Life and Times at the Times

Life and times at The Times

By S.J. Anthony Fernando – Nation Sunday Oct 21 2007

Down Memory Lane

In the early 1960s, life was still easy-going, at a leisurely pace. It was the time I, as a raw youth straight after school and quite new to city life, joined the Times of Ceylon Group as a trainee journalist.

The imposing six-storeyed building of the Times of Ceylon in the heart of Fort, built by its British founders, was at that time the tallest building in Colombo. The Times of Ceylon, founded by the British in 1846, was the bastion of the Fourth Estate and the breeding ground for many journalists who made a name for themselves in the newspaper industry, some of whom are still active while many are no more.

My induction to journalism came quite unexpectedly, soon after I had completed my secondary education at Maris Stella College, Negombo. With the untimely death of my father, my father’s brother Rev. Fr. Arthur N. Fernando, who was then the Rector of St. Peter’s College, Bambalapitiya, was instrumental in my taking to journalism and directed my application to the Times management.

Having received the summons for an interview, there I was, a 19-year-old, nervous and excited, sauntering into the building of the Times of Ceylon. I was ushered in before the then Managing Editor of the Times of Ceylon himself, Felix Goonawardene.
After asking me a few questions about my education and family, he soon sent for a person called Reggie Michael. Without much ado Goonewardene told Michael, “Take this young man and train him.”

I soon realised that I was to work on a newspaper that was to be newly started by The Times Group. It was the Ceylon Daily Mirror, which was to be styled on the model of the London tabloid Daily Mirror. Michael was to be first News Editor of the newspaper and I would serve under him in the News Desk.

Michael, as those in the newspaper circles will recall, in later years became the Editor of the Daily Mirror and became famous writing the Opinion Editorial Comment in his own inimitable style with pithy comments and choice words and phrases, wielding his pen with gay abandon, with telling effect.

As a pioneer member of the editorial staff of the first Ceylon Daily Mirror, it was indeed a significant coincidence, perhaps decreed by destiny, that after nearly 45 years later I found myself on the staff of another newspaper in the making. (The Nation is now in the second half of its second year).

The Nation Editor Lalith Allahakoon was the pioneer Editor of the new Daily Mirror, started by the Wijeya Group of Newspapers. After decades of public service, I was back in the familiar environment of a newspaper office at The Nation, at the invitation of my long-standing friend and CEO of Rivira Media Corporation, Krishantha Prasad Cooray, who himself is a writer on current topics.

It was The Nation’s Deputy Editor Keith Noyahr, who incidentally was the pioneer Deputy Editor of the new Daily Mirror, who broached the idea of writing my memoirs and recalling my experiences.
Before the first issue of the Daily Mirror rolled off the Times of Ceylon press in early 1961, the staff had already been recruited. Most of them were senior journalists from the Evening Times Editorial. With the absence of any schools of journalism, the newcomers to journalism had to undergo on-the-job training.

While Michael, an old Peterite, was the first News Editor of the Mirror under the Times of Ceylon Group, the first Editor of the Daily Mirror was Fred de Silva, an academic and a talented writer, a man of simple ways and few words, who was to become the Editor of the Daily News in the mid 70s.

The Features Editor was Chandra Silva, wife of former Magistrate and District Judge Robert Silva, who was himself a former journalist of Times. The Chief Sub Editor was Felician Fernando, an old boy of St. Benedict’s College, Kotahena.
There were also the likes of Victor Goonewardene, a very meticulous sub-editor and a stickler for correct usage of the English language and grammar, and Reggie Siriwardene, who was a columnist of repute. On the News Desk under the charge of Michael were two senior hands with writing ability, recruited from outside: P. Krishnaswamy and C.S. Dharmaraja.

One of the tasks I was assigned was to read through all the Sinhala newspapers and translate all good stories into English. I was surprised to see many of these translations appearing as lead stories or displayed prominently, as they had not appeared in any other English newspaper. Soon Reggie Michael coined a nickname for me, ‘Mudliyar,’ which stuck on when the entire staff called me by that name.

After serving several months, Fred de Silva retired as Editor and Felician Fernando, the Chief Sub Editor, became the Editor of the Daily Mirror. October 1961 saw the influx of new journalists. Among them was Evans Cooray, already counting some years of experience at Lake House and at Lankadeepa.

It was under Evans Cooray that I was destined to serve as Press Officer and later as Senior Assistant Secretary (Information) from 1978 till 1993. Among the others who joined the editorial staff later was Alex Jayachandra who came over from Lake House.

