Uncle Ken

Granny’s fabulous kitchen

As kitchens went, it wasn’t all that big. It wasn’t as big as the bedroom or the living room, but it was big enough, and there was a pantry next to it. What made it fabulous was all that came out of it: good things to eat like cakes and curries, chocolate fudge and peanut toffee, jellies and jam tarts, meat pies, stuffed turkeys, stuffed chickens, stuffed eggplants, and hams stuffed with stuffed chickens.

As far as I was concerned, Granny was the best cook in the whole wide world.

Two generations of Clerkes had lived in India and my maternal grandmother had settled in a small town called Dehradun …

Granny was glad to have me because she lived alone most of the time. Not entirely alone, though … There was a gardener, who lived in an outhouse. And he had a son called Mohan, who was about my age. And there was Ayah, an elderly maidservant, who helped with the household work. And there was a Siamese cat with bright blue eyes, and a mongrel dog called Crazy because he ran circles round the house.

And, of course, there was Uncle Ken, Granny’s nephew, who came to stay whenever he was out of a job (which was quite often) or when he felt like enjoying some of Granny’s cooking.

 

 

Roast Duck. This was one of Granny’s specials. The first time I had roast duck at Granny’s place, Uncle Ken was there too.

He’d just lost a job as a railway guard, and had come to stay with Granny until he could find another job. He always stayed as long as he could, only moving on when Granny offered to get him a job as an assistant master in Padre Lal’s Academy for Small Boys. Uncle Ken couldn’t stand small boys. They made him nervous, he said. I made him nervous too, but there was only one of me, and there was always Granny to protect him. At Padre Lal’s, there were over a hundred small boys.

Although Uncle Ken had a tremendous appetite, and ate just as much as I did, he never praised Granny’s dishes. I think this is why I was annoyed with him at times, and why sometimes I enjoyed making him feel nervous.

Uncle Ken looked down at the roast duck, his glasses slipping down to the edge of his nose.

‘Hm … Duck again, Aunt Ellen?’

‘What do you mean, duck again? You haven’t had duck since you were here last month.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘Somehow, one expects more variety from you, Aunt.’

All the same, he took two large helpings and ate most of the stuffing before I could get at it. I took my revenge by emptying all the apple sauce onto my plate. Uncle Ken knew I loved the stuffing; and I knew he was crazy about Granny’s apple sauce. So we were even.

‘When are you joining your parents?’ he asked hopefully, over the jam tart.

‘I may not go to them this year,’ I said. ‘When are you getting another job, Uncle?’

‘Oh, I’m thinking of taking a rest for a couple of months.’

I enjoyed helping Granny and Ayah with the washing up. While we were at work, Uncle Ken would take a siesta on the veranda or switch on the radio to listen to dance music. Glenn Miller and his Swing Band was all the rage then.

‘And how do you like your Uncle Ken?’ asked Granny one day, as she emptied the bones from his plate into the dog’s bowl.

‘I wish he was someone else’s Uncle,’ I said.

‘He’s not so bad, really. Just eccentric.’

‘What’s eccentric?’

‘Oh, just a little crazy.’

‘At least Crazy runs round the house,’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen Uncle Ken running.’

But I did one day.

Mohan and I were playing marbles in the shade of the mango grove when we were taken aback by the sight of Uncle Ken charging across the compound, pursued by a swarm of bees. He’d been smoking a cigar under a silk-cotton tree, and the fumes had disturbed the wild bees in their hive, directly above him. Uncle Ken fled indoors and leapt into a tub of cold water. He had received a few stings and decided to remain in bed for three days. Ayah took his meals to him on a tray.

‘I didn’t know Uncle Ken could run so fast,’ I said, later that day.

‘It’s nature’s way of compensating,’ said Granny.

‘What’s compensating?’

‘Making up for things … Now at least Uncle Ken knows that he can run. Isn’t that wonderful?’ …

 

‘It’s high time you found a job,’ said Granny to Uncle Ken one day.

‘There are no jobs in Dehra,’ complained Uncle Ken.

‘How can you tell? You’ve never looked for one. And anyway, you don’t have to stay here for ever. Your sister Emily is headmistress of a school in Lucknow. You could go to her. She said before that she was ready to put you in charge of a dormitory.’

