Book description
From the late 19th century, when the Raj was at its height, many of
Britain's best and brightest young men went out to India to work as
administrators, soldiers and businessmen. With the advent of steam
travel and the opening of the Suez Canal, countless young women,
suffering at the lack of eligible men in Britain, followed in their
wake. This amorphous band was composed of daughters returning after
their English education, girls invited to stay with married sisters or
friends, and yet others whose declared or undeclared goal was simply to
find a husband. They were known as the Fishing Fleet, and this book is
their story, hitherto untold.
For these young women, often away from home for the first time, one
thing they could be sure of was a rollicking good time. By the early
twentieth century, a hectic social scene was in place, with dances,
parties, amateur theatricals, picnics, tennis tournaments, cinemas,
gymkhanas with perhaps a tiger shoot and a glittering dinner at a raja's
palace thrown in. And, with men outnumbering women by roughly four to
one, romances were conducted at alarming speed and marriages were
frequent. But after the honeymoon life often changed dramatically:
whisked off to a remote outpost with few other Europeans for company and
where constant vigilance was required to guard against disease, they
found it a far cry from the social whirlwind of their first arrival.
Anne de Courcy's sparkling narrative is enriched by a wealth of
first-hand sources - unpublished memoirs, letters and diaries rescued
from attics - which bring this forgotten era vividly to life. Anne de
Courcy is a well-known writer and journalist, whose books include THE
VICEROY'S DAUGHTERS, DEBS AT WAR and SNOWDON. She lives in London.
