CHAPTER 1
Family and Childhood: India and England
Robert Edward Dudley Ryder was born at Dehra Dun in India on 16 February 1908. He was the third son and sixth child of Major (later Colonel) Charles Ryder, Royal Engineers, and his wife Ida (née Grigg). They had married in 1892 producing three daughters – Margaret (born 1893), Enid (1895) and Violet (1898) – and then three sons – Lisle (1902), Ernle (1906) and Robert, known by his doting parents as Bobby. At school he was known by some as 'Chippy'. Later in life, during his time in the Navy, he acquired, from his initials, the nickname 'Red' although thereafter most people knew him simply as Bob.
The Ryders were a distinguished family who numbered among their descendants an admiral and a bishop. The dynasty was founded by Dudley Ryder, the son of a nonconformist draper, who forged a successful career at the Bar and in politics, rising to become, successively, Solicitor-General, Attorney-General and, finally, in 1754, Lord Chief Justice. He was ennobled by George II in May 1756 but died the following day before the Letters Patent could be completed. His only son, Nathaniel, sat as MP for Tiverton 1756–76, before himself being, successfully this time, raised to the peerage in 1776. His son, Dudley, followed in his father's footsteps as MP for Tiverton, enjoying a distinguished political career as an ardent supporter of Pitt the Younger. Indeed, he was sufficiently close to Pitt to act as his second in the Prime Minister's duel with George Tierney on Putney Heath in May 1798. Having occupied a number of lesser government posts, Pitt appointed him Foreign Secretary in 1804. He was created Earl of Harrowby in 1809 and served as Lord President of the Council throughout Lord Liverpool's long administration.
Charles Ryder, Robert's father, a distinguished surveyor and cartographer, was an important influence on his youngest son, passing on to him an adventurous spirit and love of exploration and map-making. Colonel Ryder had spent much of his career tramping the mountains, valleys, deserts and jungles of the Middle and the Far East, exploring and mapping. He had been a member of the Mekong Boundary Commission (1898–1900), joined the expedition charged with mapping the Yunnan province of China (1901–02) and took part, as mapping officer, in Francis Younghusband's notorious expedition to Tibet in 1904. After Younghusband's expedition, Ryder commanded a party of five which mapped 40,000 sq. miles of Tibet and the borders of British India. In the process the party covered 1,000 miles of inhospitable, mountainous terrain. For this remarkable feat he was awarded the DSO and the Royal Geographical Society's Gold Medal. In 1913 Ryder was appointed the Chief Surveying Officer to the Turko-Persian Boundary Commission, one of three attempts in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century to delineate the troublesome border between the two countries. By the autumn of 1914 he had surveyed the entire 1,180 miles of the frontier between the Persian Gulf and Mount Ararat.
If Dehra Dun was a typical Raj garrison town, where life in the cantonment revolved around the club to the stifling rhythms of official protocol, Ryder was a typical child of British India. The much-loved and indulged youngest son of an extensive family, he was brought up largely by an ayah, who, by all accounts, greatly spoiled him. Families who served in British India endured as a matter of course prolonged separations nor were the Ryders any exception. As was the custom, young Bobby was packed off, aged six, to school in England with his brother Ernle. By November 1914 he was in England with his father, while his mother remained in India with the elder daughters. Charles was lodging in Eastbourne with his three sons, Violet and a French governess for the children. 'Darling', Charles wrote to his wife in India, 'it would do your heart good to see Ernle & Bobby rushing about the place, full of spirits & fun.'
By the autumn of 1915 Ida was in England with the children while Charles had returned to India. The strain on Charles and Ida and their family imposed by the lengthy separations, made worse by the war, is evident from their letters. In April 1916 Charles's application for six months' leave was refused on account of the war. 'So that is the end of that', he wrote despairingly to Ida, '& when I shall get home or see any of you again God alone knows.'
By then Bobby had joined Ernle at Hazlehurst School at Frant near Tunbridge Wells. He seems to have been an unexceptional pupil. His father, far away in India, scrutinized his reports with an eagle eye. 'Bobby I see for half-term is still bottom of his class. I fancy he is about the youngest; but all I want in his reports is "doing his best" or "trying hard" or something like that.' But there were also encouraging signs: Bobby was showing distinct promise at drawing and had managed to get in the football XI. According to the Headmaster's wife, Bobby was 'really very good, he is our best back in spite of his size.' In 1918 he won the drawing prize, an early sign of a talent that would develop throughout his life.
In March 1919 Charles Ryder took up his post as Surveyor-General of India, a fitting finale to a distinguished career. One of the conditions of his appointment was that he would agree not to take any home leave for the first year. As he had not seen his younger sons since 1914, this was not a condition he was happy to accept but he had little choice. 'It is an awful blow to me having seen so little of my boys, but I don't see that I could have helped it in any way.'
In the summer of 1920 Charles, having completed his first year as Surveyor-General was at last allowed some home leave. Reunited with Ernle and little Bobby for the first time since 1914, he took them and Lisle off to the Brittany coast for a holiday. They had a wonderful time, fishing, drawing, playing on the beach, even having French lessons. The holiday also gave Colonel Ryder an opportunity to observe the sons he had not seen for five years as he reported to his wife in...
