Lilian, as you already know, I really enjoyed reading your book, When the Storm Breaks. Having had my curiosity piqued due to some of our email conversations, I did a bit of research on you. I immediately noticed that you were born in Quetta, (the Fruit Garden of Pakistan), and you lived there prior to the India Pakistan Partition. Being that you were so young at that time, how much do you remember of the area?
I was born in Quetta but, unfortunately, I did not have a chance to know anything about the place because my father was transferred to Lyallpur for work, when I was six months old. Quetta was a British military station during the days of the British Raj and it is now the capital of Baluchistan, Pakistan. My brother Kenneth was born in Lyallpur and when he was about two, my dad was transferred to Lahore, where my youngest brother, Robin was born.
When Robin was almost two, my dad was once again transferred to Ambala, but we remained in Lahore with my mother, to enable my elder brother and me to complete the school year. My dad came to visit us every weekend. When my parents separated legally, we joined him in the summer because he had custody of us, six siblings. We were five boys and I was the only girl. Three brothers were older than I was and two were younger.
From the summer of 1942, until I finished high school, I did not see my mother, which makes eleven years. The separation was more than I could bear and I often cried silently at night from wanting to see her, have her hold me and bathe me and comb my hair. I could not say it openly from fear of upsetting my dad. He was often depressed and harassed, and we knew we must stay out of his way. When he returned from work, we left him lounging on the garden chair under the mango tree and sneaked off to the far side of the garden to play. Sometimes a young minstrel came to the gate to ask if he could entertain the family. My father always invited him in to sing and play his sitar. The soulful music and poetic words soothed my dad.
I joined in all the boy-games with my brothers, such as marbles, police and robbers, spinning tops, et cetera. It was not easy being the only girl in the family, especially when the two elder brothers verged on me to try out their practical jokes. Often I went to take refuge in the servant’s quarters and remained with the cook’s wife and children until my father came home.
What was your childhood like? Schooling? What sort of things did you do for fun?
From Ambala we moved to Rawalpindi where my brother Bill and I attended the Station School for a year. To get to school we crossed a long bridge over the railway station on foot, and then waited on the main road to catch the school bus. I disliked school and found it difficult to concentrate, but my dad did not reprove me for my poor marks. I loved it when he took us to watch the Russian Circus perform or go shopping in the rowdy, folkloristic bazaar, where he usually bought me a dozen coloured glass bangles. Other amusements were snake charmers, men with domesticated dancing bears, goats and monkeys, and puppet shows, all performed in our garden.
In India, our life style and food was completely different to that of the Western world. We had two servants, a cook and a woman to do the chores. A man, called the ‘dobhi’ (meaning washer man) came once a week to collect our clothes to wash and iron at his quarters, and returned them the following week.
When we lived in Rawalpindi, my dad asked the Anglican chaplain if he would come to our house for Sunday family prayers because we were too many to escort to Sunday school. Moreover, the church was a long way from our home. The chaplain realized how complicated it was for my father to bring up six children singlehanded, so he suggested to my dad to admit us to boarding school. He helped my father prepare the admittance documents, and in 1945 I left the family to attend the St. Denys’ High School in Murree, which was part of India at the time. I was too young to think that I would not be going home to live with my dad or my family, ever again.
The school year was from March 15 until December 15. Most of the girls returned home for the three-month winter holiday, but a few other girls and I spent these months with a family who volunteered to host us, or else we stayed in the orphanage, where my two younger brothers were. It was a positive and happy experience with both the families and the orphanage.
St. Denys’ was a diocesan school and, until partition, was exclusively for children of British descent. After partition, girls from all races and religions were admitted, but none of us felt the difference between us. There were classes from Lower Kindergarten until Standard IX, when a girl obtained an overseas, school-leaving certificate from the University of Cambridge, if the exam results were positive. I started from Standard 1. It took me about a week to fit into the school routine and ease the nostalgia I felt for my father and brothers.
Our sleep habits were so different from those of boarding school. When I lived with my parents, we slept under the sky, in the front garden. My father and the servants put out our string cots every evening after dinner. Our bedding consisted of a hand-woven, cotton rug spread over the string cot, and a cotton sheet with which to cover. We slept outside from March until the end of November.
The school dormitories felt strange to me, at first. The iron cots had a thick, light mattress stuffed with coconut fiber, with a top and bottom sheet, and three, wool blankets. However, I soon learned how to strip my bedding onto my chair and remake it after washing and dressing. I liked the uniform of blue serge tunic, white blouse, black laceups and black, knee-length stockings, for the winter months. In the summer, we wore cotton dresses of blue and white check, and no socks or stockings.
I loved my school! I made many good friends, and I am still in touch with some of them. Our principal and professors were highly qualified and wonderful people with a gift for making lessons interesting. They gave us everything and asked for nothing in return, except that we do our best for our own good. Our school syllabus included normal subjects, plus music, art and dramatics, Girl Guides, embroidery and games. Urdu was our second language, which was obligatory and there was a choice to study French, Latin and piano for an additional fee.
