That Untravelled World by Eric Shipton

Author:Eric Shipton [Eric Shipton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781911342663
Publisher: Vertebrate Publishing
Published: 2017-11-06T05:00:00+00:00

– CHAPTER SEVEN –

Kunming

When I returned to England at the end of 1948 I was again at one of those crossroads, common in the life of a vagrant. My choice of occupation, though diverse, did not seem to be very wide. There was teaching: friends in the profession encouraged me to think that there might be an opening here; I should at least have learned a modicum of geography by now and, remembering my early scholastic attainments, there was a bizarre fascination in the idea of my becoming a schoolmaster. Diana and I thought seriously of emigrating to New Zealand, a country which, by all accounts, offered many of the things we enjoyed. Finally, there was the possibility of acquiring a small piece of land on which to raise chickens or pigs or establish a market garden. My sojourns abroad, however much I may have enjoyed them, have always stimulated a longing for the English countryside, and now the notion of owning a piece of Dorset or Wiltshire, however minute, had a strong appeal. So, in spite of repeated warnings against such a venture, we spent much of that winter, based at Diana’s parents’ home in Warminster, searching for a suitable property. Of the scores that we saw only one attracted us. This was a house near Winterslow of eccentric design, at the end of a mile of earth road and set in pleasant woodland, seventeen acres of which was included in the price of less than £3,000. We would have bought it but for the surveyor’s report that the house was riddled with dry rot.

In April 1949, still no nearer a solution to our problem, I received two offers almost simultaneously: one was from the Foreign Office of the post of Consul-General at Kunming in Yunnan, the southernmost province of China; the other came from the Government of Pakistan inviting me to return to Kashgar as their representative there. The second of these was very tempting, but on reflection I realised that there were factors which would make it unwise to accept. Having just left the joint employ of India and Pakistan, I could hardly return in the service of one to a consulate claimed by both. Moreover, the rapid advance of the communist rule over China made it almost certain that Sinkiang would very soon come under its sway, and though this also applied to Yunnan, the extreme isolation of the Kashgar post made the prospect a great deal more intimidating. As it was, I had some misgivings about exposing Diana and Nicky (now three and a half years old) to a completely unpredictable situation in Kunming; for Diana was determined that neither of them should be left behind. However, there at least medical facilities and modern means of communication would be available, and there were other friendly consulates to lend moral support; so, after some discussion, I accepted the Kunming post.

Early in July, after a delay occasioned by Nicky getting measles at the last moment, we set out for Hong Kong.

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