Read the Foreword by Christy Campbell, Sunday Telegraph

 

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BURY FREE PRESS, April 2004 

A highly-illustrated and delightful account of Maharajah Duleep Singh and his family, containing individual chapters on each member of the family. This fine recollection of the family will contain 200 captioned photographic images of Maharajah Duleep Singh and his children, many of them unpublished and never seen before. Rare images of the Maharajah's daughters in their latter years, Duleep Singh's in-laws, his cousins, and also the illusive Princess Irene Duleep Singh. In addition there are listing and photographs of all places related to this famous Sikh family, from England to Germany, France, Scotland and Wales.                               

 THE TIMES, March 2004

 

The book is a result of seven years research, with information and contributions from Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, India, France and all over Great Britain. The book traces the extravagant life of the Maharajah who lived the life of a country squire, indulging in Royal hunts with the Prince of Wales, shoots in the Highlands, writing a West End play, a notorious visitor to the sleazy hotels of Soho and playing the field with a string of youthful beauties from Norfolk maids to Cockney stage artists in Kew Gardens. He changed political allegiances like the wind, from the 'King of Lahore', to the 'loyal servant of her gracious sovereign Queen Victoria', from the 'implacable foe of the British Empire and proud rebel' to a 'Fenian co-conspirator', from the 'Sovereign of the Sikhs' to the 'humble subject of the Tsar of Russia'. 

Zee Magazine, July 2004 

An Extract from Chapter Eight - Princess Catherine Duleep Singh:
"The Maharajah’s second daughter was born on the 27 October 1871, and was named Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh. On her family’s return from Aden without her father and the subsequent death of her mother, Princess Catherine and her sisters were moved to Folkestone, at 21 Clifton Street in the care of Arthur Oliphant. The Queen had originally desired Lady Login to take an interest in the charge of the three Princesses, but the India Office decided that the Princesses and the youngest boy Prince Albert Edward should be placed in the charge of Mr Oliphant, whose father James had been the Maharajah’s equerry. It was under the care of the Mr and Mrs Oliphant, that Princess Catherine would meet her governess, a certain Miss Fraulein ‘Lina’ Schafer, who was twelve years Princess Catherine’s senior. The German governess from Kassel would become the Princess’s life long confidante and would change her life forever. In addition to the governess, violin and singing tutors were also employed, together with a swimming instructor. The following year Lina Schafer took the Princess to the ‘Black Forest’ in Kassel and Dresden. The odd-pair were forming a very special and intimate bond. In 1903 Princess Catherine embarked on a tour of India, visiting Lahore, Kashmir, Dalhousie, Simla, and the holy Sikh city of Amritsar. Here she recalled meeting old Sikh elderlies at the ongoing Diwali festivities who had fought under her grandfather, Maharajah Ranjit Singh. ‘The Diwali festival was yesterday; there were illuminations at the Golden Temple and at the Tank. The fireworks were let off from one side of the tank, the effect of the reflections in the water were very pretty.’ She surprisingly knew much about her ancestral past and took much interest in it, ‘I visited the salt range, at Pind Dadun Khan,’ these were the very ones

Maharajah Duleep Singh had talked about recovering from the Government in 1885, as he claimed they were his personal ancestral property. ‘There remains a strong fortress in a gateway built by Maha [sic] Singh, which was most interesting’. On her passage towards the Khyber Pass, she added, ‘Before the gates to the pass is the Fort of Jamrud, where Hari Singh was, and where he died fighting.’ In February 1904 she visited the Sikh princely states of Kapurthala, Nabha, Jind and Patiala, ‘We met the Rajas in each case except Patiala, but we met the late Maharaja’s brother and President at dinner.’ She left India at the end of March 1904. The Princess spent most of her life in Europe, shared between her family in Switzerland and the company of Lina Schafer in Kassel. Lina died on the 27 August 1937 at the age of 78 and Princess Catherine was much aggrieved by her death. In Germany, Nazism was on the increase, and war was just around the corner. The local Nazis disapproved of the old Indian lady. She now felt that Kassel had nothing to offer her, especially as Lina had departed. Her neighbour and accountant Dr Fritz Ratig warned her to leave the country. In November 1937 Princess Catherine sold everything and fled, arriving back in England via Switzerland."