Snaps of India - S.S.M. William ‘Bill’ Middleton - 1945

by Jeff Rice

I’ve always found this photo album fascinating. William ‘Bill’ Middleton was my grandad. He was in the Sherwood Foresters.I can’t remember when, or how old I was when, I first encountered this photo album. Its uniqueness and connection with the past has meant that I’ve always looked after it.Bill had a certain eye for a photo. From looking at these photos, it seems that he was keen to photograph aspects of cultural life in India in the early 1940s, as well as various architectural sights.Of course, these photos were taken in a time before political correctness, and today a few of them may be deemed offensive. Bill was in India during the some of the last years of British Rule and the British Raj. That may well have given Bill the feeling that he could photograph whatever he liked, regardless of how insensitive this may have been to the Indians. One photo in particular, is a per-cremation scene, and makes for a powerful photo, but I can’t help feeling that Bill’s camera may not have been welcome at the event. I can only apologise for any offence caused to the viewer by a few of these photos, but, this is Bill’s photo record, as it is and in its entirety. I wanted to preserve that record. Bill has also annotated many of the photos. Again, some of these comments are insensitive or offensive, but it helps to provide an insight into the culture of the time. There are many references to ‘wallahs’ or people in various professions and also ‘bibbys’ (but I’m not sure what that means). I dread to think. Bill has also marked himself with a cross in many group photos. Don’t let the lack of minor moments of political incorrectness put you off. This is indeed a captivating photo record. A snapshot of military history. Some of the annotations detail the names of some of his colleagues. Maybe you’ll spot an old relative? This could be a useful record for those researching their ancestry.The photos are presented in the order of the original album. It also includes a few other photos of Bill in Germany, Burma (now Myanmar), the UK and Sudan. Along with the photos are a few documents of the time. I’ve included these for completeness and to be true to the album. One of these looks to be a programme for a concert party for VJ Day. The photos and documents span a period between 1933 and 1945. Bill was in the Sherwood Foresters, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment.I hope you appreciate this photo record as much as I do.

132 pages, Paperback

Published March 26, 2019

About the author

Jeffrey Grant Rice was born in Providence, Rhode Island, USA in 1944. He spent his early childhood in Beverly Hills. He has been a Las Vegas resident since 1955.

Jeff Rice is best known as the author of The Kolchak Papers, a novel he finished on October 31, 1970. Rice’s novel was still unpublished when it was optioned for television and adapted for a TV audience as The Night Stalker. It subsequently had a brief print run when the Kolchak: The Night Stalker TV series grew in popularity. In 2007 Moonstone Books released a new edition which also includes the sequel, The Night Strangler.