For the emperor

India in the 1930s

Nowshera 1936

Oliver Creek, brought up after the first world war struggled to find gainful employment owing to the depression. He joined the army. Initially he signed up with the Royal Artillery. He took to the regimented lifestyle and was invited to join the Royal Horse Artillery which he accepted.

Oliver enjoyed the pomp and ceremony involved with the RHA. They still used horses, they dressed up in fine uniforms and fired cannons on special occasions or so he thought.

Oliver was in the I battery, known as Bull’s troop. They were sent to India in the early 1930s, before the partition of Pakistan, to quell unrest amongst the Afridi tribe on the northwest frontier with Afghanistan.

Afridi tribesman

Despite the heavily armed presence of the British the Afridi held them in contempt. They would rub their skin with leopard grease to keep the dogs quiet and then enter the British camp under the cover of nightfall. The soldiers would be asleep in bed under mosquito nets. The Afridi could steal the bed sheets from under them by gently blowing on them until they turned over. The sheet was then rolled up to the middle and the process repeated from the other side. This way the sheet could be stolen from under a sleeping soldier.

Camp at Jehangira.