It was fun being a boarder. I always looked forward to beginning another school year, exploring my new classroom, choosing a desk near my best friend and leafing through textbooks. Living at the foothills of the Great Himalayan Range was a rare privilege. The school had a vast boundary, but we were not allowed to roam anywhere at will, the reason being that we were to stay in sight for safety. From the gravel terrace of the main building, I witnessed the most gorgeous sunsets, thunderstorms, and jeweled night sky, plus seven ranges of hills to the west.
Moving forward, the year for you was now 1947… Would you be willing to share with my/your readers what brought about the India Pakistan Partition? (Since this happened well over sixty years ago, a younger generation may not be aware of what this was).
In 1947, the Partition between India and Pakistan took place. The British gradually withdrew from governing India, and divided the country between Hindus and Muslims because the Muslims wanted their own country to practice their religion. Actually, religious tension had been building up over the years, until it eventually exploded in violence and bloodshed. Many men, women and children lost their lives during these riots. I can truly say that Christians were unharmed because both Muslims and Hindus respected us. However, everyone was cautious and afraid because they did not know quite whom to trust.
I felt protected in my British boarding school but I was anxious for the safety of my father and brothers who lived in the plains, where rioting was dreadful.
Lilian, once you had completed your mandatory schooling, receiving your diploma, you chose to further your education and pursued an education that would allow you to become a teacher. What was it that prompted this calling?
Actually, after I finished my schooling, my dream was to be an actress, but knowing this dream could not be fulfilled, I wanted to become a pediatrician. Plans were for me to study in the University of Edinburgh for my doctorate. Unfortunately, my father died when I was thirteen and I did not have the means to pay for my studies. The next best thing I could do was to join the St. Denys’ Teacher’s Training College to qualify as a ‘Frobel’ Kindergarten and junior schoolteacher.
We were ten students in all, and I enjoyed my studies. These also proved particularly useful in the rearing of my own children. I enjoyed teaching from the start and realized that fate had played a hand in allowing me to take the right path.
Since you’re an author, I’m presuming that somewhere along the way, you developed a love of reading. Do you remember when this started? What were some of your favorite books as a child? As a newly adult young woman? And now?
More than reading, I wanted to write from the age of ten. In school, I made a small booklet of paper taken from my exercise books, and wrote short stories and poems to share with my class friends.
Our English and Literature professors encouraged us to visit the school library on Saturday afternoons, and explore books, which were neatly stacked and catalogued in the old, glass cupboards. I loved consulting the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the World Atlas.
As a child, I enjoyed reading tales by Grimm and Anderson, Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver’s Travels, books by Enid Blyton, and many others. As a young adult, I read mostly fiction, love stories and adventure. Amongst my favourite authors were, Harold Robbins, Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Robert Ruark, Orwell, Neville Shute, and others.
These past years I enjoyed books by Wilbur Smith, Dan Brown, Nicholas Sparks, Danielle Steele, and Sue Grafton. I prefer fiction to non-fiction. I do not read books about zombies, vampires and werewolves. Now I read books by Good Read authors, which I enjoy.
What was it that got you started writing?
I have been writing since forever, it seems, but not constantly. I successfully completed a correspondent course of Writing for Children and Teenagers from the Institute of Children’s Literature, Connecticut. I created short stories for my grandson; they are now in my computer. I have not published them yet, but I hope to do so someday.
During my research, I also noticed that you write a wide array of genres. Poetry, fantasy, fairy tales, romance and even one horror… That definitely stood out to me as it seems that the majority of authors focus on a single genre type. How did these various works come about?
I love writing in all genres largely because of my infinite fantasy, which surprises even me. The magic and myth in Indian beliefs and religion influenced me, as did the scary ghost tales the girls told after lights-out in boarding school. At times my mind floods with the most eerie, scary thoughts, around which I create a story. I like writing rhyming poetry and song lyrics mostly because I can ‘play’ with words in a special way to convey feelings.
For me final question; you now reside in Italy – what’s next for you? Do you still plan to continue volunteering as a teacher? What about your books; what can your readers look forward to? And … any chance of a personal memoir about your life?
My husband is retired, and we live on our own in this small town in the Po delta because my two sons are married and have their own homes. We settled in Taglio di Po almost twenty-five years back. Many beautiful memories and experiences of countries and towns we lived in before moving to our present home have enriched my writing.
I plan to keep up my voluntary work as a teacher to foreign students in the local State schools. How thankful I am that I studied Urdu as a second language because my students are mainly from India and Pakistan. Coaching these children keeps me occupied and makes me feel positive and useful, and I love being with youngsters. Their laughter and zest for life is contagious.
One of my biggest drawbacks is not having friends or family with whom to share my manuscripts for reading and reviewing, and suggestions. There are no fluent English-speaking people in Taglio di Po, and the public library does not have any books written in the English language. I use the Internet for all my needs, to connect to online friends and for researching books.
I began writing the sequel to When the Storm Breaks, but have abandoned it for the moment to revise a romance which I wrote in longhand years ago, of a love story that takes place in the land of my birth during the end days of colonialism. I hope to finish and publish both books next year for my readers.
As far as writing my own memoir … let’s just say that I’m considering the writing of one this year.
Lilian, thank you so much for all that you have shared. It was truly an honor to learn some of your life’s history, and I enjoyed the “non-fiction” story. And, of course, I’m very much looking forward to reading your future works.
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