Charles Swithinbank Interviewed by Paul Merchant
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IN PARTNERSHIP WITH NATIONAL LIFE STORIES AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH SCIENCE Dr Charles Swithinbank Interviewed by Dr Paul Merchant C1379/03 This transcript is copyright of the British Library Board. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road NW1 2DB 020 7412 7404 [email protected] IMPORTANT Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. Should you find any errors please inform the Oral History curators ( [email protected] ) British Library National Life Stories Interview Summary Sheet Title Page Ref no: C1379/03 Collection title: An Oral History of British Science Interviewee’s surname: Swithinbank Title: Dr Interviewee’s forename: Charles Winthrop Sex: M Molesworth Occupation: Glaciologist Date and place of 17/11/1926; Pegu, birth: Burma Mother’s occupation: Naturalist Father’s occupation: District Commissioner, Indian Civil Service Dates of recording, Compact flash cards used, tracks (from – to): 11/12/09 (track 1-2); 21/12/09 (track 3-4); 4/1/10 (track5-6); 11/1/10 (track 7-8); 22/1/10 (track 9-13); 5/2/10 (track 14-18); 16/2/10 (track 19-21) Location of interview: Interviewee’s home, Fulbourn, Cambridge Name of interviewer: Dr Paul Merchant Type of recorder: Marantz PMD661 (tracks 1 – 13, 19 – 21) Marantz PDM660 (tracks 14-18) Recording format : 660: WAV 16 bit 48 kHz 661: WAV 24 bit 48kHz Total no. of tracks: 21 Mono or stereo: Stereo Total Duration: 27:30:35 Additional material: Small collection of digitised photographs. DVD of whaling, 1949, filmed by interviewee. Copyright/Clearance: Open Interviewer’s comments: Some quiet tracks. Noise of breath across microphone affects several tracks. Tracks 14-18 recorded on MPD660 (at 16 bit) Charles Swithinbank Page 4 C1379/03 Track 1 [Track 1] Okay, could I just start by asking you where and when you were born? I was born in Burma, in Pegu, Burma on the seventeenth of November 1926 and that was because my family was out there; my father was a District Commissioner in the Indian Civil Service, the Burma Division, and he married out there and they produced two children in Burma. It’s only when we reached the age of about seven that it was customary to have the mother bring the children back home to England for schooling and from then on it was a sort of split family and I only saw my father for six months every two years. That at the time was a very generous leave allowance, but for a growing child of course it meant he was just not there. Thank you. I wonder whether we could just start by you describing your earliest memory. Earliest memories in Burma, we did a lot of travelling. We were of course… my parents were part of the British Raj and therefore very high standard of living compared with the locals, and lots of servants, but my father really loved the people and didn’t like the trappings of the Raj and used to go into the jungle by himself, which was not popular with the Burma police who were British, because some of the British were murdered by rebels. But my father spoke Burmese fluently and used to go into the native villages unaccompanied, but dressed as a Burmese, sit down cross-legged and hear all the gripes of the villagers, and I noted that in his obituary, written by a Burmese, he died in 1956 I think, he was described as a one-man special investigations bureau because he got so much out of the natives that no other white man would get out. And he was highly respected and loved the life. My mother said many years later that the only reason he never became Governor of Burma in the normal course of promotion was that they thought he was too close to the natives, which in an Empire sort of colonial situation is regarded as a sin. But my father thought quite the other way, that it was an important part of the job to get close to the locals. Thank you. We’ll cover Burma in some detail in a moment, but if we can just go back to grandparents. I’ll do it sort of systematically, so your paternal grandfather? [0:03:46] Charles Swithinbank Page 5 C1379/03 Track 1 I met my paternal grandfather only once, when he was very, very old, in fact senile, so I have no memories about him really. And your paternal grandmother? No, she was dead by the time I came into the world. And your maternal grandfather? He too, I think was dead. And your maternal grandmother? I have no recollection. I think she was dead probably. You see, because seven years since I was born in Burma and there was no chance of getting to know any relatives till we came back after seven years. Yes. Came to this country, and I don’t remember. I remember one meeting with my paternal grandfather and his nose dripped. The sort of thing a child would have noticed of a very old man. I wonder then, could you say anything about the role that stories about grandparents had in your early life or life, so in other words, can you remember anything of what your parents said about your grandparents? No, I can’t. My mother was good at reading stories of adventure and exploration to her children and that definitely had an effect on my life, because her message was don’t get stuck in an office like your father. In fact it’s a bit unfair on my father because he travelled more than most District Commissioners in Burma, but I took the point and wanted something which involved travel and not a routine job with a sort of stepladder promotion through life. We notice with the people I worked with later for many years, when they do a few years in Charles Swithinbank Page 6 C1379/03 Track 1 the Antarctic and come back, most of them move on to something else because there are very few permanent posts available, or there were when I was a young man, I mean I was one of the first. And the story we love to tell is that their fathers when they come back say to them, well, after two years in the Antarctic now you must find a proper job. Well, for anyone who wants to stay in the business, they’ve been in a proper job all along. Mm. Why do you think that your mother gave you that advice then if, as you say, your father actually was a bit of a traveller? [0:06:49] Well my mother was an adventuress herself. She would go in the jungle with one or two Burmese. She loved wildlife, she was told to have an elephant gun to protect her because there were wild elephants who would attack so she became the only person in Burma who could wield an elephant gun, which has a hell of a kick apparently, because it’s large bore, and the only elephant she ever shot was at the request of villagers because it was a rogue elephant, had been trampling things in the village. George Orwell’s got an essay on something quite similar. He was sort of working there and had to shoot an elephant and he said that he did it almost to sort of avoid looking sort of inept, you know, he felt that he sort of had to do something for the sort of natives to see it happen. Yes. So she said that you shouldn’t get stuck in an office like your father. Could you say any more about how then she viewed him and his job at that time? She enjoyed the trappings of being married to a District Commissioner and really had no interest in what he did in the office, but did enjoy getting close to the people and was very easy and friendly with people. And we had, as any British family would have had then, we probably had eight servants of different kinds and that was normal. So from that point of view it was an easy life. But being away from one’s friends in England may not have been easy for my parents, but for the children Burma was our life at that time, so we loved it. Charles Swithinbank Page 7 C1379/03 Track 1 Could you describe the landscape of Burma as you remember it? And if you could in, as part of that, describe not only the sights, but the sounds and smells and that sort of thing as well? [0:09:19] Burma is dominated by the Irrawaddy River running down the middle and the densest groups of population are all beside the river and they take fish from the river, they use the river for irrigation and so it’s really the heart, heart and soul of the place and I remember going up and down in ferries, up and down river, and my family even took our own horses on the boat. I mean there were four of us; two parents and two children and we each had our own horses and when we travelled for any reason, we would travel with our horses on the ferry boat.