KARACHI AND DUBLIN

Karachi Grammar School

After the partition of the Subcontinent  into India and Pakistan, I left my school in Simla and stayed with my parents in Karachi and attended the local Grammar School.

There I made many new friends, Pakistani, European and a few Americans.  We called ourselves the United Nations which had recently come into existence, precisely two years before.   We had exceptional teachers and we worked very hard but also enjoyed ourselves. We went dancing in the school hall every second Saturday evening and the whole class went en masse to the “pictures.”

Like most teenagers of our time who went through the horrors of war and bloodshed, we were very concerned and anxious about the future of the world.  We were for human and animal rights, the abolition of capital punishment, against nuclear power weapons and especially against war.  “There will certainly be no wars in our time,” we said.  How little did we know how naïve could  we be?

Alexandra College Dublin

In September 1949 I went to Dublin to attend Alexandra College.  The flight from Karachi to London was an exciting experience. In a bumpy BOAC aircraft (was it a Lockheed Constellation?) we flew from Karachi to Cairo where the plane had to be grounded overnight, due to “engine trouble”, as we were told.  We stayed in a luxury hotel in Heliopolis and had the unexpected pleasure and luck of visiting the Pyramids and the famous Cairo Museum.

The flight toward Rome was turbulent, while from Rome to London it was blissfully smooth.  We flew over the snow-capped Alpes, green forests and pastures dotted with hamlets and towns, we crossed over the Channel and there was London.  Post-war London was bustling, busy and beautiful but also so devastatingly destroyed by the blitz.

Next day an Air Lingus flight took me to my destination, Dublin.  I was met by Miss Holland who was in charge of the boarding school and we drove to Earlsfort Terrace where the school was located.  A lovely old building   I have some photographs of the garden but, unfortunately, none of the façade.  About ten years after I left, the school moved to Milltown South of Dublin. The old building was demolished, and the Conrad Hotel was built on the site.  A very sad story indeed.  Should beautiful old pieces of architecture be destroyed in order to accommodate newer, perhaps equally elegant constructions?  There ought to be enough space for all.

O'Connell Street Dublin

St Stephan's  Green

Dublin, built on the river Liffey, was a beautiful rather small city in the early 1950s.  It had many parks, lovely buildings, numerous statues and the landmark Nelson’s Pillar (which was destroyed in 1966 by the IRA freedom fighters), many schools and colleges and universities.  I fell in love with Dublin and felt utterly at home there.

At school, we had dedicated professors and we all worked very hard to achieve our goals.  I was allowed to follow lectures in history, at Trinity College.    

The boarding school was leisurely, we had large, comfortable common rooms and studies, a well-stocked library and good food.  And something that seems quite unbelievable to students today, the classrooms and common rooms were heated but our bedrooms were not. During winter we only went to our bedrooms to have a scalding bath and straight to bed.

Dun Laoghaire  Town Hall

Most weekends and holidays I stayed with Mrs Violet Watson in Dun Laoghaire (Dun Leary) a seaside suburb south of Dublin.  I shall never forget her kindness and generosity.  My best friend in Dublin was Cynthia Lynch, who was an Irish girl from Jamaica  She as very nice, good looking and she had a tremendous sense of humour.  I’m grateful to them both and many others who made my two-year stay in Dublin extremely pleasant.

(To be continued)