‘Bah!’ said Uncle Ken. ‘Honestly, Aunt, you don’t expect me to look after a dormitory seething with forty or fifty demented small boys?’

‘What’s demented?’ I asked.

‘Shut up,’ said Uncle Ken.

‘It means crazy,’ said Granny.

‘So many words mean crazy,’ I complained. ‘Why don’t we just say crazy. We have a crazy dog, and now Uncle Ken is crazy too.’

Uncle Ken clipped me over my ear, and Granny said, ‘Your Uncle isn’t crazy, so don’t be disrespectful. He’s just lazy.’

‘And eccentric,’ I said. ‘I heard he was eccentric.’

‘Who said I was eccentric?’ demanded Uncle Ken.

‘Miss Leslie,’ I lied. I knew Uncle Ken was fond of Miss Leslie, who ran a beauty parlour in Dehra’s smart shopping centre, Astley Hall.

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘Anyway, when did you see Miss Leslie?’

‘We sold her a bottle of mint chutney last week. I told her you liked mint chutney. But she said she’d bought it for Mr Brown who’s taking her to the pictures tomorrow.’

 

Uncle Ken does nothing

 

To our surprise, Uncle Ken got a part-time job as a guide, showing tourists the ‘sights’ around Dehra.

There was an old fort near the river bed; and a seventeenth-century temple; and a jail where Pandit Nehru had spent some time as a political prisoner; and, about ten miles into the foothills, the hot sulphur springs.

Uncle Ken told us he was taking a party of six American tourists, husbands and wives, to the sulphur springs. Granny was pleased. Uncle Ken was busy at last! She gave him a hamper filled with ham sandwiches, home-made biscuits and a dozen oranges—ample provision for a day’s outing.

The sulphur springs were only ten miles from Dehra, but we didn’t see Uncle Ken for three days.

He was a sight when he got back. His clothes were dusty and torn; his cheeks were sunken; and the little bald patch on top of his head had been burnt a bright red.

‘What have you been doing to yourself?’ asked Granny.

Uncle Ken sank into the armchair on the veranda.

‘I’m starving, Aunt Ellen. Give me something to eat.’

‘What happened to the food you took with you?’

‘There were seven of us, and it was all finished on the first day.’

‘Well, it was only supposed to last a day. You said you were going to the sulphur springs.’

‘Yes, that’s where we were going,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘But we never reached them. We got lost in the hills.’

‘How could you possibly have got lost in the hills? You had only to walk straight along the river bed and up the valley … You ought to know, you were the guide and you’d been there before, when my husband was alive.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Uncle Ken, looking crestfallen. ‘But I forgot the way. That is, I forgot the valley. I mean, I took them up the wrong valley. And I kept thinking the springs would be at the same river, but it wasn’t the same river … So we kept walking, until we were in the hills, and then I looked down and saw we’d come up the wrong valley. We had to spend the night under the stars. It was very, very cold. And next day I thought we’d come back a quicker way, through Mussoorie, but we took the wrong path and reached Kempti instead … And then we walked down to the motor road and caught a bus.’

I helped Granny put Uncle Ken to bed, and then I helped her make him a strengthening onion soup. I took him the soup on a tray, and he made a face while drinking it and then asked for more. He was in bed for two days, while Ayah and I took turns taking him his meals. He wasn’t a bit graceful.

 

When Uncle Ken complained he was losing his hair and that his bald patch was increasing in size, Granny looked up her book of old recipes and said there was one for baldness which Grandfather had used with great success. It consisted of a lotion made with gherkins soaked in brandy. Uncle Ken said he’d try it.

Granny soaked some gherkins in brandy for a week, then gave the bottle to Uncle Ken with instructions to rub a little into his scalp mornings and evenings.

Next day, when she looked into his room, she found only gherkins in the bottle. Uncle Ken had drunk all the brandy.

 

Uncle ken liked to whistle.

Hands in his pockets, nothing to do, he would stroll about the house, around the garden, up and down the road, whistling feebly to himself.

It was always the same whistle, tuneless to everyone except my uncle.

‘What are you whistling today, Uncle Ken?’ I’d ask.