Joining me as newcomers were Asoka Nanayakkara, who later held an executive post at de Alwis Advertising, and Sunil Munasinghe. Around October 1961, Rita Sebastian and Karel Roberts joined the Mirror.
The Sports Editor was Lawford Martinus. He produced a popular sports column titled Bouquets and Brickbats. Assisting him were Harry Jayawardene, a senior official of the famed Athletic Club CT and FC and stocky Anton Weerasinghe, who was Sports Sub Editor.

Former Editor of the Daily News and Lanka Puwath, Geoff Wijesinghe, an old Thomian, started his career as a journalist at The Times of Ceylon. He was a Playground Instructor of the Colombo Municipality when he on a part-time basis covered sports for the Daily Mirror. He was to later gravitate towards the News Desk and gradually developed into a top level journalist.

Geoff, Sunil and I formed a happy trio. We developed a close affinity and together, we used to play pranks and jokes at the expense of the seniors. With Geoff around, the editorial was always lively. His escapades, particularly in the evenings during the period of his stint in the Mirror, could fill a book. I was often his comrade-in-arms, who would guide him home after late nights.
One of the outstanding scoops Geoff scored was the Boonwaat story, where the Burmese Ambassador in Sri Lanka had allegedly assassinated his wife for allegedly having a love affair with a Sri Lankan musician.

Under cover of diplomatic immunity Ambassador Boonwaat organised a burial for his dead wife at the Kanatte Cemetery without a police inquiry. Geoff got wind of the burial from his police contacts and the old Daily Mirror had the exclusive story splashed on the front page with pictures. Ambassador Boonwaat stood trial for the offence in Burma and was convicted.

(This article is published posthumously)

Anthony’s last post

By Krishantha Prasad Cooray – Nation, Sunday Oct 21 2007
How does one do justice to the life of a man in an appreciation with an imposed word limit? In a sense, appreciations are meaningless. The subject, after all, does not get to read it.
Appreciations tend to be more about the appreciating person than the appreciated. I know all this and still want to write about Anthony Fernando, not because he cared whether he left a mark or not during his brief sojourn on earth, but because I believe that certain examples need to be restated so those who come later can learn.

It is a way of making a fragrance linger, a little longer, even after the flower has ceased to perfume.
I met Anthony in the 1980s when he was in President Premadasa’s media team, but got to know him more intimately only after President Premadasa’s death. When Premadasa became President, Anthony was his Senior Assistant Secretary.
Anthony was a man of legendary capacities. He had the stamina and energy to work round the clock, one of the necessary preconditions to work with Premadasa, apparently.

I don’t know much about Anthony’s early life and this upsets me now. All I know is that he was a sportsman, having opened batting for Maris Stella College, Negombo. In fact he had been both News Editor and Sports Editor at the old Times.
Anthony possessed rare discipline and exuded a humility that was rarer still. Those in the inner circle of the President would confirm that Premadasa called Anthony quite often at 4 a.m. In fact, he used to call up several close trusted officials in this manner.

They were all, without exception, very efficient men. Like most of us, they too had friends, they too had enemies. Anthony was an exception. He was Mr. All Smiles. No enemies. Not even one.
As one of the ‘President’s Men,’ so to speak, someone who played a huge role in all the projects launched by Premadasa, and someone who had the President’s ear on a daily basis, he could have ‘made it’ as they say.

He didn’t. He was not into ‘big talk,’ he never bragged; he was always passing on the credit to someone else, down-playing his own contribution. And he died a humble, simple man, in modest circumstances. He took his work to heart and probably felt that the satisfaction derived from dedicated work was fringe-benefit enough.

When I was asked to start a newspaper, one of the first people I wanted to contact was Anthony. I had not spoken with him in several years and my inquiries revealed that he was not in the best of health.
I went to Ja-Ela to see him. He was, as always, cordial and helpful. Although he was working at the Interior Affairs Ministry, he promised to help in whatever way possible. That was enough strength for me, all things considered.

He surprised me a fortnight later, when he called over at my flat. He said he would join once the paper was launched and proceeded to give me a lot of invaluable advice. As promised, he joined us a month before The Nation was launched, and it was a privilege to have a man with such experience and proven capabilities on our team.
Although he was ill and growing weaker by the day, even then, being Anthony, he always reported for work, never complained and continued to offer suggestions to improve the newspaper.

He was enthusiastic and meticulously methodical; always full of ideas and bubbling with the enthusiasm of a much younger man. He never grumbled. Every Monday he would call and give a review of the previous day’s paper, pointing out errors and making suggestions for improvement.

