(Top) Penny in front of the bungalow at Badamtam Tea Estate during her recent visit. Penny astride a pony near St Andrew’s Church in Darjeeling circa 1943. Telegraph pictures

Siliguri, March 1: It took Penny Banks more than 60 years to realise why as a child her parents sent her to Darjeeling every summer.

“Life is very comfortable here,” said the 68-year-old from Norwich, UK. “It is peaceful, serene, tranquil,” she ticked off the adjectives, struggling to describe the place which she said “seems so much my own”.

As the granddaughter of Alex Shannon, one-time manager of Badamtam Tea Estate and president of Darjeeling Planters’ Club in 1912, Penny’s journey to the place where her father Ian was born was more than just a “homecoming”.

“It was like tracing my roots,” said the retired employee of a steel company in the UK. “I felt so proud to see my grandfather’s name still inscribed on the board listing office-bearers at Planters’ Club,” she added, sitting in the lobby of a hotel here.

“At that time, it never made sense why my parents sent me away to Darjeeling in summer and Kannur (in south India) in winter,” she said, showing her collection of black-and-white pictures. “I returned to India in 1992 and visited Kannur, where my (maternal) grandfather worked for Southern Railway. But the mystery of Darjeeling unfolded before me only now. I wish I had been able to enjoy Darjeeling in those days with all its pristine beauty. Alas, I was too small!” said Penny, vaguely recalling her fifth birthday celebrated in Darjeeling in 1943.

“I remember going for a pony ride in the Chowrastha,” she said holding out a small black-and-white photo of hers sitting astride a pony in front of the St Andrew’s Church in Darjeeling. “I was amazed to see people so many years later doing the same.”

Her present trip to Darjeeling originated from a chance meeting with Adrian Shooter — a steam locomotive fanatic. He introduced her to Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Society, London, and the two of them planned the trip together.

The Badamtam manager’s bungalow opened a floodgate of memories. “The grille in front of which I took this photo with my family are still there. The present estate manager Subrata Sen and his wife (with whom Penny lunched one day) said the chair on which I sat while taking this picture is also there tucked away in some corner of another building,” she said, showing her photographs again.

“I could stay here forever,” Penny said, her blue eyes sparkling as she recounted her visits to the hills during the six years she spent in Calcutta before leaving for Britain in 1944. Never mind that this time she had to live two days without electricity when the whole of Darjeeling was under snow. “There are material comforts in the UK, but here there is happiness,” she said.