If saying that “Barby and I grew up together in India” is of interest to some people, then “We met before we can remember” tends to be of interest to most.

The first time we met was probably in a church creche of some kind at Kellogg when I was about three and Barby was two. In all likelihood it was under the watchful eye of Barby’s mother, with her oversight of the Sunday School at the time.

Kellogg

Kellogg refers to Kellogg Memorial Church. It is named after an American Presbyterian missionary, Samuel H. Kellogg. Very much the scholar, linked to Princeton, his commentary on Leviticus was in my possession for many years. He appears to be one of the good guys, giving his best years to Bible-related translation work into Hindi and Sanskrit.

In his latter years his mission bought The Firs (circled in pink in the map below) as a base for Kellogg to live and work. At the time, it must have had some kind of extensive verandah, or terrace, because Kellogg used the space for cycling. But one morning something collapsed and Kellogg fell 12 feet to his death. It was 1899. He was just sixty years of age.

The church building was finished five years later. It has been a busy place over the years, with the Language School on the same site—and so becoming a focus of missionary life as well. Barby’s grandparents arrived in India in 1913 and learned Hindi there alongside the likes of E. Stanley Jones. Her grandfather is buried in the cemetery adjacent to the church.

By the time our family arrived exactly 50 years later, in 1963, Barby’s father was the pastor of the church. He invited my father to help with the music—and so the friendship began.

My parents gave language-learning their best effort, although my mum’s encounter with it was brief. She had two (naughty) little boys feeling grief, and causing grief, back home at Timoleague. Dad persisted, right through to examination time. It was Barby’s mother who supervised his exam and she used to tell a good story about my father arriving, all anxious and perspiring heavily.

Located at the mid-point of two walking roads, shaped as a figure 8, Kellogg is now a famous tourist destination. In our day the walk was just called the chakkar, with a ‘big chakkar‘ and a ‘small chakkar‘. If you work hard, you can identify it in the map below. It is now referred to as ‘an infinity walk’. Wah. Wah. The views from around the Kellogg area are spectacular: looking one way to the Himalayan peaks and the other way to the Indian plains, with the Ganges River emerging from the mountains at the far left of the widest panorama and the Yamuna River to the far right.

Landour

Kellogg sits atop a hillside known as Landour, which forms a backdrop to one of the famous hill-stations from the British era in India—Mussoorie, ‘The Queen of the Hills’. Kellogg itself is at about 7500 feet (2286m). We knew it was named after the Welsh town, Llanddowor, but were relieved we never had to spell it in that way. [By the way, Llanddowor is in SW Wales, just a 60min drive from Dale, where John Stott had his writing retreat (‘The Hookses’) and where he is buried.]

The first British house in Landour was built in 1825. It is called Mullingar. My brother, Mark, is a bit of an expert on the history of Landour-Mussoorie, once publishing a collection of ‘then and now’ photos of different homes/locations in the area. This is the Landour section of a map he has in his possession. It is from 1946. Yes, I know the print is impossibly tiny. If you can expand it, you’ll see the names of the various homes.

In the bottom third of the hillside you find the sprawling campus of Woodstock School, which the ten children across our two families attended, as well as Barby’s mother. But from that point (roughly) all the way up to the ridge where Kellogg sits, there is this succession of cottages with rather quaint names, drawn from places in Britain—and from the titles of Sir Walter Scott novels.

Timoleague. Abergeldie. Tipperary. Ellangowan. Chynoweth. Claremount. Edgehill. Rokeby.

On and on it goes…

Over the years our family lived in a number of them, including Timoleague and Edgehill. For a season, our little unit on the Edgehill compound was known as Windsor Castle, although I’ve always wondered about how the combatants in the Battle of Edgehill would have felt about such a name. Maple Cottage was another place in which we lived—as was Council Rock, when my father was the superintendent of the Landour Community Hospital.

The closest we got to the top of the ridge was in a cottage called, Bethany. It is just a few short zigs and zags from the chakkar, and a few minutes from Kellogg church. I was 8-9 years of age when we lived there. I remember it as a dark and damp place. It was where we were living when we heard that my first grandparent died—my mother’s father, Royston, after whom I am named. Although it may just be the photo of the occasion, I have this memory of poring over a map with my father—and I’ve been doing it ever since. But most horrific of all, I remember my sister, Diane, leaning against the railing of a verandah, which gave way, with her falling 12 feet onto a rocky path—and thankfully, unlike Kellogg’s 12 foot fall seventy years earlier—she survived.

Google Maps shows the start of ‘the big chakkar‘, heading off in a loop from either side of Kellogg, and then the ‘small chakkar‘ as the road separates just above Bethany. You can see that separation just behind this photo of me becoming reacquainted with my favourite rock-slide as a little boy.

While our family lived in various homes on the hillside, Barby’s family remained at the same place—Bothwell Bank. Yes, that’s right. For quite a few months in our lives, we were neighbours, living just a 1 minute walk from each other. I have no specific memories to share of this reality!

Back to Bothwell Bank… It is perched on the side of the mountain, right at the top, with extraordinary views. I couldn’t find a photo of the full panorama, but this is the view looking eastward, across the Himalayan foothills towards Nepal.

A short walk on beyond Bothwell Bank, along ‘the small chakkar‘, is The Landour Bakehouse, which was not there in our day—but which on our last visit had Barby’s mother’s baguette on the menu. As part of holding on to the heritage, the Bakehouse uses recipes from The Landour Cookbook assembled by a bunch of missionary-mothers some decades ago. Each of our children has a copy…!

Bethany and Bothwell today

One of the big differences from our childhood is that with the emergence of the middle class in India, tourist sites now tend to be filled with Indians. That was not the case. Contributing to this phenomenon is the worldwide Indian diaspora taking their children home for a visit. I kinda like it. I love seeing people enjoying their ‘home-place’, as Indians often express it.

Landour is no exception. This is the time of the year when people escape to the hills for some respite from the heat. Here is another of Mark’s photos from last week. Look at the queue on the 35km drive up the mountain—and it is nowhere near the end of the drive!

YouTube is awash now with videos about Landour, some of them with hundreds of thousands of views. It is incredible. Here is a shorter one. It is in English and refers to some of the places I’ve mentioned—and appropriately titled, don’t you think?

It is interesting that our two little homes from all those years ago are often mentioned, or sighted, in these videos. Indian owners have developed them into luxurious, jaw-dropping holiday destinations.

As you can see from Google Maps, little Bethany is now La Villa Bethany, while Bothwell Bank is now Bothwell Cottage (and a little harder to find online, but it is the ‘Premium Villa’ which is now a part of Rokeby Manor).

Hope you can take time to click on this links. The ‘Bothwell Cottage’ one contains drone footage of that view I was telling you about…

Meanwhile, this is what Tripadvisor has to say about La Villa Bethany:

Wow. A lot has happened in the intervening (almost) sixty years…

This is one other YouTube clip I enjoyed. Beautifully narrated in Hindi, but with English subtitles. Offering a little history near the beginning—and touching down in many of the places I’ve mentioned: the Figure Eight illustrated (2.15); Bothwell Bank views (5.20; 8.05); La Villa Bethany (5.00); the Landour Bakehouse (6.40); and Kellogg church (7.10) …

… as well as a few other favourite places I have not had time to mention: Char Dukaan, Doma’s Inn and Prakash’s.

Ahh, these restoration stories of old homes are whetting my appetite for the restoration of all creation that God is going to do—and along the way, towards the full realisation of that hope, he wants me to join him in this mission of his in the world—and so it is back to work I go!

nice chatting

Paul