Lost in Tibet
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Flying 'the Hump'
First Americans in Lhasa
Chinese Mission in Lhasa
Tibetan independence
Chinese invasion
The Dalai Lama
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Richard Starks
Miriam Murcutt
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Along The River
that Flows Uphill
Lost
in Tibet
by Richard Starks and Miriam Murcutt
The British Mission in Lhasa
Like China, Britain in the 1940s was determined to exert control over Tibetan affairs. It may have been a small island, many thousands of miles away off the coast of Europe, but to the Tibetans it was also a next-door neighbor, just the other side of the Himalayan wall.At the opening of the 20th century, Britain controlled all of the territory that ran along Tibet's southern border - more than 1,300 miles of it, stretching from Kashmir in the west to Burma in the east, with a just a small break in the middle where the independent mountain states of Nepal and Bhutan intervened.
Also like China, Britain had set up a small mission in Lhasa during the 1930s
"When Tibet sought help to counter the pressure it was feeling from the Chinese," Lost in Tibet says, "Britain moved quickly to oblige. It dispatched a delegation, first under the leadership of Frederick Williamson, who died soon after arriving in Lhasa in 1935, and then under Basil Gould. Gould was keen to transform his delegation into a permanent British Mission, but rather than ask outright for Tibetan agreement that might not be forthcoming, he resorted to a neat political trick.
"The day before his delegation was due to leave, Gould raised a number of issues with the Tibetan government. As anticipated, the Tibetans were dismayed. It was not possible to deal with so many questions - not in one day. So Gould suggested that perhaps he should leave a representative behind, supported by a wireless operator, who could keep the two governments in touch. The Tibetans agreed, and thus - in September, 1936 - the British mission was born."
When the five airmen -
whose story is told in Lost in Tibet
- arrived in Lhasa, the British
Mission was headed by George Sherriff (left), a professional soldier,
amateur
botanist and skilled mechanic.Sherriff, Lost in Tibet says, was "a member of that select group of wool- and tweed-wearing, British colonial officers - a reserved, all-male, pipe-smoking breed, with formal manners and impeccable behavior. Wherever he went, he took an eccentric interest in all aspects of the lands and cultures through which he passed, and after each trip, he returned to England with literally hundreds, if not thousands, of specimens of birds, butterflies, plants, and flowers."
In 1943, when the American airmen arrived in Lhasa, Sherriff was accompanied by his new wife, Betty, who had managed to infiltrate this masculine world.
"Although educated in England - first at Cheltenham and then at Oxford - Betty approached her life in Lhasa with the British stoicism that allowed her to endure discomfort and hardship with the amused detachment of the well-to-do English lady traveling abroad." On their journey to the Tibetan capital, the Sherriffs' ponies "sank up to their bellies in snow and had to be dragged over the higher passes, but, Betty focused her attention on the local flora and reported that 'Primula gracilipes and an attractive little gentian we discovered gave us much pleasure and encouragement.'"
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Richard Starks and Miriam Murcutt
Lost in Tibet
"Lost in Tibet is an engaging tale that's very appealing to the standard non-fiction reader. It is a refreshing book on the culture, habits and the nature of the Tibetan people, and offers an easy-to-comprehend picture of the Tibetan nation before 1959" - Phayul.com.
"Impeccably researched and well paced." - Internet Bookshop Italia.