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And so our luxurious progression went on; in twenty five years we had about twenty
houses in three different territories, and while the houses were adequate enough,
none was ever really suitable for grinding the faces of the poor or lording it over anyone.
British colonial standards in the Pacific when we went there in 1967 were modest, even
by the poverty-stricken standards of Nyasaland. They had been much grander in India,
but while the Heaven-born members of the Indian Civil Service (in its upper ranks at
least) had had to maintain a certain dignity, we lesser lights of a newer and more
plebeian service were permitted no such prestige fashions.
In the New Hebrides we occupied a ramshackle and elderly wooden “colonial” Pacific
affair, square and hot, where the central rooms were almost too stuffy for human
endurance and we slept, ate, dined and wined on the filled-in all-round verandah. Since
the children's bedroom’s only window was immediately above our own bed, my wife
and I led a rather public private life. The house survives to this day - as the Women’s
Interests Office. There were a few more modern houses, but they were uniformly
undistinguished in size and appurtenances - a separate dining room was unheard of,
apart from the houses (grandly named Monument and White House) of the two senior
British Office administrators.
I finished up in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, where for many years after the war the
country had been run by a former naval officer with a strong personality and an
economical soul. By this time I had reached advanced years and some dignity as the
Senior District Commissioner, but I still only qualified for a standard “B” grade house -
two bedrooms and a large living-dining room, the rooms separated by soft-board
partitions (soft-board meant that you could poke your finger through it). In all the older
“B” grades the house was thatched, but my elevated rank was recognised by the
provision of a soft-board ceiling. This was not an unmixed blessing, for since the PWD
only renewed the pandanus thatch when daylight and rain broke through, the ceiling was
marked by circular brown stains accompanied by an ominous sagging of the soft-board
and the room looked rather seedy. These houses had been built when officers were not
encouraged to have families and two bedrooms presented a problem if your family, like
mine, included adolescent children of both sexes. This is where the elevated status bit
came in handy at last, for the District Commissioner was actually provided with a
separate guest-house - a bedroom with loo and shower attached. You just had to try to
avoid having official guests during the school holidays.
In a country distinguished by incessant heat under a blazing sun the provision of a
covered verandah was rare, unless you paid for it yourself. I managed to “bounce”
Authority into approving a verandah at the D.C.’s house - provided that the work was
carried out at minimum cost, achieved by an arrangement with the Betio Town Council,
whose chairman was the District Commissioner. In my final year when the District
Commissioner was abolished (and district run from the Secretariat) I was promoted out
of harm’s way to be Secretary (for Natural Resources) under a Minister whose previous
official contact with me was when I had fined him for causing a disturbance in a police
station! To mark my rise in importance I was allotted a new two-storied house in an obsolete cemetery; it still had only three bedrooms and a living-dining room - and no
covered verandah. Quite unofficially I prevailed on the Betio Town Council, which was
no longer under my control, to put up a good thatched lean-to verandah, while my family
and I humped coral and sand and water, mixed concrete and laid a proper verandah
under the thatch.
There were only three grander official houses in the entire colony - two “A” grades,
for the Chief Secretary and the Attorney-General (they actually boasted an en-suite
bathroom for the occupants) and the Residency itself. This was not much more than a
larger version of the “B” grades; it was distinguished by being blessed with a huge
reception/dining room, but the building was thatched and did not even sport a covered
verandah, which is perhaps why the Resident Commissioner was not too keen on my
efforts to get one for a mere District Commissioner. When the colony was separated
from the Western Pacific High Commission in January 1972 the Residency was
upgraded to a Government House - but it had no improvements added - it was just the
old building re-christened.
Looking back over a highly varied career, the most resplendent accommodation I ever
had in my overseas service was in Government House, Cuttack in the province of Orissa in India
when I was Aide-de-Camp to the Governor there in 1946-47. This establishment was
only modestly grand, having been upgraded from a mere Commissioner’s bungalow
about five years earlier on the promotion of Orissa from a Commissioner’s bailiwick to a
full blown Governor’s province, but in the 19th century even Collectors and
Commissioners had of necessity to present a lordly facade - after all, quite minor Indian
potentates had palaces. I lived with my master and his lady in this graceful pillared and
porte-cochered Government House, with a suite of my own - an enormous bedroom with
attached bathroom and a large office/sitting room, where, promptly at 6pm every
evening, a soft-footed, white-clad and gold-badge blazoned khitmutgar brought me a
silver tray on which reposed a small decanter of Scotch, soda water, ice and a glass. Now
that was the lap of luxury.
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