Bill Henderson

 Bill's Page

We are delighted to welcome new contributors to this web site They are  Bill and Sylvia Henderson who have experience in India, Africa, and the Seychelles and are now happily retired in Australia.

Please click on the heading below to go directly to the item

#Outback
#Deer Farming
#Begonias
#Fires in Victoria Australia
#Australian Rainforest Tea
#Jaboka -- 50 years on
#Life after Tea
#Visit to Mt Gambier
#Twin Towers
#Photos of Tea in the Seychelles
#More snaps from Bill's album
#Bill's photo album from the 50's
#Some Photographs from Lydia Beget
#Princess Margaret visit to Kapsumbewa
#Kapsumbewa
#Seychelles Island tea

October 28 2009
Thanks to Bill we have an interesting picture of the Australian Outback who says:

September 7 2009

March 18 2009
Bill Henderson sent the following and we thank him

We've had some rain throughout Victoria and the bush fires have been mainly extinguished or under control and last week the city of Ballarat, Victoria's largest inland town, had its annual Begonia Festival. Sylvia and I spent a couple of days there and admired some beautiful displays of begonias and roses. We took lots of photographs and I'll attach a few  which you may like to post on Koi Hai for the viewers who like flowers.

February 15 2009
The Terrible Fires in Victoria Australia –Comments from Bill Henderson about the tragedy

The Editor had a request from a Tea Garden Assistant Manager Velson Commissariat presently at Muttrapore T.E. asking Bill Henderson for permission to use some of his photos from the www.koi-hai.com site The Editor contacted Bill and Sylvia but had to wait a few days due to the Victoria fires in Australia—I, the Editor, received the following and thought it worth sharing

Bill said: We have been away from home for the last 10 days and just got back an hour ago. We live in Victoria and had gone to visit a friend on a farm in South Gipsland which is within easy reach of the beaches on the South East coast. We had only intended to stay for a weekend but when the fires started on Saturday the 7th many of the roads were open to essential and emergency traffic only so we had to stay a week longer than planned.
The fires have been disastrous with whole townships wiped out and we have been having some of the hottest weather ever experienced with temperatures over 45c. We have suffered no personal loss but our hearts go out to the many who have lost family members and all their property and possessions. Nearly 2000 houses, hundreds of vehicles and pets and wild animals. Worst of all about 200 people have died and the authorities say they have still not been through all the burnt out houses and more bodies are expected. The heat had been so intense that in some cases vehicle engine blocks and alloy wheels have melted into a pool of metal so some bodies may have been completely cremated .I note I have over 50 emails accumulated  and this one of your was top of the list so will go through the others and check out the one you mention.

The Editor then asked for permission to show on the web and this was the reply:

******************************************
June 23 2008
Australian Rainforest Tea

Bill and Sylvia Henderson have just returned from a holiday in Port Douglas and visited a tea plantation near Cape Tribulation which is as far north as the motor-able road goes up the east coast of Australia and over 3000 kms from our base in Melbourne. We took many photographs of the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rain Forest but thought the pictures of the tea plantation might be of interest to ex-tea planters.

 Unfortunately it was the off season and all the tea had been pruned and no one around  to give us much information on the plantation.  We found a tea shop and purchased a few packets of tea but could not locate a tea factory or processing plant.

The tea is probably purchased mainly by tourists as we didn't see it anywhere other than in the few shops and cafes in Daintree Village and Cape Tribulation.

Above are the photographs Bill and Sylvia sent showing the tea,  the packaging and the view 

Thank you both for keeping us informed 

October 28 2007
Bill Henderson tells the Editor:

Sylvia and I have recently returned from an extensive overseas trip and we managed  a special reunion lunch in London with some of the same people I last met at Jaboka Tea Estate in Assam  in November, 1957. One of the first photographs  you posted on the site was entitled 'Party at Jaboka' and was taken in 1957. I'm now enclosing a picture taken  in London a couple of weeks ago showing  four of the same men  50 years later. 

