Robin's grandfather was stationed in India as a sergeant with the British West Riding Regiment from 1909 to 1917. Two of Robin's aunts were born in India. One of his aunts (not born there, but travelled as a child with her father) remembers being awaken very early one morning to climb aboard the railway to Ghoom station to watch the sunrise over Mt. Everest. Robin's mother (born in the UK) recalls having a photograph of the Witch of Ghoom hanging in her family's hallway as a child . The picture was lost long ago, so Robin secured one for his mother, now 87. Robin purchased a photograph of the youngest Witch of Ghoom image he has ever seen. The seller said he found it in an junk shop and that it was part of a album originally . He also said it was dated February 1896 on the back.
Robin wanted to know more about the Witch of Ghoom photograph that he had purchased, so he found an expert in the UK who collects Witch of Ghoom images. Here is what Hugh Rayner said:
Your portrait of 'The Witch of Ghoom' is by Fred Ahrle, who had a studio at 16 Chowringhee, Calcutta in the 1890's. It was used as an illustration for the '1896 Illustrated Guide for Tourists to The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and Darjeeling', which was published in 1896. ( I re-published a facsimile edition of this in 2005).
Ahrle did all the illustrations for this book, so we can be unusually sure about the authorship of this particular version. It's nice that you have an original print of this; I've seen it used as an illustration and a postcard, but still haven't ever managed to acquire an original. Identified original prints by Ahrle don't seem to turn up very often.
I have been collecting portraits, postcards, snapshots and written references to her, for some years, with the idea of eventually doing a small book about her. Unfortunately, amidst all the fleeting references to meeting her, in travellers journals; no one seems to have ever taken the trouble to ask her name! But I live in hope one day, of finally identifying her.
Incidentally; she appears to have reincarnated, and there is currently an old lady who hangs out around Ghum station quite a lot, and who seems to be the spitting image of her!
Hugh Rayner
Bath, England
To be continued
