The Munnar High Range Club

14 October

Visited the Munnar High Range Club today, a remnant of the Raj and tea plantations of the early twentieth century. We walked in, after another treacherous auto rickshaw ride, to white-washed walls and dark wood panelling. The walls were adorned with faded sepia and black & white photos of planters and plantation managers and their wives, mid-century cricket teams, and other groups gathered overlooking the vast carpets of tea bushes covering the mountain sides. One particular photo was the focus of our flying visit, that of the Kundaly Club, circa 1900. In it, according to an email from Mum, we had to "look for a man with a stick about seventh or eighth from the right in the front row. Behind him, and behind that man again, a touch to the right is your GGF" - Christopher Eric Ley Ward, a member of the High Range Club and manager of the Kanan Devan Hills Plantation Company (Madupatty Tea Estates) in the early 1900s. I now feel even greater claim to being an Anglo-Indian!

Will post photos when we access a computer (using the iPad now, and Blogger doesn't like it re photos).