Aislynn Moses, chapter one.
It’s a rainy Wednesday evening and I’m sitting in Ais’s lounge room with her. Billie Holiday’s, ‘All of Me’ is playing loudly while two glasses of red wine and a half-empty bottle sit on the coffee table in front of us. It seems the perfect setting to go back in time together, so join us won’t you?
→ No idea who Ais is? You must be new here! Get the low down in blog post one. ←
Let me set the scene. The year was 1937. Mumbai was known as Bombay, and here on a sunny Monday morning, Aislynn was born to Florence and Jacob Hyam.
Before we get into what Ais’s childhood was like, there are three things you need to know:
Her grandparents had moved to India from Iraq and Yemen in the late 1800s, meaning her childhood was influenced by her middle eastern heritage.
India, at the time Aislynn was born, had been occupied by Britain for around 200 years, meaning her upbringing also had quite a British influence.
Of course, despite the British occupation, Ais was influenced greatly by the Indian culture too as she spent the first 23 years of her life living there.
Aislynn’s childhood memories are quite beautiful. To make a living, her mother ran dressmaking classes and sewed garments for private clients in Bombay while her dad worked in importing and exporting products from America. She recalls growing up alongside her younger brother Isaac, playing in the nearby park, attending ballet lessons and modelling her mother’s fashion designs.
Due to the British influence in India, Ais and her family spoke English and received, what Ais describes as, “the best of British education”. By the time she was 10, India gained independence from Britain, however, she says that the British influence remained long after that.
At the age of 16, Ais completed her ‘Senior Cambridge’ examinations which marked the end of her schooling. The examination papers were quite literally shipped to THE Cambridge University in England for marking. This meant results took forever to arrive, but when they did, she was awarded the highest grade in the year.
After graduation, Ais flirted with the idea of studying medicine but ended up enrolling in a 6-month secretarial degree where she learned shorthand and typing. From there, at age 17, she got a job with a British-owned oil company in Bombay as a secretary to the General Manager. She tells me that on her lunch break she would head to her best friend Joyce’s office where the two would smoke cigarettes and have a coffee. It’s this image of Ais that makes me smile the most, if not solely for the fact that I (and likely most of you) will never know what a corporate office in the early ‘50s would have been like.
Socialising after work for Ais meant going to the movies, going dancing, going to dinners or meeting friends at jazz clubs. Ais says Bombay was thriving of an evening and I can just imagine her running all over town, turning the heads and hearts of passersby.
In 1961 when Ais was 23, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip toured India and attended a government-organised fashion show featuring Ais’ mother and two other local fashion designers. Ais was one of the models at this show and wishes dearly that the photos below showed the beautifully bright Indian fabrics and silks that were used.
A highlight of the night for Ais was meeting Prince Phillip! He was apparently known for being quite the flirt and when he stopped to remark on Aislynn’s emerald green choker necklace, she said she felt “weak at the knees”. I might also add that she believes Prince Phillip was just as handsome at age 99 (which I decided to let slide despite my firm disagreement).
Speaking with Ais about her younger years, it’s so completely obvious that she looks back on it with such gratitude and love.
She tells me she never really considered that her upbringing had been a special one at the time and it reminded me that we should try to enjoy the beauty of our youth while we are in it. As Mary Schmich so beautifully wrote, “In 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.”
That marks the end of chapter one! Stay tuned for chapter two where Ais meets Deano on a cruise ship, travels to Italy to train as a hairdresser for a year, returns to India to meet her future husband and decides to move to Australia!
