Burma In Happier Days

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32252, 21 March 1970, Page 19

Burma In Happier Days

<Bu M. CLARK I

When one sits enthralled, listening to [Earl Mountbatten recalling the Burma campaign, the mud, the rain and the impenetrable jungle, one remembers other parts of Burma in the happier days before Pearl Harbour.

! Burma was a lovely land, !(particularly for artists. There were river scenes, jungle, ; bullock carts, pagodas, sun--set over the Irrawaddy, sunrise behind the Shway Dagon Pagoda, and beautiful flower- ! ing trees—flame of the forest with orange flowers, the red flowered cotton tree, mauve ( jacaranda and best of all the ! golden mohr. This was a blaze ; of flame-like flowers for weeks on end until the monsoon rains came and ex[tinguished them. ! Maymyo, the small marIket town where we lived, was set amid rolling blue [hills. It was 40 miles and 13000 ft up from Mandalay. ' Compared with the heat and glare and dust of Mandalay, Maymyo had a very pleasant climate, a cool summer, rainy season, and then the cold weather. As soon as the rains j finished seeds were sown for (the herbaceous borders and [all the flowers came up bigger and better than those on the [packet, pansies particularly. There was no snow, not

even frost but often an extremely heavy dew. Bullock carts creaking along from the outlying villages brought the first sweet peas and asters in for Christ[mas. There were green peas j on the bazaar stalls and green ! loose skinned oranges tasting like tangerines. Every day for five months, you could have strawberries and cream for tea. Beautiful Jungle The jungle surrounded Maymyo; not stinking impenetrable jungle, more like a vast untidy forest with leafy glades and wide grassy avenues called “rides." The jungle was beautiful. There were flowering trees, orchids, wild red lilies and a pink sort of crocus. Beautiful birds too: jungle fowl, green pigeons and pea hens. One bird you could not miss, the brain-fever bird. He sang up and up the scale in a maddening minor key and you just had to listen to hear him crack on the top note. Then be began all ovefr again. As well as rice growing in the nearby villages there was market gardening. Neat pine(apple plantations covered I some of the hills. Lantana was a menace, just as gorse [or blackberry is here. BamIboos grew, lovely soft (feathery ones. Some varieties [grew as high as 80ft. The Burmese villager built his house entirely of bamboo; j bamboo posts, bamboo mat walls, floors of bamboo

• (strips, fine bamboo mats to (sleep on, and the roof ’ thatched with it too. I re- ■ member stopping at a village t headman’s house for a chat. - They gave us coconut milk s to drink and slices of pine--1 apple cut so neatly with a ? terrifying-looking knife. r The village headman asked • all sorts of questions and was r scandalised to hear that we had paid four guineas for our spaniel when he could get a pair of working bullocks for the same amount 1 Simple Villagers i In the villages everyone f seemed so happy even though e they were so poor. They were a of a calm and pious nature with a tremendous love of j children, of singing and I dancing, of everything that -! was colourful and happy. Vile lage children tinkling with laughter played in the dust j with our dog and from the roof in their bamboo cradles j fat black-eyed babies swung (to and fro. . 1 The -radle was light and 1 airy, and kept the baby clear of ants. If a Burmese baby 1 cried it was often because he s had ants in his pants. .' There were tigers in the 1 jungle. One village was 1 called Tigers’ Drinking Place. s Tigers did not come close in ’ unless they were old or t wounded. s . Although we had two tiger skins 1 never met anyone t who had actually seen a tiger : close in, except a young t police officer. > The young policeman was

> out on night patrol late one f 1 Saturday night when every- ■ one else was making merry 1 (at the club. Police whistles! . I sounded and a young Indian, : policeman came streaking up . to him. 1 “Sir,” he panted. "There is a tiger.” I The police officer followed ; him scornfully to a spot > somewhere near the back of '• our garden. He walked up to t the spot and boldly flashed s his torch straight into the (blazing eyes of a tiger. ( Both found themselves 100 yards down the lane, breathless, wondering how in the ! world they got there for they! ijhad no recollection of run-! rining. ; The police officer came f( round the next morning to 1 tell us all about it. Everyone t roared with laughter and • asked him how many drinks >[he had had. t| “But it's true,” he pro3[tested. But no-one ever bes Sieved him.