Liphook Community Magazine - Autumn 2015

M O R E T R A V E L S
With the Mother-in-Law
Some of you may recall that my mother-in-law, Nora, travelled
out to India overland in a Rolls Royce in 1933. Well, before that
she had had an equally interesting journey.
In 1917, Nora, aged 21, was living in Bombay with her parents
Henry and Dorothy Stringfellow. Henry had been sent to Bombay
to help set up the Bank of India and Nora led a privileged life
there, busy socially with bridge, dancing, swimming and, as an
excellent horsewoman, riding - sidesaddle, of course. Many years
later she told me that it was far too dangerous to ride astride!
In early 1917 they had the news that Nora’s brother Geoffrey, two
years older than her, had been injured whilst fighting in France and
Dorothy immediately decided to return to the UK, taking Nora with
her, to nurse Geoffrey. The original permit to travel showed that
they were to return via Marseilles but at this point, the British
Government banned civilian travel through the Western
Approaches due to the German U-boat threat. Nothing daunted,
Dorothy set about finding another way back and a month later, the
travel permit was amended by the “Government of Bombay” to say
that they should travel
via Hong Kong, Shanghai,
Harbin, Petrograd and
Bergen. I’m not sure
how the two of them
travelled to Hong Kong,
although it would
obviously have been by
ship, as on 2 April they
were in Penang, but on
10 April 1917 they left
Hong Kong on board the
ss Khyber, arriving in
Shanghai on 14 April.
Dorothy and Nora then
caught the train and
travelled across China
and Russia to what
was then Petrograd (now
St Petersburg and
also Leningrad between),
where they arrived in
early May. Nora said it
was a rather boring
journey but there seemed
to be a lot of soldiers
around. Dorothy bought
a teapot for the train
journey, and the pretty
Chinese porcelain pot
now sits on a shelf in my
dining room, nearly 100
years later, and far too
precious to use. I am
amazed that this journey
was permitted, since the
Russian Revolution was
under way and Nora
told me that when they heard
gunfire in Petrograd, they
were told it was “a little local
difficulty”. On the whole, the
Western Approaches might
have been a little safer! They
appear to have arrived in
Christiania (now Oslo) on 14
May and arrived in Hull
aboard the ss Kovno, a cargo
ship, on 30 May.
All in all, it was an eventful
journey and it was with relief to get back to the UK to nurse Geoff,
who recovered well from his wounds. It is astonishing that all
this travel was achieved with apparently no difficulty, although
if Dorothy was anything like her daughter, she would have
brooked no argument with anyone and would have continued
regardless. It would take a towel round the head to try and
arrange it these days!
After the War, Geoff
joined the Hongkong
and Shanghai Banking
Corporation (long
before it became the
conglomerate that it now
is) as an International
Officer and was in
Malacca when Malaya
fell to the Japanese.
He spent the Second
World War in Changi
Prison and never wanted
to speak about his time
there. He was a lovely
man; if any of you were
ever members of the
Bourne Club in Farnham you may remember him as the Secretary
there for many years, terrorising the young! Geoff never married
and he lived in Farnham, with Nora, until his death aged 82.
Nora’s son (my
late husband)
also had an
i n t e r e s t i n g
time when he
was evacuated
to the United
States in 1939,
once again
having to live
without his
parents . . . but
that’s another
story.
Wendy Moore
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