the 1918 war.
For some years we lived in Rangoon, then
Olive
was born in Bassein. I also remember Moulmein, Kanonto
and a wonderful Irrawaddy River. The pagodas and the elephants, the rickshaws and the gharries,
beautiful shaped entrances to the cathedrals and pagodas. Some nice English Churches, some nice
English houses and some lovely old schools with roots back to Old England. Olive and I went to the
Diocesan Girl’s High School.
As written by
Leslie Knight 10th March 1987.
He made no further entries in his diary.
Note:- Moulmein and Kanonto were Burmese towns; a gharry was a horse drawn open carriage.