In 1948 at Llanteg in east Pembrokeshire there died an elderly lady whom many of the older villagers will still remember. She was Georgiana Philipps of Oaklands - known to all as Miss Georgie - and although infirmity and near blindness slowed her down towards the end of her long life (she died just a few weeks short of her 90th birthday) she had played an active role in the village throughout the 60-odd years in which she had lived here.

Friends and acquaintances knew that she had been born out in India. But what they did not know, perhaps, was that this old lady was the last surviving link in Llanteg with one of the most distinguished families in the area, that her grandfather had been Mayor of Carmarthen and deputy Lord Lieutenant of Carmarthenshire, and that her younger brother was one of Dr Livingstone's brave young missionaries in Africa.

Of all the family, however, it was Miss Georgie's father who was probably the most intriguing member. Llanteg has known some interesting characters over the years but few more complex and fascinating than Captain Lloyd Rice Philipps. His story reads like a Boy's Own adventure, packed throughout with colourful drama and exotic locations - plus a moral twist at the end of the tale.

Lloyd Philipps came into the world with a silver spoon in his mouth. His family were the Philippses of Abergwili, who for generations past had intermarried with the landed gentry of both Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire and could trace their ancestry back to the 11th century. He was born on 23rd February 1827 at the family house at Cwmgwili, the sixth son of Captain John George Philipps RN and his wife Frances Eliza. Theirs was a large family, and their children healthy for the period, because of the seven boys and four girls born to them between 1817 and 1831, only two died in infancy. (Captain John George Philipps himself seems to have enjoyed robust good health: in the course of a long and eventful life as a naval officer he had fought under Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, and had seen service in Italy, Egypt and Spain as well as the North Americas and the Baltic.)

As was then the custom, Lloyd Philipps was baptised soon after birth, at Abergwili Church on 5th March 1827. We must suppose that he had the usual upbringing of a gentleman's son and was educated with his siblings at home by a governess or private tutor, before being sent away to boarding school. From his entrance examination for military service in the East India Company, which he sat in 1845 when he was eighteen, we learn that he had received an education in classical studies at the Revd C.Walkey's school at Lucton, just outside Leominster in Herefordshire.

At the end of that same year of 1845 a document addressed from East India House in London, dated 10th December, states:

'I, Major General Robertson, being one of the Directors of the East India Company, beg leave to present the petitioner, Lloyd Rice Philipps, as a cadet for the Madras Infantry as one of my Nominations of the Season provided he shall appear to you eligible for that station; and I do declare, that from the character given of him by David Morris Esq who certifies that he is well acquainted with his family, character and connexions, he is, in my opinion, a fit person to petition the East India Company for the appointment he now solicits'.

(David Morris served as Member of Parliament for Carmarthen from 1837 to 1864.)Thus, with an excellent character reference and much promise for his future, Cadet Philipps - now promoted to Ensign - embarked on the long sea voyage to India. On 15th June 1846 he was posted to the 36th Madras Native Infantry and took up his appointment at the military garrison of Fort St George at Chennai, on the outskirts of Madras.

It is impossible to imagine the emotions this young man of 19 must have experienced upon his arrival in India. There could have been no greater contrast between the sedate parochialism of Carmarthen and the vibrant, noisy, life of an Indian city with its alien sights and smells, its teeming streets and relentless stifling heat. The commissioned officers of Ensign Philipps's regiment would have been European, as would the majority of the non-commissioned officers, but the ranks were comprised solely of sepoys, Indian soldiers in the service of the British. The officers' families lived in a cantonment, which in India was a permanent military or civil settlement generally situated a few miles outside a native Indian town. Unmarried officers had their own quarters at the garrison.

Lloyd Philipps's service record has been expunged, so we know nothing of his duties with his regiment at Fort St George, but it was a period during which he would obviously have become thoroughly acclimatized to life in the sub-continent. He must also have formed close friendships among his fellow officers, both on and off duty, but we can only guess that their recreational pursuits included hunting, drinking, and occasional gambling.

At the end of February 1848 he successfully passed an examination in 'Hindoostanee', and a few months later was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. After there is a long gap until the fateful year of 1857 - the year of the Indian Mutiny.

The Mutiny - which would result in the governing power of the East India Company passing to the British Crown - began as a revolt by the sepoys of the Bengal regiments, and spread rapidly throughout the northern Indian states. Although there was sporadic unrest elsewhere in the country, Madras, far to the south, escaped the terrible atrocities and massacres which took place in northern cities such as Delhi and Lucknow. In any case, Lt Lloyd Philipps was thousands of miles from any danger, home on furlough (leave of absence from his regiment) in Wales, so he probably saw very little of the action.

It was during this leave that he married, on 4th August 1857, a lady named Maria Ann Tardrew, the ceremony taking place by special licence at St. Andrew's Church, Holborn, London. We know that the bride had been born in the parish of St Peter's, Carmarthen, just four months before Lt Philipps's own birthdate, making them both 30 years old at the time of their wedding, and we know that the Tardrews were a Carmarthen family, because the bride's parents, Thomas and Maria Tardrew, had been married there in 1825. So it seems highly probable that the young couple already knew each other through family acquaintance and had carried on their courtship by correspondence, as was often done in such cases.