‘“Ol’ Man River”. Don’t you recognize it?’

And the next time around he’d be whistling the same notes, and I’d say, ‘Still whistling “Ol’ Man River”, Uncle?’

‘No, I’m not. This is “Danny Boy”. Can’t you tell the difference?’

And he’d slouch off, whistling tunelessly.

Sometimes it irritated Granny.

‘Can’t you stop whistling, Ken? It gets on my nerves. Why don’t you try singing for a change?’

‘I can’t. It’s “The Blue Danube”, there aren’t any words,’ and he’d waltz around the kitchen, whistling.

‘Well, you can do your whistling and waltzing on the veranda,’ Granny would say. ‘I won’t have it in the kitchen. It spoils the food.’

When Uncle Ken had a bad tooth removed by our dentist, Dr Kapadia, we thought his whistling would stop. But it only became louder and shriller.

One day, while he was strolling along the road, hands in his pockets, doing nothing, whistling very loudly, a girl on a bicycle passed him. She stopped suddenly, got off the bicycle, and blocked his way.

‘If you whistle at me every time I pass, Kenneth Clerke,’ she said, ‘I’ll wallop you!’

Uncle Ken went red in the face. ‘I wasn’t whistling at you,’ he said.

‘Well, I don’t see anyone else on the road.’

‘I was whistling “God Save The King”. Don’t you recognize it?’

 

Uncle Ken on the job

 

‘We’ll have to do something about Uncle Ken,’ said Granny to the world at large.

I was in the kitchen with her, shelling peas and popping a few into my mouth now and then. Suzie, the Siamese cat, sat on the sideboard, patiently watching Granny prepare an Irish stew. Suzie liked Irish stew.

‘It’s not that I mind him staying,’ said Granny, ‘and I don’t want any money from him, either. But it isn’t healthy for a young man to remain idle for so long.’

‘Is Uncle Ken a young man, Gran?’

‘He’s forty. Everyone says he’ll improve as he grows up.’

‘He could go and live with Aunt Mabel.’

‘He does go and live with Aunt Mabel. He also lives with Aunt Emily and Aunt Beryl. That’s his trouble—he has too many doting sisters ready to put him up and put up with him … Their husbands are all quite well-off and can afford to have him now and then. So our Ken spends three months with Mabel, three months with Beryl, and three months with me. That way he gets through the year as everyone’s guest and doesn’t have to worry about making a living.’

‘He’s lucky in a way,’ I said.

‘His luck won’t last forever. Already Mabel is talking of going to New Zealand. And once India is free—in just a year or two from now—Emily and Beryl will probably go off to England, because their husbands are in the army and all the British officers will be leaving.’

‘Can’t Uncle Ken follow them to England?’

‘He knows he’ll have to start working if he goes there. When your aunts find they have to manage without servants, they won’t be ready to keep Ken for long periods. In any case, who’s going to pay his fare to England or New Zealand?’

‘If he can’t go, he’ll stay here with you, Granny. You’ll be here, won’t you?’

‘Not forever. Only while I live.’

‘You won’t go to England?’

‘No, I’ve grown up here. I’m like the trees. I’ve taken root, I won’t be going away—not until, like an old tree, I’m without any more leaves … You’ll go though, when you are bigger. You’ll probably finish your schooling abroad.’

‘I’d rather finish it here. I want to spend all my holidays with you. If I go away, who’ll look after you when you grow old?’

‘I’m old already. Over sixty.’

‘Is that very old? It’s only a little older than Uncle Ken. And how will you look after him when you’re really old?’

‘He can look after himself if he tries. And it’s time he started. It’s time he took a job.’

I pondered on the problem. I could think of nothing that would suit Uncle Ken—or rather, I could think of no one who would find him suitable. It was Ayah who made a suggestion.

‘The Maharani of Jetpur needs a tutor for her children,’ she said. ‘Just a boy and a girl.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Granny.

‘I heard it from their ayah. The pay is two hundred rupees a month, and there is not much work—only two hours every morning.’

‘That should suit Uncle Ken,’ I said.

‘Yes, it’s a good idea,’ said Granny. ‘We’ll have to talk him into applying. He ought to go over and see them. The Maharani is a good person to work for.’

