About this website

This website focuses on my father, John Archibald Hislop, and his life as an officer in the Indian Army. My mother, Edith Hislop, a somewhat absent presence here, will have her story told elsewhere. Indeed, the website is the first manifestation of a number of methods, such as memoir, biography and creative writing that will be used to tell my family's story.

The rationale for acting as a narrator of my family's past is that in 2012 it is nearly twenty years since my father’s death, sixteen since my mother’s death and thirteen since my sister’s; there were no other children so I feel that I am the sole custodian of the family story and the keeper of their past.

And I have more than just memories; in 1993 shortly before he died my father wrote a 180,000-word memoir of the years he spent as a British officer in the Indian Army. This memoir, called A Soldier’s Story - From the Khyber Pass to the Jungles of Burma, has been edited by me and is now available in both hardback and paperback at www.newhavenpublishing.co.uk

I also have many photographs of my father’s life in the Indian Army. All the photographs in the website come from my private collection; however, some of the photos of pre-war India, which I inherited, were not taken by my father so I would be very pleased if anyone recognising their provenance would get in touch with me. I would also like to express my grateful thanks to the late Richard Hislop, my uncle and my father's younger brother, for his help and encouragement in my quest to tell my father's story.

The website is very much part of a personal journey of discovery I am taking as I move from seeing my father as old and set in his ways to understanding the young man he was and more important, why he became the man I knew as my father.

If you would like more information on my father you may contact me at penny@newhavenpublishing.co.uk

A Soldier’s Story - From the Khyber Pass to the Jungles of Burma, can be obtained from www.newhavenpublishing.co.uk