Trace and Tell your Family's Empire Stories
Introduction
Diana Rigg, 1960s icon of TV, film and stage, is best known for playing Emma Peel in the Avengers and Tracy Di Vicenzo, the only woman whom James Bond married.
What is less well known about her is that she grew up in India, the daughter of a railway engineer in the final days of the British Raj. In Episode One of Empire's Children she retraces her family's journey to India to discover more about their life.
Her father was employed by Maharaja Ganga Singh on the Rajasthan railway and was to work there for more than 20 years. But the Indian independence movement was already gathering pace. British rule, which had been maintained in India for over 300 years, would soon be swept away, forcing Louis and his family to return to a changed Britain.
Browser by chapterBy 1938 Diana's father had been promoted to locomotive and carriage superintendent. He and his wife now found themselves rubbing shoulders with not just Indian royalty, but also the most senior officials of the British Empire.
The couple were regular guests at the Maharaja's lakeside lodge at Gagner, 30 miles west of Bikaner in the Thar Desert. Special gatherings were held there at Christmas and New Year and the residents of Bikaner vied for invitations. As in many British colonies, hunting was an especially popular pastime.
Beryl described one of the hunts at Gagner in a letter home:
'We didn't go into the butts with the men, I wanted to but HH (His Highness the Maharaja) said it was too hot for us, so we watched from the lakeside. It was a very new experience for me to see what happened... An aide de camp or someone fired the first shot. This was to make the birds rise from the lake. It was extraordinary the way they all rose in a cloud when that shot was fired. Then HH fired the first one after the birds had risen, then all the men started. There were about 10 men shooting and they got 570 birds... HH himself got 170 birds but then he had 3 guns and 3 loaders so all he had to do was shoot...'
On the hunt the men would be placed in order of precedence, with the Maharaja in the middle and his guest of honour to his right. Diana's father would be placed right at the end of the line. Diana can recall him only getting three birds during this particular hunt, but she remembers him not minding as he adored shooting.
