MEET THE AUTHOR

BRYONY HILL’s new book Scotland to Shalimar traces the lives of her ancestors from the Highlands to generations in colonial India

You have an incredible treasure trove of family recipes, photographs and drawings. How did you go from finding the collection to publishing it in your book?

It all began with two beautiful watercolour albums, which were started by my 4x great grandmother and belonged to my grandmother in New Zealand. Then when Mum died in 2007, in the roof of her house I found a box containing her family’s recipes, contributed by my 3x great grandmother, my great great grandmother and my great grandmother in India where they were born. This business of the family and India and Scotland sort of sowed a little seed in my mind, but I didn’t know how to develop it into anything that would be a cohesive, interesting, flowing book. It’s taken a long time to put together, and the recipes were really the catalyst because they were so different. Gradually, with the help of family history websites, I was able to get dates of births, deaths and marriages and things, and try and link who belonged to whom. The added complication was that my relations often had the same names, which were passed down from generation to generation. It took a lot of sorting, and I hope I’ve got it right!

TR

How did you research the vivid picture you paint of life for the British in India?

I used letters and correspondence and stuff from my own family, and saw what other people, who I quote in the book, wrote. They were all faced with intensely complicated lives, so very different from Surrey and the Home Counties, or Scotland. Cooking was difficult, and trying to keep cool could be horrendous. Many of them had large families, but a lot of their children didn’t survive. The men were away fighting a lot of the time, and the women were left. It’s not that long ago, but I cannot imagine living in those sorts of conditions.

What were you most surprised to learn?

That two of my 4x great grandfathers were brothers! Another surprise was finding out that the Soviet spy Anthony Blunt was a relation.

Have you tried any of the family recipes?

Yes – I’m working on a companion book of the whole collection of recipes, illustrated with colour plates, which will be out next year. I’ve made a special orange cake, and I cooked a chicken and fruit curry the other day. Also, I regularly cook Great Uncle Alec’s fish ragout.