My grandfather died when my mother was only 6 years old, so I don’t know as much about him as I’d like. He was a fascinating man, an innovator. He drove the first motor car in Darjeeling, and was involved in the early days of flight. Who knows what he might have done, had he lived?
Among his many interests was photography. He built cameras, made sensitized film and created prints on various types of paper. As his only grandchild, I have inherited a huge amount of this stuff, and am only now getting to grips with organizing it.
As a start, I scanned a few photos some time ago, and uploaded them to Flickr. There was a bit of interest, and a few people commented favourably.
The other day, however, I received one of the most exciting emails I’ve had for a long time, from Barun Roy of the Himalayan Beacon , who has been trying to find out more about my grandfather for a long time. I now find that George Patrick Robertson, whom I assumed to be long forgotten, is well respected in Darjeeling and is counted as one of the ‘Founding Fathers’ of Darjeeling Hills.
Because of this interest I’ve scanned several more of the old photos and uploaded them to Flickr, but I feel the important thing now is to write my grandfather’s story as far as I know it, getting the facts right, so that anyone interested can access this information.
There will be a lot more here than just the story of George Patrick Robertson, of course. I have traced my family tree several generations back before his time, and there are all sorts of siblings and cousins and descendants to talk about, so we may be here for some time.
I plan to try to visit Darjeeling in the near future, to see the places connected with the family, take photos, meet people and write about my experiences. If you know of any organization that might consider sponsoring such a trip I’d be very interested to hear about it.
Sensible comments are welcome and I’ll try to answer any questions you may have, though please note that I do have to earn a living as well so I’m sometimes quite busy with real life!