Everyone in newspaper offices would remember Anthony as a quiet, smiling, generous man, who never interfered with others, and was ever willing to help. He obviously knew his days were numbered, but didn’t allow this fact to dampen his enthusiasm, always keeping his cool and never losing his charm.

He was a great inspiration to us at The Nation and Rivira, as he surely would have been to those who worked with him in all the places he graced with his presence.
In addition, he was a much loved father figure to the young journalists of The Nation and Rivira, they would all run to him with no hesitation whatsoever to ask for advice and ideas, or even to correct their spelling and it was always given to them with great joy and acceptance. Last Thursday, Anthony called and asked if he could do a column for The Nation. He wanted to call it ‘As It Strikes Me.’ I told him I would talk to the Editor and get back to him. The Editor said that Anthony could write it on a fortnightly basis. I will eternally regret the fact that I failed to convey this to Anthony.
I could put it down to ‘human error’ by way of absolving myself of guilt, but I am doubly ashamed because Anthony would never have done this to me had the roles been reversed.

He was always helpful and disciplined and didn’t let the fact that he had to undergo dialysis on a regular basis, leave any room for complaint. He was a friend and an exceptional human being.
He leaves behind his wife, Sriyani, son and daughter, all of whom would feel his loss more deeply than anyone else, but at the same time could be thankful for the privilege of being his wife and children.

To say ‘We will miss you at The Nation, Anthony’ would be to say nothing. Some people are like that. They leave and when they do, they rob us of words. Anthony was such a man.

Anthony Fernando:
A gentleman and journalist par excellance!

Anthony Fernando, well known Journalist, Press Officer and latterly Senior Assistant Secretary (Information) to President Ransinghe Premdasa passed away peacefully at his residence at the age of 65 years, exemplifying the non controversial and non turbulent life he led. Integrity and humility were essentially characteristic of Anthony.

Anthony was the third son of well educated and affluent parents; Dr. Luke Fernando and Mrs. Noeline Fernando of Negombo. Dr. Luke brought up his children in a culturally undiluted rural environment, principally as good Christians and secondly as dutiful responsible citizens. Anthony received his education at Maristella College, Negombo, and had a flair for languages, particularly English and Sinhala. He blossomed as a balanced, independent professional journalist beyond bribery in cash or kind.

As a sportsman, Anthony knew how to play fair and accept both victory and defeat with equanimity. Anthony joined the Times Group as a journalist and learnt his trade under the most respected Editor of the Daily Mirror, Reggie Michael. His progress as a journalist was steady and he rose to the position of News Editor of the Daily Mirror in the 1970’s.

I knew Anthony since 1979, when the then Prime Minister Mr. Ranasinghe Premadasa invited Anthony to join his media team. We maintained an excellent official cum personal relationship for 28 years. It was a highly professional and disciplined relationship in his official journalistic capacity and an exemplary caring and sharing partnership in his personal life. In view of the insatiable appetite of Prime Minister Premadasa for image building, it was a challenging time for all of us at Transworks House. The Prime Minister wanted ceaseless publicity for the massive urban development, housing and village reawakening projects launched by him. The media team headed by his Press Secretary Evans Cooray and Press Officer Anthony Fernando proved equal to the challenges stipulated by Mr. Ranasinghe Premadasa.

Anthony wrote well and effortlessly in both English and Sinhala. He could also translate from English to Sinhala and vice versa. Investigative journalism was not his forte. He excelled in reporting, feature writing and interviewing dignitaries. He had a fantastic memory of people, events and sources of information which undoubtedly is a useful journalistic attribute. After his retirement from the Public Service, being an invaluable journalistic asset, he was invited by The Nation newspaper to function as a consultant.

Mr. Anthony Fernando was an unassuming, harmless and saintly character. As civil servants we were taught to comply first and complain later. In Anthony’s case he always complied and never complained. He knew how to win friends and influence people. Perseverance and application to detail were the hallmark of his success. He did not gossip nor did he denounce anyone. He was privy to state secrets, political maneuvers and even family quarrels of his bosses. Never did he breathe a word to the media or the outside world.

As members of the Prime Ministerial or Presidential entourage, we travelled on numerous official and state visits. He was a great travelling companion and reliable aide who meticulously made elaborate preparations to meet the numerous demands, high standards and time targets set out by Mr. Ranasinghe Premadasa.

