The Prince and Princess of Wales arrived in Rangoon on 13th January 1906 having spent the previous two months touring northern India. There are mounted troops in front of the carriage about to go through an elaborate arch of pagodas. The royal carriage is surrounded by a mounted escort with the Governor and his wife in the carriage behind. Kathleen Powell’s earliest memory is of the departure of the white Royal Train.
Kathleen Powell, Born 1903
wife and mother in burma
Kathleen Powell’s father, who worked for the Hull & Barnsley railway, accepted a job offer to work for the Burma railways. The family, who knew nothing of the country, departed for Burma in 1905 when Kathleen was two. Her first memory is watching in 1906 the departure of the Royal Train when the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King George V and Queen Mary) visited Burma. The entire train was painted white and every lump of coal had been white-washed in honour of royalty. Kathleen’s husband Val, whom she married in Rangoon Cathedral in 1922, also worked for the Burma railways. In 1940 her three children Nancie (16), Daphne (13) and Dennis (8) made the hazardous sea journey to join their parents in Burma. This was in response to encouragement of such evacuation by the British government. This life story is a vivid account by Kathleen of her pre-war and wartime years in Burma and India.
Click below to view her life story:
Source: Contributed in 2020 by Neil Swan, grandson of Kathleen Powell.