From the Magazine lift-out of the West Australian 'Sunday Times' dated approximately ? 2000 - thereabouts (?)

TEA WITH A SNIFTER OF GIN

British tradition still rules in Darjeeling, which remains a tiny defiant outpost of the old Empire, as Stephen McClarence discovered.

Sitting back on the terrace with his lunchtime G & T is the last British tea planter in Darjeeling. Teddy Young, a comfortable-looking bachelor in his 60s, has run the Tumsong tea estate for more than 30 years. He stayed on when his chums returned to Britain to escape high taxes.

Yes, he says, the stories told about him are true; he does play Santa at Christmas, white cotton wool beard and all the trappings.

Here at the Windamere Hotel .... a spelling mistake cherished since Victorian days - he asks if we have come across Dr. Sprigg: "Plays the bagpipes and has published a Tibetan dictionary .... lives over there." Young points into the swirling mist, and takes another sip at his drink.

Darjeeling, breath-catchingly high in the foothills of the Himalayas, remains a little outpost of the old Empire, a hill station full of cob- webbed memories of the soldiers and administrators who retreated here each summer from the heat of the plains. With a climate ranging from mild to chilly, it offered the sort of weather the imperial Brits could understand.

The town seems to float on the clouds which often shroud its plantations. The views of Kanchenjunga, at 9400m, the world's third-highest mountain, are stunning. Or so everyone says. Today it's veiled in the mist, somewhere beyond Sprigg's house.

Darjeeling is a place for connoisseurs of frayed Rajiana. St. Andrew's church, strikingly Cotswold, except for its flaking yellow distemper, is lined with brass plaques dedicated to a long-gone way of life. The plaques remember, among others, Jane Birt, died aged 23 years and 21 days ("So lately wedded, and so early taken") and Ferdinand Baker- Baker, 32 years a planter.

The setting sun bathes the visitors' book in a deep orange glow. The first entries - their ink now ghostly grey - are from April 1926. Young women from Kiddermiinster and Sevenoaks gave such spruce Darjeeling addresses as Marigold Villa, Killarney Lodge, Eden Chine and The Dingle. If they were visiting, they stayed at the Windamere
Hotel.

It is easy to see that the Windamere belongs to another, less urgent age. A framed notice in our bathroom says; "This chain-action water closet has been giving dependable service since 1912." Like the rest of the hotel, the bathroom has no central heating. The Brits, with their stiff upper lips and their stiff lower limbs, took their baths in whatever climate God thrust on them.

Most of the bedrooms have fireplaces. Coal fires are lit at sunset. White turbaned waiters serve our candlelit dinner, which climaxes with cherry and ginger pudding. In our room, we find hot water bottles hve bee slipped into our beds. We settle under the sheets and the tartan blankets with the flames from the grate flickering on the ceiling. It's an Enid Blyton childhood all over again.

The Wiindamere is a legend in Darjeeling. It has been run since the 1920s by Mrs. Tenduf-La, an exquisite Tibetan lady nearing 90. She smiles out of the photographs in the thick albums piled on the piano in Daisy's Music Room. Turn the pages as maids serve afternoon tea from silver teapots and Miss Chandryka, a graduate of the Royal College of Music, plays Just a Song at Twilight and selections from The Merry Widow.

In succeeding photos, Mrs. Tenduf-La ages elegantly through 40 years of Windmere Christmases. She dances with Captain Brighton and shares a joke with Mr. Keeble, who is clearly the life-and-soul of the party.

The spirit of 35 is still tangible - as it is at Loreto Convent, a vast monument to Victorian Catholicism in landscaped grounds. It's pupils included Vivien Leigh .... and some of the holy sisters, most of them here 50 years, remember her. We follow them down echoing corridors and take tea in the refectory from the best china, with Anne Hathaway's Cottage painted on the cups and saucers.

Mother Rosaria and Mother Padua, Mother Borgia and Mother Damian and Sister Margaret are solicitous with the buttered toast and apple jam. No, they don't want to go back to Britain, they say, and Mother Padua in her chunky blue knitted cardigan, says what fun they had staging Oliver last year.

Beyond the convent gates, steps lead past the meat market (best avoided) to Chowrasta, the town square. It is lined with pretty shops with fretwork fronts and corrugated iron roofs. One sells Horlicks. In another, Mr. Lekhraj the tailor ("Saris, Suitings, Hosiery& Readymade Garments") can make up a pair of tweed trousers overnight - "though I would, perhaps, recommend a lighter cloth than you have chosen."

Outside, children roller-skate and a man in a fur hat sits on a bench and sings quietly to himself. Nepalese porters have immense loads on their backs - books, wood, car batteries, canned food. They support them with headbands stretched taut across their foreheads and their knees almost touch their noses as they stagger uphill.

Darjeeling is a town constantly on the move - up to the Buddhist prayer flags, down to the railway station, home of its most celebrated tourist draw, the Toy Train.

The train climbs 2333m over the 80km journey from the plains - a nine hour haul on a Lilliput of a line. The blue Thomas the Tank-style engines are all frantically thrusting pistons and piercing whistles, steam and plumes of smoke and polished brass rivets. The carriages are like tea caddies on wheels. Soot and coal dust blow through the open windows as the train twists and turns across roads, double-looping and puffing under washing lines. You could snatch apples from roadside stalls as you brush past them.

Back at the Windamere, Mr. Young finishes his G & T and slopes off to the Planter's Club. The planters may have gone but their club remains, kept going by postal subscriptions from expats back home. the dining-room walls are a forest of antlers. The library's shelves are stacked with mouldering Beverley Nicholas and Galsworthy and a fine, fusty range of Agatha Christie first editions. I notice that Murder in Mesopotamia was taken out on successive days in August 1936 by Mr. Hoy, Miss Harley, Mrs. Curry and Mr. Partridge.

The billiard room is lined with sepia photographs of Edwardians in plus-fours and pith helmets. In gloomy corners are photographs of Everest expeditions that never came back. Then the sound of bagpipes wails through the mist. Dr. Spriggs must be at home.

ooo O ooo