~ Chapter Twenty-Seven ~
Protecting the British Raj

In or around 1927, Sydney joined the Army, enlisting in The Buffs with the first names of Stanley Edward and the surname of Quelch, his mother’s maiden name.  No-one knows for sure why he didn’t use his real name.  One story to emerge, probably originating from Sydney himself, is that he had “killed a man”.  If the rest of his life is anything to go by, however, it is far more likely that he wanted to run away from woman trouble.

            Whatever the reason for changing his name, Private Quelch was sent with the 1st Battalion of The Buffs to serve in India, which was then under British rule, more commonly known as the British Raj.  In 1930, the 1st Battalion was transferred to Burma to help suppress the Saya San Rebellion.  This summary of the rebellion was written by A. T. Gorton, Professor of History and Humanities at Pepperdine University in Lausanne, Switzerland:
In late December 1930, a small uprising broke out in the district of Tharrawaddy, about 100 kilometres north of Rangoon in Lower Burma. What appeared a minor disturbance rapidly escalated into one of the largest anti-colonial movements in Southeast Asia. Spreading throughout the Lower Burma delta and into the hills of the Shan States, the rebellion lasted two years, involved thousands of villagers, several thousand colonial troops, and resulted in the deaths of one thousand three hundred rebels.

             The authorities quickly associated the uprising with one Saya San, the peasant leader who organised and led the rebellion until his capture in August 1931. Saya San convinced his followers he would restore the Burmese monarchy with himself as king, revitalise the Buddhist religion and expel the British who had annexed the kingdom in 1886. He built a “palace” in the hills east of Tharrawaddy, conducted a coronation ceremony, and surrounded himself with symbols of the Mandalay court, the home of the last Burmese monarchs. He assured supporters they would be made invulnerable to bullets by magical amulets, incantations, and tattoos. Peasant farmers, hard hit by falling rice prices, increasing state taxes, and deepening debt, quickly responded to Saya San’s call. The two-year uprising was characterised by a mixture of anti-foreigner and anti-tax rhetoric, Buddhist prophecies and invulnerability rituals.
            While we have no information about the part, if any, that Sydney played in quelling the uprising, we do know that by 1933 he was still based at Maymyo, the capital of the British Raj in Burma.  We also know that in early August of that year, twenty-four year-old Sydney travelled to Lucknow in India, where he married a local girl called Sybille Iris Chloe Browne.  Sybille, who is pictured here, was an Anglo-Indian, born in Poona in 1910, a year after Sydney.

            Not long after the marriage, The Buffs ended their tour of duty in India.  Sydney’s nephew, Ken Holmes, takes up the story from there:
When the regiment returned to England, it is said that very unkindly Uncle Syd left Sybille behind and tried to avoid his responsibilities.  I don’t know if that last sentence is totally correct, but my father said it was so, and it was a fairly common practice for some British soldiers serving abroad to marry local girls and then try to leave them in their home country.  However, apparently Sybille was very clever and she was able to trace him to Reading through the issue of Ration Books from the Ministry of Food!
            Once reunited, Sydney and Sybille settled down in Margate, where their daughter, Inez Patricia Anne Quelch, was born in July 1935.  Again, Ken shares his memories of the family at that time:
I remember visiting Syd, Sybille and Inez in Margate before the War when they lived in a house immediately opposite a cut-way to my school at the junction of Northdown Road and Flint Terrace.  Syd made a soapbox derby car for my brother and I and he carved the words “Holmes Bros” on a wooden plaque on the back of it.

             Syd could not read music but was very skilled with a number of musical instruments, and I remember him playing a piano and saxophone (but not simultaneously!).  Allegedly, Sybille’s father, a Brit, worked in a managerial capacity on the Indian Railways.

             Syd and Sybille appeared to be very happy together, but to a child of 8 years in 1938 some family atmospheres are not really understood.
            Happy together or not, the family would be plunged into turmoil within a very short space of time.