Tea, Love and War: Searching for English roots in Assam

The range of the book: from wartime England to colonial Assam; from sapper training in India to jungle warfare in Malaya - Tea, Love and War tells the unique true story of the child of an exploited village woman gaining recognition and acceptance in suburban England.It is split into three parts: Stuart and Mary’s story, David’s story, and Ann’s story. Stuart, working on a tea estate in the jungles of Assam, fathers a child by a teenage native woman.Stuart’s letters to his family in pre-war England vividly describe his life as a planter in colonial India but conceal his secret love life. When war breaks out, Stuart joins the Indian army, trains as a sapper and is posted to Malaya, blowing bridges in the desperate rearguard action against the Japanese invasion.Back in wartime England, his sister Mary marries Stuart’s best friend, Arthur, who decides to train as an army officer.Mary, now a young mother pregnant with her second child, tells of the year’s delay in hearing news of her brothe