Full Steam Ahead: The Introduction of the Railways in India in 1850

Jenny Mallin


Region:
Anywhere
Notice Period:
Emergency (maybe less than one week's notice)
Type:
Probus, U3A, Rotary, WI, Family History, Horticultural Groups, Women in Business,
Fee:
Paid: £65 for a Zoom talk (55 minutes with Q&A afterwards)
Category:
Travel
Updated:
21st June 2021

With ancestors who were in India at the very beginning of the steam trains starting up in the Indian subcontinent, as well as those whose professions on the railway were held in high esteem by the railway companies themselves, we learn how life was for my grandfather who grew up on a railway colony, the first of its kind in India which proved to be an exemplar and one in which set a precedent for future ones to be established. Kipling remarked how that particular railway colony was "a paragon of European enterprise in the heart of India, laid out with military precision; each house with its share of garden, its red-brick path, its growth of trees and its neat little wicket gate." With a highly visual presentation of steam trains, we learn how obstacles were overcome with civil engineering achievements to provide a suitable way for trains to travel along a series of mountains with 1:37 gradients all with the aim of trading commodities for the East India Company. This talk details the opening up of a country which up until the railway was only possible by bullock cart due to the varied landscape, climate and conditions of the roads. We end with a light hearted look at the difficulties faced by the author thirty years ago when trying to buy a train ticket in India.

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About Jenny Mallin

Winner of "Best in World Cookbook" by the Gourmand World Cookbook Society for 2017, Jenny is a regular speaker to a broad variety of groups looking for an interesting and unique talk on her British Raj family. She has given over 500 talks across the world, on cruise ships as well as prestigious locations such as the Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata built to commemorate Queen Victoria as Empress of India to hundreds of WI, U3a and Family History groups.

Jenny’s career has been the culmination of several instinctive paths in her life which have led her to enjoying being an author and now a public speaker. With almost thirty trips to India over the past thirty years, she has explored and uncovered the history of her ancestors and their interesting path.

The re-uniting for Jenny of a family heirloom of a book which her great x 4 grandmother started in 1844, Madras which she remembers seeing in her mother’s pantry, is a time capsule in itself. This cherished book holds not only the handwritten manuscripts of recipes which were passed down from mother to daughter for the next five generations, but also hints at the technological changes ushered in by the industrial revolution which had a positive effect of intertwining the economies of India and Great Britain.

With her passions for cooking, India, research and writing, Jenny’s award-winning cookbook “A Grandmother’s Legacy” has been a labour of love – a memoir that mingles the history of her family when they lived in India, with her grandmothers’ recipes that were prudently passed down through the generations.

Recently interviewed by Jenni Murray on BBC’s Woman’s Hour, Jenny has also been featured in “The Lady” magazine, “Who do you think you are?” magazine as well as “Waitrose Magazine” and “Sainsbury’s Magazine”. Jenny has been able to impart knowledge of her family’s cuisine through her teaching at notable cookery schools, including the renowned WI headquarters, Denman College in Oxford.

Jenny’s past career has also influenced her with her continuing interest in both research and travel from her early days in television production at the BBC where she picked up skills in how to present but also carved out a career there in researching. The following decade of the 1980s found her working in high tech as a Corporate Travel Buyer for twenty years and with her engaging personality and knowledge was able to easily connect with her market and secure global airline contracts to the benefit of her company.


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