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 chapterLouis had already set himself apart to some extent from his fellow 'sahibs' by learning Hindi. Diana discovered that he had also distinguished himself by his respectful attitude towards his Indian colleagues. In researching her family history, Diana came across a local railwayman who had worked for her father in India. Shri Lal Nathamal Jos was an apprentice on the Bikaner railway in the early '40s and remembers Louis well.
He told Diana how the workers usually respected their officers out of fear. Yet in her father's case it was different: they respected him wholeheartedly. Louis was greatly liked and when he left in 1943 a farewell party was given for him by both the office and workshop staff. They even wrote a poem in his honour.
