A warm welcome to this unique collection of personal histories ! You may either scroll through the full library of stories below or if you wish to read stories under specific categories please select from the drop down menu on the right side bar.

 

The Love Gene

Scientific research has shown that people who are attracted to one another, experience a phenomenon in which a gene inside ...
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The Voyage

I joined the Indian Navy in 1949 after graduating from Presidency College. It was still the Royal Indian Navy. Cochin ...
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Coming Home: Happiness, at last

The final episode in Susan's quest: Armed with Peter Stewart's name, I persisted with my search with the full support ...
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Coming Home: Love and Longings

Nine years after the birth of her firstborn child, Elizabeth Edwards married a lovely, well-to-do Englishman.  They had met while ...
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Coming Home: Dreams and Heartbreaks

The year was 1964 and Rock and Roll was in full swing around the globe.  Three young people in the ...
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500 + Jolly :The great escape

My 71-year-old grandmother had to come to terms with the reality that she would have to leave her home and ...
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It all starts with a smile

I am a 34-year-old mother of two beautiful children; Arina is 5 and Miron 3. I live in Moscow and ...
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A joyous day and some poignant memories

9th May, the Victory Day, is celebrated on a grand scale in Russia. The document ending the Second World War, ...
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Your name is written on every grain you eat

I love India and I love Indian food and can cook quite a few popular dishes like daal, shahi paneer, ...
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The Life and Times of Vassily K

Sergei K. in conversation with Tapti Roy Thinking about the life and destiny of my dear Grandfather Vassily, I have ...
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Love on the Shores of India

By Galina Valiullina  I was 15 when grand aunt Evgenia Khovanskaya died in 1975, leaving her home to my mother ...
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Our Old School

I can remember Grantchester Road in Cambridge where I lived for under a year when I was 6 going on ...
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A Journey in Various Moods

A day-long journey along the Black Sea from Russia to Georgia can be quite an experience for anybody. The journey ...
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Freedom, Food and the Tragedy of Deaths

 I came to live in Coochbehar with my parents- in- law after I was married. Coochbehar, 700 kilometres north of ...
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Buffalo Horns: An Unhappy Trophy

My introduction to buffalo hunting started soon after I arrived in Australia in 1960 as a Ten Pound Pom. After ...
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A Winter’s Tale

My particular memory goes back some 90 years to when I was living with my rather troubled family in Tunbridge ...
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Encounters at Harvard

In 1955 I was offered a two-year scholarship to Harvard University, to get my MA in English Literature. It was ...
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Ghosts in the House

Whenever I am haunted by memories of the past, our house in JabalpurA city in the central Indian province of ...
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Knights by the Table

I do say that it is in my blood to run the Knight’s Fish & Chips Restaurant in Glastonbury. I ...
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Palace to Partition: My Mother’s Tale

I was travelling to Bangladesh for the first time in 2017. I told my mother that I was going for ...
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C’est La Vie! II

The is the second part of  the story about Joan's travel to Lyon After two or three days of complete ...
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C’est La Vie! (This is Life)

The idea of the Blog developed while talking to Joan Duncan and reading her detailed account of living in London ...
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Ruby and the Memsahibs

I was travelling by car from Jamshedpur to DurgapurDurgapur in the state of West Bengal is 180 kilometres north of ...
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To Ma, with Love

My mother, Swarna Kumari (Beena) Roy Choudhury was the daughter of Professor Rajanikanta Guha, a well-known academic in Bengal, who ...
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Jason and our Home of Love

I was one of 7 children and we lived with our Dad, Mom and Grandmother. My Dad was a very ...
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Always in the Mood for Dance: My life with Bill

  I was born in October 1918. My mother lived in Exeter, Devon and I was 2 and a half ...
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My Flights of Fancy- Travels to the Orient

The second part of her story on travels When things had settled down and I had bought a flat in ...
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On the Wings of Dreams – My years of growing up

In a two part story, June recollects her childhood, her adulthood and the adventures of travel It was Sunday morning ...
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The Legacy of my Swadeshi Grandparents

 Sometime around 5.30 am when the sun rises in winter in Guwahati Assam, that precious time in the morning when ...
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Adventures of An Able Seaman