Uncle Ken agreed to go over and inquire about the job. The Maharani was out when he called, but he was interviewed by the Maharaja.

‘Do you play tennis?’ asked the Maharaja.

‘Yes,’ said Uncle Ken, who remembered having played a bit of tennis when he was a schoolboy.

‘In that case, the job’s yours. I’ve been looking for a fourth player for a doubles match … By the way, were you at Cambridge?’

‘No, I was at Oxford,’ said Uncle Ken.

The Maharaja was impressed. An Oxford man who could play tennis was just the sort of tutor he wanted for his children.

When Uncle Ken told Granny about the interview, she said, ‘But you haven’t been to Oxford, Ken. How could you say that!’

‘Of course I have been to Oxford. Don’t you remember? I spent two years there with your brother Jim!’

‘Yes, but you were helping him in his pub in the town. You weren’t at the University.’

‘Well, the Maharaja never asked me if I had been to the University. He asked me if I was at Cambridge, and I said no, I was at Oxford, which was perfectly true. He didn’t ask me what I was doing at Oxford. What difference does it make?’

And he strolled off, whistling.

To our surprise, Uncle Ken was a great success in his job. In the beginning, anyway.

The Maharaja was such a poor tennis player that he was delighted to discover that there was someone who was even worse. So, instead of becoming a doubles partner for the Maharaja, Uncle Ken became his favourite singles opponent. As long as he could keep losing to His Highness, Uncle Ken’s job was safe.

In between tennis matches and accompanying his employer on duck shoots, Uncle Ken squeezed in a few lessons for the children, teaching them reading, writing and arithmetic. Sometimes he took me along, so that I could tell him when he got his sums wrong. Uncle Ken wasn’t very good at subtraction, although he could add fairly well.

The Maharaja’s children were smaller than me. Uncle Ken would leave me with them, saying, ‘Just see that they do their sums properly, Ruskin,’ and he would stroll off to the tennis courts, hands in his pockets, whistling tunelessly.

Even if his pupils had different answers to the same sum, he would give both of them an encouraging pat, saying, ‘Excellent, excellent. I’m glad to see both of you trying so hard. One of you is right and one of you is wrong, but as I don’t want to discourage either of you, I won’t say who’s right and who’s wrong!’

But afterwards, on the way home, he’d ask me, ‘Which was the right answer, Ruskin?’

Uncle Ken always maintained that he would never have lost his job if he hadn’t beaten the Maharaja at tennis.

Not that Uncle Ken had any intention of winning. But by playing occasional games with the Maharaja’s secretaries and guests, his tennis had improved and so, try as hard as he might to lose, he couldn’t help winning a match against his employer.

The Maharaja was furious.

‘Mr Clerke,’ he said sternly, ‘I don’t think you realize the importance of losing. We can’t all win, you know. Where would the world be without losers?’

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘It was just a fluke, your Highness.’

The Maharaja accepted Uncle Ken’s apologies; but a week later it happened again. Kenneth Clerke won and the Maharaja stormed off the court without saying a word. The following day he turned up at lesson time. As usual Uncle Ken and the children were engaged in a game of noughts and crosses.

‘We won’t be requiring your services from tomorrow, Mr Clerke. I’ve asked my secretary to give you a month’s salary in lieu of notice.’

Uncle Ken came home with his hands in his pockets, whistling cheerfully.

‘You’re early,’ said Granny.

‘They don’t need me any more,’ said Uncle Ken.

‘Oh well, never mind. Come in and have your tea.’ Granny must have known the job wouldn’t last very long. And she wasn’t one to nag. As she said later, ‘At least he tried. And it lasted longer than most of his jobs—two months.’

 

Uncle Ken at the wheel

 

On my next visit to Dehra, Mohan met me at the station. We got into a tonga with my luggage and we went rattling and jingling along Dehra’s quiet roads to Granny’s house.

‘Tell me all the news, Mohan.’

‘Not much to tell. Some of the sahibs are selling their houses and going away. Suzie has had kittens.’

Granny knew I’d been in the train for two nights, and she had a huge breakfast ready for me. Porridge, scrambled eggs on toast. Bacon with fried tomatoes. Toast and marmalade. Sweet milky tea.

