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Introduction


                                                 Photo by Rashid on Unsplash


Romance, racism and a mystery solved. 

The history of my paternal family in fourteen chapters, from its roots in Scotland to its time in India, with reference to wider social and economic issues and reflections on how it relates to today.


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Chapter 1: Prologue

                                                      Advertisement on the side of a building in Borough, London In September 1971 Kenneth William Benson (“Ken”) is driven away from Heathrow Airport by his brother Charles (and his girlfriend). As they took the exit onto the motorway a large sign proclaimed,   “Take Courage”. Ken who had just flown in from Calcutta where the temperature was a high 20C in comparison to London at the lower end of the scale, thought Britain must be a truly terrible place, if such a sign was necessary to stir the hearts of those arriving. Charles later informed Ken that the sign was in fact an advert for Courage Bitter, something for which Ken never developed a taste.   And so my Dad arrived in Britain to begin his new life. The Benson brothers had returned to “the old country” from where ...
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Chapter 2: Roots

                                              Scotland The story begins in the Land of the Brave; it begins with my great grandfathers, William Benson and Charles Ramage Blake. Both were born in Scotland within 10 years of each other.   William Benson William was born in Aberdeen on 18 March 1875, the middle son of William Henry Benson and Isabella Speid. William Henry had made his career in the Caledonian Railway, working his way up from a railway clerk in the goods’ department to the position of superintendent.   William’s elder brother, James Speid, began his career as a solicitor’s general clerk, eventually qualifying as a solicitor. James is listed on the Roll of Honour of Aberdeen University, which shows that he served as a Private from November 1914 in the 1st Volunteer Battalion Gordon Highlanders (previously the City of Aberdeen Volun...
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Chapter 6: Charles

                                                                               Charles Ramage Blake Between 1915 and 1917, Chas and Nelsie   lived on site and cleared the land, to enable tea to be cultivated at Jutlibari, whether this was for the planting of imported tea or the management of Indian variety I can only assume the latter. On 22 February 1915 there first child, Robert Haig Blake (“Bobby”), was born. Even with the journal of George Barker, it is difficult to imagine the conditions and, while Nelsie had already experienced childbirth before, she had a daughter Melida from her first husband, it must still have been a trying and frightening time.   George writes,   Land most suited for plantations are usually uninhabited hill tr...
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