The left hand one was at Jaboka TE in 1957  the people shown are; Mike Ghosh, Ian Burns-Thomson and Bill Henderson standing and Eric Wight-Boycott, 3 Naga girls (who were nurses at the estate hospital ) and Jim Dame ,sitting. The photo was taken by Pran Handa.
Right hand one at the reunion  held in London in 2007 The four mature gentlemen in the right hand picture are Standing-- 
Pran Handa and Bill Henderson Seated Ian Burns-Thomson and Jim Dame

Some More evidence of the great reunion in London amongst old friends in 2007

Jim Dame and Ian Burns-Thomson	Bill Henderson and Jim Dame
Sitting from left, Ian Burns-Thomson, Pran Handa  & his daughter Carlina and Jim Dame.  Standing from left, Barbara Burns-Thomson, Keith Taylor, Sylvia & Bill Henderson	Ian Burns-Thomson

 

		July 6 2007 This is a story of "Life after Tea" as explained by Bill and Sylvia Henderson. Below is Bill's letter to the Editor with his story being told in pictures. thank you, Bill and Sylvia Dear David By modern standards tea planters have a very early retiring age and most of them start another career when they leave tea. I retired from the Seychelles Tea Company over 20 years ago and when we came to Australia looked around for something suitable and interesting to do. Not being city types we purchased a 25 acre block of farm land in a very scenic part of Christmas Hills in Victoria and then sought advice from various quarters on viable farming projects for a small acreage. High value crops such as grapes or olives were feasible but one very good salesman persuaded us that deer farming was the thing and even sold me a book by a New Zealand author entitled "Gold on Four Feet" which extolled the potential of Red Deer and Elk. At the time Red Deer females (hinds) were about $5,000- a head and an Elk Stag $12,000- so, with the added cost of 2-metre high perimeter fencing , water supply and handling yards, as well as the need for a family dwelling house, it became quite a major project. It involved us in a lot of hard physical work and we couldn't call on a few hundred local labourers like opening a new tea estate! However, we did get it going and enjoyed running a deer farm for 10 years before retiring for a second time to our present town house in Melbourne. It never did produce any profits and farming exotic animals such as Deer, Alpacas, Llamas and Ostriches is now completely out of favour. However, it was certainly an interesting part of our lives and the attached pictures illustrate some of it. Sincerely, Bill Henderson Making an Entrance Road Property as purchased   Building site ready Building water tank   Building Water storage Dam Entrance Completed   House construction under way House Completed   Garden as well New Dam filling   Sylvia beside the largest of three water storage dams Elk stag  "Barringo Alpine'   Checking a young stag Deer Herd   Hand feeding an orphan fawn Orphan fawn feeding with the dogs   Young stag with velvet antlers Daughter Fiona, Sylvia and Bill beside the Pontoon on Main Dam   Antlers half grown Removing velvet antlers shows Bill (in hat) with the vet (Dr Pryor) with antler stubs bandaged   Removing the velvet antlers shows the actual operation  The stag has been given a full anaesthetic Bill tells us that a stag grows new antlers every year. Very fast growth and in a few weeks can be a metre long and 10 kgs in weight. Growing antlers are soft and spongy, feel like velvet, and are full of blood. They are removed surgically and quick frozen before being sold into the Chinese alternative medicine market for up to $500- per kg. If left to grow they become hard and sharp pointed. In farmed deer they would be a danger to each other and to people.   Supplementary Feeding View from House Bill & Sylvia  Happy,  it all seems to be working New born Fawn hiding in grass *************************************************** May 5 2007 The editor had a note from Bill and Sylvia which I feel is well worth sharing it is: Sylvia and I both had birthdays in the past few weeks (69 and 75 respectively) and decided to spend a few days touring South Australia. We took many photographs but I thought the 3 attached might be of particular interest. Mt Gambier is a region of ancient volcanic activity and has several deep crater lakes and limestone caves. Some of the cave roofs have collapsed and formed sink holes and a number of these have been made into beautiful hanging gardens. As most of Australia is in a severe drought it is wonderful to come across these green places with plenty of underground water. Hanging garden Mt Gambier Sunken Garden Mt Gambier Sylvia to entrance to sunken garden ******************************************************* March 1 2007 Bill & Sylvia in New York in 2001 with the Twin Towers in the background Bill tells the Editor: Sylvia and I were on a long overseas trip in 2001 and in USA during June/July when this picture of us, with the Twin