She told me there’d been a letter from Uncle Ken.

‘He says he’s the assistant manager in Firpo’s hotel in Simla,’ she said. ‘The salary is very good, and he gets free board and lodging. It’s a steady job and I hope he keeps it.’

Three days later Uncle Ken was on the veranda steps with his bedding roll and battered suitcase.

‘Have you given up the hotel job?’ asked Granny.

‘No,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘They have closed down.’

‘I hope it wasn’t because of you.’

‘No, Aunt Ellen. The bigger hotels in the hill stations are all closing down.’

‘Well, never mind. Come along and have your tiffin. There is kofta curry today. It’s Ruskin’s favourite.’

‘Oh, is he here too? I have far too many nephews and nieces. Still he’s preferable to those two girls of Mabel’s. They made life miserable for me all the time I was with them in Simla.’

Over tiffin (as lunch was called in those days), Uncle Ken talked very seriously about ways and means of earning a living.

‘There is only one taxi (In the early 1940s Dehra had only one or two taxis. Today, there are over 500 plying in the town) in the whole of Dehra,’ he mused. ‘Surely there is business for another?’

‘I’m sure there is,’ said Granny. ‘But where does it get you? In the first place, you don’t have a taxi. And in the second place, you can’t drive.’

‘I can soon learn. There’s a driving school in town. And I can use Uncle’s old car. It’s been gathering dust in the garage for years.’ (He was referring to Grandfather’s vintage Hillman Roadster. It was a 1926 model: about twenty years old.)

‘I don’t think it will run now,’ said Granny.

‘Of course it will. It just needs some oiling and greasing and a spot of paint.’

‘All right, learn to drive. Then we will see about the Roadster.’

So Uncle Ken joined the driving school.

He was very regular, going for his lessons for an hour in the evening. Granny paid the fee.

After a month Uncle Ken announced that he could drive and that he was taking the Roadster out for a trial run.

‘You haven’t got your licence yet,’ said Granny.

‘Oh, I won’t take her far,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘Just down the road and back again.’

He spent all morning cleaning up the car. Granny gave him money for a can of petrol.

After tea, Uncle Ken said, ‘Come along, Ruskin, hop in and I will give you a ride. Bring Mohan along too.’ Mohan and I needed no urging. We got into the car beside Uncle Ken.

‘Now don’t go too fast, Ken,’ said Granny anxiously. ‘You are not used to the car as yet.’

Uncle Ken nodded and smiled and gave two sharp toots on the horn. He was feeling pleased with himself.

Driving through the gate, he nearly ran over Crazy.

Miss Kellner, coming out for her evening rickshaw ride, saw Uncle Ken at the wheel of the Roadster and went indoors again.

Uncle Ken drove straight and fast, tootling the horn without a break.

At the end of the road there was a roundabout.

‘We’ll turn here,’ said Uncle Ken, ‘and then drive back again.’

He turned the steering wheel; we began going round the roundabout; but the steering wheel wouldn’t turn all the way, not as much as Uncle Ken would have liked it to … So, instead of going round, we took a right turn and kept going, straight on—and straight through the Maharaja of Jetpur’s garden wall.

It was a single-brick wall, and the Roadster knocked it down and emerged on the other side without any damage to the car or any of its occupants. Uncle Ken brought it to a halt in the middle of the Maharaja’s lawn.

Running across the grass came the Maharaja himself, flanked by his secretaries and their assistants. When he saw that it was Uncle Ken at the wheel, the Maharaja beamed with pleasure.

‘Delighted to see you, old chap!’ he exclaimed. ‘Jolly decent of you to drop in again. How about a game of tennis?’

 

Uncle Ken at the wicket

 

Although restored to the Maharaja’s favour, Uncle Ken was still without a job.

Granny refused to let him take the Hillman out again and so he decided to sulk. He said it was all Grandfather’s fault for not seeing to the steering wheel ten years ago, while he was still alive. Uncle Ken went on a hunger strike for two hours (between tiffin and tea), and we did not hear him whistle for several days.

‘The blessedness of silence,’ said Granny.

And then he announced that he was going to Lucknow to stay with Aunt Emily.

‘She has three children and a school to look after,’ said Granny. ‘Don’t stay too long.’

