Henry was an inventor at heart, always thinking out new things that would be useful to people

Prepared to a certain extent, I was still unprepared for the phone call and a sing-songy Indian voice asking for Ronnie. Ronnie was off on one of his jaunts. Who was he speaking to? For a moment I couldn’t think. “Mum” I said. He called me ‘Mum’ from then on. I wasn’t quite prepared, either, for the small dark man with shining eyes and a cheerful expression dressed in a black priest gown and a sparkling white dog collar, made of plastic, as it turned out.

Henry and I enjoyed his visit very much. Everything was so new to him. He had never been outside India.

“How different is it?” I asked him one evening. “Too different,” he said. “So much so that I can’t even begin to tell you, there are no points of contact.” He spoke beautiful English.

It was rather a slack time for us on the farm when he arrived. We were thinking he would view us as rather lazy.

“And you people,” he said, “you are always working. You do not throw banana skins on the ground, spit or sit on the roads and wail.” I thought the latter was highly improbable in Scotland. You would either get soaked, freeze or get run over very quickly.

Success

The day after he arrived, he went to visit the Catholic church in Dundee. The priest there asked him if he would consider taking over his church for a month while he went on holiday.

“What do you think?” I was surprised he asked me. “Of course,” I said.

“I’ll have to go to London to get my visa extended.” He was a great success in Dundee. Before he left, the local evening newspaper ran a feature on him. “What were you most surprised at in this country?” was one of the questions he was asked.

“Everything is a surprise,” he said, “often a delightful surprise. What shocked me most was a choice of food for dogs and cats when so many people, children, go starving in India!”

Darma Raj came back twice to visit us, sent by his bishop on church business, hoping to raise money for his orphan boys. He had 200 under his care.

The Indian government would give no money to Christians, so some way or other he had to find it. We raised a fund for him on the farm and gave what we could.

Ronnie had been at his place in India and knew he was genuine. Once a year he bought what he called paddy for his boys, rice off the field at harvest time.

He used every bit of it. What wasn’t used for eating went for fuel for cooking. He grew vegetables with the help of the boys and they kept a few buffalo from which they got milk.

It was thick and creamy. They watered it down and there was plenty for everyone. The boys slept on the roof under the stars. It was safer that way.

There were still dangerous tigers in the forest. He slept on the roof as well, every night, to look after them.

He never got a full night’s sleep, always there was crying in the night. Some new orphan needing some comforting.

The second time he came to visit us he had been on a trip to America.

“It’s fantastic,” he told us. “They have everything, absolutely everything and they were very kind to me. They wanted me to stay. But I couldn’t desert my India, my orphans. They have everything apart from one thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Peace of mind,” he said. “Oh if I could just bring peace of mind out of my pockets,” he said dipping his dark hands into his anorak and bringing them out again empty, “and sell it, oh what a fortune I would make for my orphans.”

Problems

Ronnie’s last time in India was his last lengthy visit to another country. Judith had her exams to finish. She was in her final year and then there would be a year working as a house doctor.

The current students had left the bothy that spring. The bothy would suit Ronnie well to live in. Not long after that Grant returned from Canada.

“I don’t think I’ll go back,” he announced. “I love it way up north, wouldn’t want to be in any other part, but it will never be my country.

“Ed Lindberg hasn’t so much work for me at the moment and I really don’t feel like I can stay there and work for others – they are so kind and I can’t take advantage of them like that.

“I’ve been staying in Fort Simpson lately with Ed’s mother. She is a very kind lady but she’s getting on a bit now.

“And it’s Indian territory up there, quite rightly so – they’ve taken everything else away from them. It means, however, all sorts of problems. I wouldn’t be able to buy land outright to build a house or anything like that.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I want to be home. I miss the kitchen and the family and the farm and company I understand.

“What will you do now?” I asked.

“Go and see if there is some course I can get on that will give me some qualifications,” came the reply. “What?”

He seemed hazy. “Dunno. The Kingsway Tech has an open day next Tuesday. I’ll go and see, decide then.”

He came back in what I thought was remarkably quick time. “Already?” I said.

“No,” said Grant. “I got to the car park, parked the car and couldn’t go inside. I knew I couldn’t do it, couldn’t speak to strangers. I’ve been in the bush too long.”

Henry, who was having his lunch, asked him: “Grant, what would you really like to do?”

“Have a business of my own. Do something in the wood line. I’ve learned a great deal about it in Canada. I’ve made all sorts of things, from log houses to lavatories.”

“Why don’t you do that, then?” asked Henry. “It’s too difficult,” said Grant. Henry rose from the table and disappeared for two or three minutes.

“No it’s not,” he said when he returned. “All you need is an invoice book and a saw,” and he handed him the necessary requirements.

Inventor

If there was one thing the farm could boast of, it was that it had plenty of unused buildings. Buildings that had become too small for modern-day farming or were no longer needed because farming policy had changed.

Henry now worked from the old water tank that had once been fed by windmills before mains water had been put in. His workshop turned out all manner of things, but chiefly, when we first got married, huge steel buckets for JCBS.

But Henry was an inventor at heart, always thinking out new things that would be useful to people. He wasn’t as fussy about how they looked as how well they would work, how strong and reliable they were.

Eventually, buckets were to become unprofitable because of the increased price of the raw material and he went on to other things.

One especially good idea he had never got off the ground, even although everyone he had mentioned it to thought it was a winner.

More tomorrow.