Towers of the International Trade Centre in the background, was taken. The photograph was not developed and printed until we returned to Australia in October 2001 and may have been amongst the last pictures of the towers taken before they were destroyed on 9/11. Bill & Sylvia --thank you for sharing--Editor From Bill and Sylvia Henderson Return to the Top February 16/20 2007 Bill has kindly sent some photographs of his experience in Tea in the Seychelles he has included pictures with descriptions of the Coco de mer which is the largest seed in the world and unique to Praslin island in the Seychelles. It has a male and female tree and when \General Gordon ( of Khartoum fame) visited the Seychelles in the late 19th Century he declared that the valley de Mai in Praslin must have been the original Garden of Eden and Coco de mer the forbidden fruit On the subject of plucking Bill said: I never managed to get our field workers to use both hands for tea plucking, (or pruning or anything else)  even after showing them pictures of how it was done in India, Ceylon and Kenya. They said they wanted to do it their way. Here below are some photographs to help set the scene of life in the Seychelles Some new Photographs for us to enjoy 20/02/07 Checking leaf on a Withering tray  One Handed Plucking                   Our various Retail packets  Seychelles Tea Company  Logo                 Sylvia's Tea Shop            Tea Factory Entrance   Tea Packing Machine 'Myddleton tea sorter with LB fibre extractors'.   The above was the invention of Larry Brown         At the tea factory                  Our first tea van      Plucking Tea Seychelles Seychelles Tea Company   'Camellia Sinensis' (Tea),    The Male and Female Coco de Mer This picture shows both a seed, or nut, from the female tree and a catkin from the male tree, resting on a palm leaf.  Sylvia is actually holding a Coco de Mer nut, or seed, which is the fruit of the female tree.  The name Coco de Mer means coconut of the sea, found only on Praslin in the Seychelles archipelago and now a protected species.  They have managed to germinate one in the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens and below is  a scan from their News & Events sheet of August 2003 which gives the interesting facts View from our house   Runway at Airport ******************************************** January 14 2007 Below is a letter received from Bill and Sylvia Henderson which is self explanatory We thank them all for taking the time and trouble to inform us. It is appreciated that the author, Lydia Beget and the Editor of 'Tea aMagazine' have kindly given their permission for koi-hai to post the article. Bill Henderson was with the SingloTea Company on the  early 50's and was on Bundapani TE in the Dooars and on  Jaboka TE in the Sonari district.     On leaving India he was commissioned to set up a tea factory in Kenya but while en route there by sea, he was very impressed by the Seychelles, particularly Mahe Island.      Seychelles Island tea    It was purely by chance that I came across the Koi Hai site a few weeks ago and since then I’ve been reintroduced to friends and acquaintances I knew in India, from my first days in tea, right through to the tea company I started in Seychelles. I do not recall meeting the author of the article on Seychelles Tea but I remember her uncle. Serge Delpeche , who was with us for about a year right at the start of the project. Serge was well known to local landowners and helped us integrate with the island community.  I chose the tea factory site before we had even started planting, and well before there was a motorable road, as I had covered the area on foot and found this spot with a superb view down the whole west coast of the island of Mahe. Sylvia opened a teashop near the factory entrance gate, which we named The Tea Tavern, popular with both tourist and locals and still operating when we left Seychelles. My original agreement with the Seychelles Government had envisaged a land settlement scheme where the company would clear and plant tea on leased Crown Land and construct a tea factory on the site we purchased. I had been involved in such a scheme in Kenya where it worked well with dozens of smallholders taking over measured blocks of mature tea and selling their leaf to the factory. In Kenya it had included white farmers with tea on their own land as well as African smallholders and the Kenyan government supported the scheme. The price paid for green leaf was a percentage of the auction price of the finished product. For various reasons this did not work out in Seychelles and we eventually had about 300 acres of tea with half run by the Seychelles Department of Agriculture and the factory and other half by the company. The plantation and factory is now owned by the Seychelles Government and run by the Seychelles Marketing Board Bill & Sylvia Henderson, 14/1/2007
Return to top

