Clarmont Skrine's Home Movies — extracts

c1946

Clarmont Skrine — known in India as ‘Skrino’ — had a long career as ‘an envoy of the Raj’. During his time as a Resident in South India a friend wrote: "He was so unlike the stereotyped ICS [Indian Civil Service] dignitaries (the Heaven-born), he was so human and approachable." Skrine was not an ambitious man, but was apparently much more interested in his two big passions — exploration and, luckily for us, photography.

These extracts show Skrine and his wife on a trip to Bundi, Rajasthan. The footage captures numerous details of the city's spectacular architecture including the Taragarh Fort and Bundi Palace which Kipling described as "such a palace as men build for themselves in uneasy dreams — the work of goblins rather than of men".