‘She doesn’t mind how long I stay,’ said Uncle Ken and off he went.

His visit to Lucknow was a memorable one, and we only heard about it much later.

When Uncle Ken got down at Lucknow station, he found himself surrounded by a large crowd, every one waving to him and shouting words of welcome in Hindi, Urdu and English. Before he could make out what it was all about, he was smothered by garlands of marigolds. A young man came forward and announced, ‘The Gomti Cricketing Association welcomes you to the historical city of Lucknow,’ and promptly led Uncle Ken out of the station to a waiting car.

It was only when the car drove into the sports stadium that Uncle Ken realized that he was expected to play in a cricket match.

This is what had happened.

Bruce Hallam, the famous English cricketer, was touring India and had agreed to play in a charity match at Lucknow. But the previous evening, in Delhi, Bruce had gone to bed with an upset stomach and hadn’t been able to get up in time to catch the train. A telegram was sent to the organizers of the match in Lucknow; but, like many a telegram, it did not reach its destination. The cricket fans of Lucknow had arrived at the station in droves to welcome the great cricketer. And by a strange coincidence, Uncle Ken bore a startling resemblance to Bruce Hallam; even the bald patch on the crown of his head was exactly like Hallam’s. Hence the muddle. And, of course, Uncle Ken was always happy to enter into the spirit of a muddle.

Having received from the Gomti Cricketing Association a rousing reception and a magnificent breakfast at the stadium, he felt that it would be very unsporting on his part if he refused to play cricket for them. ‘If I can hit a tennis ball,’ he mused, ‘I ought to be able to hit a cricket ball.’ And, luckily, there was a blazer and a pair of white flannels in his suitcase.

The Gomti team won the toss and decided to bat. Uncle Ken was expected to go in at number three, Bruce Hallam’s normal position. And he soon found himself walking to the wicket, wondering why on earth no one had as yet invented a more comfortable kind of pad.

The first ball he received was short-pitched, and he was able to deal with it in tennis fashion, swatting it to the mid-wicket boundary. He got no runs, but the crowd cheered.

The next ball took Uncle Ken on the pad. He was right in front of his wicket and should have been given out lbw. But the umpire hesitated to raise his finger. After all, hundreds of people had paid good money to see Bruce Hallam play, and it would have been a shame to disappoint them. ‘Not out,’ said the umpire.

The third ball took the edge of Uncle Ken’s bat and sped through the slips.

‘Lovely shot!’ exclaimed an elderly gentleman in the pavilion.

‘A classic late cut,’ said another.

The ball reached the boundary and Uncle Ken had four runs to his name. Then it was ‘Over’, and the other batsman had to face the bowling. He took a run off the first ball and called for a second run. Uncle Ken thought one run was more than enough. Why go charging up and down the wicket like a mad man? However, he couldn’t refuse to run, and he was halfway down the pitch when the fielder’s throw hit the wicket. Uncle Ken was run-out by yards. There could be no doubt about it this time.

He returned to the pavilion to the sympathetic applause of the crowd.

‘Not his fault,’ said the elderly gentleman. ‘The other chap shouldn’t have called. There wasn’t a run there. Still, it was worth coming here all the way from Kanpur if only to see that superb late cut …’

Uncle Ken enjoyed a hearty tiffin-lunch (taken at noon), and then, realizing that the Gomti team would probably have to be in the field for most of the afternoon—more running about!—he slipped out of the pavilion, left the stadium, and took a tonga to Aunt Emily’s house in the cantonment.

He was just in time for a second lunch (taken at one o’clock) with Aunt Emily’s family: and it was presumed at the stadium that Bruce Hallam had left early to catch the train to Allahabad, where he was expected to play in another charity match.

Aunt Emily, a forceful woman, fed Uncle Ken for a week, and then put him to work in the boys’ dormitory of her school. It was several months before he was able to save up enough money to run away and return to Granny’s place.

But he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had helped the great Bruce Hallam to add another four runs to his grand aggregate. The scorebook of the Gomti Cricketing Association had recorded his feat for all time:

‘B. Hallam run-out 4’

The Gomti team lost the match. But, as Uncle Ken would readily admit, where would we be without losers?