Adapted by Charles Allen from his recent book
A series of three programmes

When Charlotte Canning sailed for India in 1855 as the wife of the newly appointed Governor-General, she and Queen Victoria began an exchange of letters which not only provide a picture of India before, during, and after the terrible mutiny, but which also reveal the private characters of two of the most remarkable women of the 19th century.

'Great cockroaches, as big as mice, are very common. They run along the floor and now and then spread their wings and fly upon me! Small red ants are in such quantities that we are obliged to put the legs of the dressing tables into little saucers of water.'

Narrator John Westbrook with Richard Durden and Irene Sutcliffe
(Stereo)
(Re-broadcast on Friday at 11.0am)
(Prunella Scales is in 'When We Are Married' at the Whitehall Theatre, London)
Feature: page 74