 

 

		January 17 2007 Bill at work as proved by this cutting from the main newspaper of the time which carried the picture of opening the Kapsumbewa Factory was The East African Standard. It covered the three territories of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika, commonly known as British East Africa at that time. The Kapsumbewa Tea Factory,     Bill and Sylvia make the following comments-- "The King William House Group (Gillanders/Singlo/ Empire/Dooars)  had actually started tea planting in Kenya in the mid 1950s and were selling green leaf to a neighbouring tea factory before they decided on their own processing plant and I was transferred from India via the UK where I spent some months arranging factory building plans and ordering machinery.  I hadn't heard of the Seychelles at this time and it was only after a year in Kenya, with the new factory up and running, that I took a holiday to the Seychelles  recommended to me by a tea broker in Nairobi. The only way of getting there at the time was by sea on the BI Line doing its regular monthly Mombasa/Bombay return trip and no more than a dozen tourist would disembark at Mahe. I fell in love with the place and with the  Seychelles tourist reception officer who later became my wife!  On return to Kenya I submitted my resignation to the directors at King William House and agreed to remain with them for 6 months until a suitable replacement could be settled in. I felt a bit guilty as they had spent a considerable amount in relocating me to Kenya and had expected me to run the place for the foreseeable future. They said it was a crazy idea to give up my position and start at the bottom again with no capital and in a remote location where tea planting had not been tried.  They may have been correct, as quite often in the following years when scrambling up a steep hillside with more rocks than soil, I would think 'why the hell did I let myself in in for this'. However, we eventually pulled through and the project was a success." Below are some photographs of some visitors to the tea factory  and also bill and Sylvia's wedding and as they were on Christmas day 2006 looking hale and hearty--Thank you Bill and Sylvia for sharing your memories with us January 20 2007 I Bill and Sylvia on their wedding day  in 1964.  and as they are at Christmas 2006 Meeting Princess Margaret---         The Princess with Sylvia i                                                                and our boys       'Admiring bouquet of Seychelles orchids'     'green leaf on a withering trough in the factory'. Bill and Sylvia tell us: Princess Margaret visited  Seychelles in 1972 for the Seychelles Festivals  celebrating the introduction of self government, a prelude to  full independence which happened 4 years later in 1976. We had a thatched viewing platform near the tea factory where Princess Margaret was presented with a bouquet of Seychelles orchids    Princess Margaret signing the Visitors book The Letter of Thanks The Photographs below were kindly supplied by Lydia Beget who wrote the  Seychelles Island Tea  article above and we thank her  Two views taken from the Factory The Factory in the Seychelles                                  Lydia Beget with her husband Mark and  uncle Serge Delpeche **************************************************************** January 23 2007 Here we have a collection of photographs from the Fifties from Bill Henderson's scrap book--Thank you Bill for sharing Weekend at the Club Pran Handa & Bill Henderson (Muttrapore) Party at Jaboka Mike Ghosh, Gerry Muirehead & Ian Burns-Thomson Keith Hart & Friend Jim Dame & Nagas at Jaboka Geoff Rigby  (Burra Sahib Muttrapore) David Shackleton and his sister Christian Pran Handa, Geoff Rigby, Wight-Boycott, Prittam Hoon Geoff Rigby & Ronnie Mac ******************************** January 25 2007 More snaps from Bill's album Afternoon Leaf Weigh in Muttrapore One genuine Sikh and Bill Alan Muddle (Muttrapore/Nimonagar) Naga tribesman Developing and Printing Film Wight -Boycott on Jaboka river In a model T Ford at Bundapani Into Nagaland Leaf transport at Muttrapore Bill Henderson, Pran Handa, David  Shackleton and Christian Shackleton Pran Handa and Wright-Boycott Pran Handa and our gardner  with large snake
Return to top