He was generally known as the angel with the fuzzy beard. Angel? Not to take a look at and positively not like one in every of Margaret Tarrant’s sylph-like illustrations within the Book of Common Prayer given to me at Christmas 1949. He was Major Dudley John Gardiner, Indian Army retired. Having served as a senior quartermaster throughout the Second World War, he decided to settle in Calcutta.
Dudley had witnessed the horrors of the 1944 Bengal famine, an unlucky stain on British administration within the latter days of the Raj, when Imperial resources stretched to the limit had failed the teeming hundreds of thousands.
With the Japanese threatening Burma and eastern India, Dudley wouldn’t have condemned the federal government, but once the enemy was defeated, he was determined to play his part in bringing relief to those affected by malnutrition in the previous capital of British India.
By the time I used to be posted there in 1972, Dudley was already feeding the five thousand – and plenty of more – each day. I first learnt of him from the outward-going Salvation Army brigadier accountable for the Calcutta citadel and its relief centre. Over my long life I even have come to understand how the ‘Sally’ Army never rejects a volunteer, nor turns away the real article looking for shelter. Still in my late twenties on the time, I’d not have seen it quite like that, but something prompted me to go and search for myself.
A big ‘go-down’ (storage facility) had been given over to the retired quartermaster in order that, under the Army’s umbrella, he could arrange and run a large soup kitchen. On my first visit, I discovered Dudley – an enormous of a person – dressed all in white. His short-sleeved shirt revealed powerful brawny arms which stirred the massive cauldrons; ballooning trousers couldn’t hide his swollen legs and sandaled feet, a symptom of elephantiasis brought on by a worm infection. His rig was accomplished by a white forage cap and butcher’s apron speckled by splashes from his cooking.
Behind the cauldrons were stacks of donated grains, lentils and other pulses which he and his assistants poured into the nourishing and steaming brew being prepared for a midday distribution. Those who wished to be fed, nonetheless, needed to sign on for a ticket; it was all very orderly, as one might expect from an old quartermaster. As an Army corporal with a broad Scottish brogue once said to me during a visit to BAOR: “if yer nay any coupon, yer nay get yer grub!”
Dudley was British through and thru. He was born in 1916 and baptized into the Anglican faith at St Mary, the Virgin, in Twickenham. It is commonly forgotten that General Booth was an ordained Anglican priest before he founded the Army within the East End. Dudley was not himself a Salvationist; I doubt whether he would have called himself anything. When I asked him if he missed England, he replied: “No, Tony. I’ve got nobody there. All the family I even have is here.” Then, he reflected for a moment and went on: “Well yes, I do miss a pint of fine old English beer.” As it happened, Christmas was just not far away; so I used to be capable of deliver a case of lager from my store imported under diplomatic privilege from Singapore. The cans were adorned with luscious lovelies, but this is able to not have disturbed Dudley as he guzzled.
Sometime later, it was with great pleasure that we heard Dudley had been awarded the MBE (what he affectionately termed “my bloody effort”) for his humanity. I’ll all the time remember attending his investiture. Clearly, he couldn’t fly back to “Buck” House. Instead, the High Commissioner in Delhi got here right down to Calcutta and visited the soup kitchen. While Dudley stood stiffly to attention in his full white outfit, Lady Walker needed to stretch as much as pin the honour onto his broad proud chest covered by a freshly laundered apron.
Dudley died in 1981. Shortly before, he had published an autobiographical memoir in paperback together with his imposing figure on the front cover. All who had known of him in Calcutta would have appreciated the title – “Angel with Bushy Beard”. Every bit as much an angel as his contemporary in the town, Mother Theresa, Dudley had done what Christ had commanded. How would he have responded to Gaza? My guess is he would have stood to, but you’d have needed to stand in step with your ticket ready.
