Ah. That's what I should be doing. Except that you've done it . Damn!
On the Empire-building theme then and all true. My father told me that nothing subsquently, even being secretary to two Archbishops of Canterbury, ever came up to it. His game was tennis not polo but you have to take liberties sometimes.
The Builders
The Empire builders in their khaki shorts
Who painted every continent with red,
Through English Common Law and English sports,
They made the British great and now they’re dead.
All of them dead as doornails, dead as earth.
My father in Bombay was such a one,
Selected by no accident of birth,
Cambridge mad dog who braved the midday sun,
Ruling from his Collector’s bungalow
Under his sola topee very pukka,
Relaxing now and then to see a show
Or take his pony out and play a chukka.
A sahib and his memsahib, proud and free,
Both young when being young was very Heaven,
And out on the veranda, baby me.
All of this stopped in 1947.
Last edited by John Whitworth; 11-19-2015 at 01:44 AM.
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