Britain-Burma Society Lecture: Goodbye Burma

GOODBYE BURMA by DR JEAN ELLIS

on Tuesday 26th March 2019 at 7.00pm onwards
at the Medical Society of London, 11 Chandos Street, Cavendish Square, London, W1G 9EB

In Goodbye Burma, Jean Ellis draws on her own family’s written and oral accounts, as well as on detailed research, to reconstruct the five months that followed the first WW2 bombing of Rangoon in December 1941. The book blends fact, memoir and fiction, tracking the chaos and confusion as the Japanese invaded Burma from the south and pushed British and Burmese forces into Upper Burma. It interleaves three very different individual narratives, touching the experience of the hundreds of thousands, mainly Indian, who were forced to leave their homes and their lives. Those who were fortunate left by sea and air, and others crowded onto the roads and into refugee camps, walking into India across treacherous mountain routes, tens of thousands dying on the way of starvation and disease.

Running through Goodbye Burma is the edited diary of Leo C Robertson, a district and sessions judge and lecturer in metaphysics, an acute and unforgiving observer of the collapsing colonial administration. In her talk, Jean Ellis will largely focus on Leo Robertson’s diary, drawing on his personal experience of, and reflections on, the destruction caused by war and the disaster of the civil evacuation — on what he called ‘those aimless circles in which officials move when an administration has broken down.’ Jean will place these perspectives in the context of the wider literature on the exodus from Burma.

Dr Jean Ellis studied history at the LSE and SOAS, writing her PhD thesis on Madras city politics in the period 1918-1939. She has now retired from a career in the UK non-profit and international development sector.

Refreshments:
Samosas, biscuits, tea, coffee and juice from 7.00pm onwards.
Lecture begins at 7.30pm

ADMISSION £10.00 (£5.00 for students)

Please pay by bank transfer: NatWest Bank Account No. 13199226. Sort Code: 56-00-03,

OR by cheque to:Barbara Brown, Membership Secretary, 202 Croham Valley Road, South Croydon, Surrey, CR2 7RB.

RSVP with confirmation of method of payment to: minnthameebrown@secretary.net