His only weakness was getting into office late. Anthony acquired the habit of coming late to office from his journalistic days. Whenever Prime Minister Premadasa questioned him on this, Anthony attributed it to his having to travel from Jaela by bus. So, Mr. Premadasa the shrewd strategist, immediately allocated a flat from Gunasinghapura, a stone’s throw away from Sucharitha. One day, Mr. Premadasa entrusted an urgent translation to Anthony and asked him to bring it to Sucharitha at 8.00 a.m. the following day. At 8.30 a.m. after repeated telephone calls Anthony had not arrived. So, Mr. Premadasa, in his inimitable style, went to Anthony’s flat and saw him running down the stairs. Anthony was excited. Mr. Premadasa asked him to calm down. Anthony made no excuses such as bad stomach or high fever, but it was the last time Anthony got late for his appointments.

Anthony was a loving and caring husband and father of two lovely children. If we had more of Anthony’s calibre, Sri Lanka will be a better place to live in today. May his soul rest in peace.
K.H.J. Wijayadasa
Former Secretary to the
President

Manning Town

The people who made Manning Town

By Dr. Lakshman Abeyagunawardene – Sunday Times Aug 26 2007

I lived a good part of my childhood in Manning Town, a little township situated between Borella and Narahenpita in Colombo 8. My father who was attached to the Postal Department had been in the waiting list for government quarters in Colombo for some time. Towards the end of 1949, it was his turn to be allotted a 'Government Bungalow" as they were then called. The family thus moved from Hendala where we were living in a rented house to Manning Town to start a new life in the city.

Rupees and cents of yesteryear

Much water has flowed under the bridges from the time when a gallon of petrol was sold at Rs 2.40, a pound of beef cost 80 cents and an ice cream cone was just 25 cents. Although I was only a mere eight years old at that time, I was aware that a Peacock cigarette was marketed at only 2 cents! That was also a time when a beggar happily accepted a one-cent coin with the all too familiar chant of "pin sidda vechchave".

50 years on : A section of Manning Town today with flats replacing the spacious bungalows of the past

Over half a century later, I am not too sure whether a beggar would be satisfied with a ten-rupee note! Our "new" home in Manning Town was a housing scheme where typical "middle class" families lived. Heads of households were attached to different government departments, but their income levels were more or less the same. The 54 families belonged to different ethnic groups - Sinhalese, Tamils, Burghers, Moors and Malays. On the basis of religion, it was a good mix of Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and Muslims. The upbringing in that environment went a long way in inculcating in us a sense of racial and religious tolerance and amity. Even today, in spite of sad events like the Black July of 1983, and the long drawn out North-East war, I have maintained close friendship with some of my childhood Tamil friends from the Manning Town days.

Strangely enough, the western sounding name "Manning Town" has survived the test of time. The names of the network of minor roads within the Scheme have also been retained to this day. Each house with four large bedrooms, wide verandahs etc., was in the centre of a 40 perch block
surrounded by a four-foot boundary wall. During those seven years, I must have traversed every inch of those roads whose names bring back to me, nostalgic memories of a happy childhood. 50 years later on my annual visits to Sri Lanka, I still make it a point to walk leisurely along Matha Road, Mangala Road, Mangala Path, Gajaba Road, Manning Square and Victoria Place.

Gone are the bungalows

The aging "bungalows" were demolished nearly two decades ago. What has now come up in its place is a concrete jungle of "flats" providing housing to well over 200 families.

If one were to drive down Elvitigala Mawatha today from the direction of Borella towards Narahenpita, just beyond Kanatte and the Elvitigala Flats, the Manning Town Flats (that is the new name of the Housing Scheme) can be seen on either side of the main road. From Kitulwatte Road (road adjacent to Kanatte on the left) onwards, the entire stretch of land up to Koswatte Road belonged to Bogala Graphites and H.L. de Mel and Company in the fifties. The main Borella-Narahenpita Road which was then called Narahenpita Road, ran right across the government housing scheme with parts of it on either side. It was at that time, just a 20-foot road. Today, it is a six lane highway with two carriageways and has been renamed Elvitigala Mawatha (after the well known Ayurvedic physician who practiced in Narahenpita). As in "Old" Manning Town, the "New" Manning Town of today also has the large majority of housing units on the side of the Motor Traffic Department, and very few units on the opposite side where the Sri Lanka Standards Bureau is presently located.

