Teatime at Peggy’s by Stephen McClarence and Clare Jenkins

There are certain non fiction travel books that are really interesting and give an insight into attitudes and cultures in different countries and this is one of them.

Teatime at Peggy’s

 by Stephen McClarence and Clare Jenkins

Teatime at Peggy's by Stephen McClarence and Clare Jenkins was published on 7th June 2024 by Bradt Travel Guides. My thanks to Clare for sending me a copy to review and to Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part on the tour.

Synopsis

A warm, humorous and evocative celebration of the eccentric, time-warped and fast-disappearing Alice in Wonderland world of one of India’s most endangered communities: the 150,000-strong Anglo-Indians (mostly descendants of British men and Indian women).

For 15 years, award-winning travel writer Stephen McClarence and his BBC Radio journalist wife Clare Jenkins regularly visited Jhansi, the railway town in Uttar Pradesh that inspired Bhowani Junction, John Masters' classic 1954 tale of Anglo-Indian life during Partition. There they spent hours ‘down the rabbit hole’ with Peggy Cantem - ‘Aunty Peggy’ as she was known throughout the town, daughter and widow of railwaymen, overseer of the European cemetery with its 66 Mutiny graves and ‘dancing and prancing peacocks’ - and with her great friend Captain Royston (Roy) Abbott, ‘The Rajah of Jhansi’, possibly India’s last British landowner and ‘more British than the Brits’.

In Peggy’s tiny, crowded ground-floor flat, she and her friends would reflect on Anglo-Indian life then and now: the dances (waltzes, foxtrot, jive), amateur dramatics, May Queen balls (Anglo-Indian women were famed for their beauty), meals of Mulligatawny soup, toad-in-the-hole and ‘railway lamb curry’.

Those friends included the ladylike Gwen, scooter-riding Buddie, Cheryl with her ‘hotchpotch’ ancestry, Winston Churchill-reciting Pastor Rao, Peggy’s tiny and impoverished maid May, her cook Sheela and auto-rickshaw driver Anish. Conversations covered Monsoon Toad Balls (to find ‘the most hideous-looking man’), moonlight picnics in the jungle, pet mongooses, the British Royal Family… They also covered the history of the minority Anglo-Indian community, once designated an OBC (Other Backward Caste).

The only community in India with the word 'Indian' in its name, it’s now in danger of dying out. There are only 30 Anglo-Indian families left in Jhansi, many officially below the poverty line. Their first language is English, they often dress Western-style and their homes could be in the 1950s Home Counties, were it not for the mounted tiger heads alongside the Sacred Heart fridge magnets, the aviaries of parakeets outside, the three plaster flying ducks inside, the pictures of Buckingham Palace embroidered on the antimacassars.

Teatime at Peggy's is a valuable addition to the history & literature of this fast-dwindling community.

My Thoughts

The book is written through Stephen’s eyes and experiences and even though it says that it gives “A glimpse of Anglo - India” to me , as a complete novice on the subject, it gave so much more. 

This is a book that captivates you with the description  of the Anglo -Indian lifestyle , how they used to live and the traditions that they built up and  put in place within their communities is fascinating  and creates an historically accurate picture of what life was like. The fact that Stephen and Clare spend time with Peggy and Captain Roy Abbot who still adhere to the lifestyle and way of life that they were brought up in and created , still supporting the villagers in any way that they can to ensure that they have a better standard of living in all aspects. 

If you are like me , you will be pulled into this book by its informative, humorous, very tongue in cheek at times narrative. which, above above else is very well written and respectful of the Anglo - Indians  and their life style. 

I absolutely loved it and the fact that I was able to travel to India without leaving the comfort of my living room, experiencing the sights and traditions that Stephen and Clare did is, to me the epitome of an excellent travel book.. Above all else thought I do hope this endangered community survives as it has an invaluable place in history .Absolutely 5 stars.

About the Authors

Stephen McClarence is an award-winning travel writer whose work has appeared in The Times, Sunday Times, Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Daily and Sunday Express, Yorkshire Post, National Geographic Traveler and DestinAsian magazine. A finalist in (and winner of) numerous travel writing awards, he won the major National Daily Travel Writer of the Year award for a Times article about Ramji, a rickshaw driver he met in Varanasi. He has also reviewed books for The Times and been an exhibiting photographer.

Clare Jenkins has been a regular contributor to Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, including reporting on women’s lives in India. She has also made hundreds of features and documentaries for BBC Radio, including some from India, latterly via her production company, Pennine Productions. These include a half-hour programme about Jhansi’s Anglo-Indians, broadcast in 2015 and also called Teatime at Peggy’s - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05tpwc7

She has previously published books about women’s relationships with Roman Catholic priests, and people’s experiences of bereavement, and is a member of the Oral History Society.

Teatime at Peggy’s is a joint project, although the narrative is written in Stephen’s voice. The couple, who have visited India regularly for over 20 years, are now working on a sequel, about their encounters with other people in India who have British connections.