Description
Object description
British officer and NCO who served with 17th/21st Lancers in India, 1932-1938
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of period with 17th/21st Lancers in India, 1932-1938: [Marling]: enlistment in 17th/21st Lancers. [Lawrence]: enlistment in 17th/21st Lancers; reaction to posting to India; prior knowledge of India. [Marling]: climate in India in comparison to Egypt; conditions during voyage to India. [Marling]: recreational activities. [Lawrence]: conditions on board ship; duties. [Marling]: train journey from Bombay to Secunderabad. [Lawrence and Marling]: layout of Bolaram Cantonment. [Marling]: travelling by bicycle. [Lawrence]: visiting cinema; married quarters.
REEL 2 Continues: [Marling]: officer's accommodation. [Marling and Lawrence]: encounters with snakes. [Lawrence]: work as officer's mess sergeant. [Marling]: standard of messing. [Lawrence]: obtaining supplies; daily routine. [Marling]: daily routine including inspection of guard; peacekeeping role in India; riot control training; attitude towards mechanisation, 1937. [Lawrence]: attitude towards mechanisation.
REEL 3 Continues: [Marling and Lawrence]: exercise with RAF. [Marling]: taking commercial flights between India and GB; officers' private incomes. [Lawrence]: inter-rank relations; marriage in India; wife's illness and medical treatment; standard of health in India; precautions taken against rabies, malaria and intestinal diseases. [Marling]: relations between British and Indian officers; opinion of Claude Auchinleck. [Lawrence]: story about Richard Hull.
REEL 4 Continues: [Marling]: admiration for Richard Hull. [Lawrence]: anecdote about Richard Hull; uniform worn. [Marling]: mess kit; mess formalities. [Lawrence]: question of effects of lack of female company; penalties for men contracting venereal disease; limited contact with Anglo-Indians. [Marling]: officers' friendships with British girls. [Marling and Lawrence]: preferred postings. [Marling]: incidents duting shooting expeditions at Dehra Dun.
REEL 5 Continues: story of shooting wild pig from elephant's back. [Lawrence]: work of derzis and moochis; trustworthiness of servants; the chokidar system. [Marling]: officers' servants and opinion of their work; strike by syces at Secunderabad. [Lawrence]: Indian bail system; shaving of men in bed; relations with Indians. [Marling]: opinion amongst officers of Indian troops. [Lawrence and Marling]: attitude to Indian posting. [Marling]: benefits of British rule to Indians.
REEL 6 Continues: [Lawrence]: lack of civil conflict in India. [Marling]: lack of anticipation of Independence; opinion of Indian politicians. [Lawrence]: question of causes of Indian poverty. [Marling]: newspapers taken and access to radio; degree of threat from Japan. [Lawrence]: degree of contact with European civilians. [Marling]: opinion of European civilians; story of miscarriage of justice in which Indian syce was killed by British NCO; opinion of missionaries. [Lawrence]: fear of reprisal against NCO who had killed syce.