I joined the British Navy at the age of 17 in 1944. I had lived with my parents in Markyate, ...
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An Unsung Hero -Debendra Chandra Dey

Among the countless revolutionaries who participated in the struggle for Indian independence from British rule, many have become well known ...
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My Jewish Legacy

I had always been struck by the large portrait of a man, that hung over my grandmother’s sitting room. I ...
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‘Warm as the wind, soft as the kiss of snow’ – The Indian Romance

Radio Moscow, which has now been renamed Voice of Russia, ran several interesting programmes, even if some involved propaganda. Programmes ...
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‘Warm as the wind, soft as the kiss of snow’: Life with family and friends

In a two part story, Irina recounts her growing up in Moscow and travels to India I was born to ...
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Life in a mine: how a disaster was averted

I joined Eastern Coalfields Ltd (a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd, a government of India enterprise) The coal mines in India ...
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Of War and Peace: Bangladesh in 1972

  Excerpts from an account by an Indian civil servant deputed to oversee rehabilitation of evacuees and distribution of relief ...
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The Maharaja’s English Connection

My husband Neil C. Duncan’s maternal grandfather was Arthur Ramdin. Neil put together a brief biography of Arthur who clearly ...
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A Granddaughter’s tribute to the Artist, Sarada Ukil

Sarada Charan Ukil, popularly known as Sarada Ukil, my maternal grandfather is something of a mythical figure to me. What ...
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Katrina: A Latvian Tale

My mother, Katrina was barely 10 when she was orphaned, her mother predeceasing her father by a few months. Born ...
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My Grandmother’s Daughter

Till I was sent to a College Hostel in Darjeeling, I had never been away from the family. We lived ...
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Anonyma: A lady on the train

Anonyma: Eine Frau in Berlin (known in the UK as `The downfall of Berlin Anonyma`) is a 2008 German film ...
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The Guhas of Brooking Street

Jatindramohan Guha My great grandfather, Jatindramohan Guha  was the first in his village Qutubpur in the district of Faridpur in ...
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From Jersey, Channel Islands, to the African Continent

My father Richard Durell married Edmée Gruchy in Jersey on 21 December in 1934.    After marriage, Richard accepted a ...
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The Journey

The beginning was difficult-I was in a traffic jam going to the airport! Would I get to the check-in in ...
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Nagas- The lost innocence

 My posting, after being commissioned in to the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army in 1967 following the Young ...
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Gin-and-Ice, No Lime

Ever tried drinking gin by itself, no lime or tonic? If you haven’t, don’t. It’s sheer hell. Burns the gullet ...
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Gold Rush

There had never been such excitement in the house. It was a hard-working and unforgiving life on this small HumbersideIn ...
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The Macready Mystery

Throughout my mother’s life, she believed implicitly that she was a descendant of William Charles Macready (1793-1873), the great Shakespearian ...
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Crocodiles and Education

When I look back on my life I begin to wonder if I have achieved anything of consequence.  To my ...
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1984: Thirty-Two Years Later

The passage of time has lent a surreal hue to the ghastly spine-chilling memories of 1984. Those who survived to ...
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Life with my Grandparents

I was very lucky to be loved and cared for by my grandparents for a very long span of my ...
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I.R.A. Activity in London – THE HARROD’S BOMBING

 It was unfortunate that the day our son Robert went to Harrods to buy a Christmas present for his father, ...
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To be a butterfly

It is a sunny October afternoon in Cambourne and I am looking through the window at my garden where a ...
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In Search of Spirituality

In October 1976 I and my ex-wife Chrissy went out to India to live the spiritual life. We had gone ...
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Evacuation from Ferozepur

It was August 1965. My family lived in the army cantonment of Ferozepur, Punjab, in northern India. I was 10 ...
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Wartime Summer

The farmer peered out of his kitchen window at the hanging heads of corn, ripe and ready for the swift ...
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The Gold Watch

It was fortunate that Lilly was in the kitchen when the bomb went off. All the bay windows at the ...
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The Bourn Connection

Me in WAAF, 1944 During World War Two I served in the WAAFsWomen’s Auxiliary Air Force was formed in 1939 ...
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Babcia

 We as a family of four have been living in Adelaide for the last six months where we relocated from ...
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When the War Began

 I find it hard to believe that I was born only six years after the end of World War I; ...
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