Copy of typewritten 'Recollections of the Indian Civil Service: Punjab 1939-1947' by R. H. Belcher, with Autograph Letter Signed ('Ronald') from Belcher to his colleague Frank Mills, copies of two letters from Mills to Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones.

The four items (copy of typescript of Belcher's memoir; autograph letter from Belcher to Mills; copies of two typed letters from Mills to Rosie Llewellyn-Jones), from the Frank Mills papers, are all in good condition. The copy of the typescript is 47 + [5] pp., 8vo, including title-page, two-page contents, preface and full-page map, on 52 loose leaves; Belcher's letter to Mills is 2pp., 8vo; the copies of Mills's two letters to Llewellyn-Jones are each 1p., 12mo. Mills explains the circumstances of the memoir in the first of his two letters to Llewellyn-Jones: 'One of my former masters in the British High Commission in South Africa, Mr. R. H. Belcher, has lent me a copy of a memoir he wrote about his time in the I.C.S. from 1939 to 1947. It extends to some 47 closely typed pages and gives a vivid account of his life and work in the Punjab in the closing years of the Raj. It was originally written in connection with his contribution to "The District Officer in India, 1930-1947", edited by Roland Hunt and John Harrison, published in 1980 by the Scolar Press, but was not extensively used in the final book.' He offers to have the typescript 'copied and sent', so that Llewellyn-Jones can 'place it where it could be preserved and available to those [who] wanted to know what life was like for the young I.C.S. officer in the years just before Partition'. Belcher's memoir is, as Mills states in this letter, 'extraordinarily interesting and well written; and deserves to be on public record'. It is a scholarly, well-organised account, nicely balancing the personal and historical, in numbered paragraphs, under headings including 'The probationary year', 'Arrival in India', 'The Punjab', 'The first training year | (i) Court work | (ii) Touring | (iii) Treasury training', 'Hill stations', 'The second year: anxieties about the War', 'Revenue training', 'Christmas interlude', 'Interlude in the Simla hills', 'F L Brayne', 'Vice-Regal visitation', 'Wartime tasks | (i) Military petitions | (ii) Air raid precautions | (iii) First steps in foodgrains control', 'Life in Rawalpindi', 'An independent charge; the Kasur Sub-Division', 'Civil supplies | (i) Control of sugar supplies | (ii) Control of foodgrains rationing | (iii) The foodgrains reserve | (iv) The rice nightmare', 'Life in Lahore 1945/6', 'In charge of a Canal Colony', 'The coming of communal violence', 'The administration deteriorates', 'The reality of Partition: a bloody birth for Pakistan', 'The Multan Division after Partition', 'The railway troubles'. Belcher begins by explaining his background: 'My family had no connection with India, and before the end of my university career I myself had no especial interest in that country. At nine I won a scholarship to Christ's Hospital: at eighteen a scholarship in Classics at Jesus College, Cambridge: in 1937, with a moderately good honours degree, I hesitated what career to follow. For those my generation there was a natural tendency, if one had jumped the established scholastic hurdles with reasonable success, to attempt another somewhat similar hurdle - the Civil Service Competition.' In conclusion Belcher states that he 'felt acutely the sense of futility and despair over the division of the Punjab at Partition and its tragic consequences - and the ineffectual part it fell to me to play in those grim days', adding that he has been 'greatly helped' by the 'continued friendship of many Indians, and now Pakistanis, who were members of the ICS, both those I knew as colleagues in those days and those I have come to know since'. In his letter to Mills ('Dear Frank'), amongst personal news, Belcher expresses thanks for Mills's prompt return of the memoir, and for 'the kind things you have said about it. They were very heart warming to read and if you think the BACSA [British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia, of which Llewllyn-Jones was an Honorary Secretary] people would like to have it on record by all means send a copy to them'.