The Manning Town Housing Scheme was roughly rectangular in shape and abutted the Ridgeway Golf Links (Royal Colombo Golf Club Course) on two sides. Across the golf course, one could see in the distance, the present Nawala Road, with the RCGC clubhouse and the Kanatte General Cemetery on the left. The narrow gauge Kelani Valley railway track also ran right across Manning Town. The small Manning Town Railway Station was right behind our house (G 31) that faced Mangala Path, the only section of the Scheme beyond the railway track. The KV line extended from Colombo Fort to Opanayake. In-between were railway stations Maradana, Dematagoda, Baseline Road, Cotta Road, Manning Town, Narahenpita, Kirillapone, Nawinna, Maharagama, Kottawa, Pannipitiya, Homagama and Avissawella. The railway line
bisected the Ridgeway golf course and ran close to the Kanatte cemetery.

The southern side of the rectangle was a marsh that was later filled up and on which site stands the present Department of Motor Traffic and the Police Garage. Beyond them was Mahawatte Road (present E.D. Dabare Mawatha). The fourth side of the rectangle faced a vast expanse of scrubland that we used to call the "African Jungle" where we played "Police and Robbers" or "Hora-Police".

Beyond the fringes of the "African Jungle" (part of which is now the fashionable residential area of Longden Place) towards Bullers Road, was the Havelock golf course on which the BMICH was later built, and the CR & FC rugger grounds surrounded by those tall Cypress trees even then. It was in this section of Manning Town that was demarcated from the rest by Narahenpita Road, that the Manning Town Government Officers Club was situated at Victoria Place (the road leading to the present Sri Lanka Standards Bureau). The two tennis courts were adjacent to the main Narahenpita Road, but the children's playground was behind the clubhouse.

Haven for children

It was there that most of the children assembled in the evenings. As with most clubs, there were the annual tournaments and club nights. When they had a fancy dress parade on one such occasion in 1953, as a twelve-year old, I was runner-up dressed in the costume of an Afghan moneylender with a handle-bar moustache adorning my upper lip! I received the prize from the chief guest who was Sir John Kotelawala, Minister of Transport and Works at that time. My father was the Honorary General Secretary (and later President) of this club. Ironically, his friendship with Sir John was a contributory factor to our departure from Manning Town not long after the change of government in 1956. But that is another story!


Those fifties people

This article would not be complete unless I touched on the people who lived there in the fifties. One noteworthy fact is that quite a few well-known personalities of today, who have achieved much in life as useful citizens of Sri Lanka or have brought honour to their motherland by their outstanding achievements across the seas, had been brought up in Manning Town. They are children of middle-class government servants from happy homes who grew up in an nvironment that was ideal for good education and personality building. They have shone in a wide variety of fields and it is a pleasure to record their achievements here.

Architect Surath Wickramasinghe who is a Past President of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects and the Organisation of Professional Associations is the eldest son of my father's Postal Department colleague who occupied G33 (all houses had either "G" or "F" numbers). Having lived right next to the RCGC golf course as a young child, Surath became the President of the RCGC a few decades later. Surath's younger brother Gamini is the CEO of Informatics and the present Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka (SEC) as well as the Insurance Board of Sri Lanka (IBSL).

Gratien Gunawardhane (G36) is a highly successful industrialist and businessman being Chairman of Hands International. He is also a past District Governor of Lions. Another past Lions District Governor was the late Winston Malawana (G14) who was practising in Ratnapura as an Attorney-at-Law at the time of his untimely death. Like Winston who himself played first eleven cricket for St. Joseph's, his younger brother Ranjith was an outstanding cricketer at the same school, who later played for Bloomfield Cricket Club as a fiery opening bowler.

Docs in the bloc

I am able to count at least 13 doctors from among Manning Town residents of the late forties and early fifties. Mahen Wijesuriya (G39) is one of the better-known physicians in the private sector in Colombo today, and is Founder President of the Diabetes Association of Sri Lanka. Mahen followed his two older sisters Manel (Panditaratne) and Lalitha (Katugaha) into the medical profession. Kandiah Wigneswaran (G38), their next-door neighbour at Victoria Place is a paediatrician in New York.

The Abeysuriya family who occupied F26 produced three doctors - late Srikanthi (who too died at an early age in New Zealand), brother Sunil (now in UK) and the youngest Surangani who is in Sri Lanka. Ranjith Weerakoon (F27) who lived next-door is presently in Gastonia, North Carolina. His brother Eric is a Dental Surgeon.

My own immediate neighbour Bala Karalapillai (G31) qualified as an ENT surgeon. After his marriage to Professor C.J. Eliezer's daughter (Eliezer was the name of the Professor of Physics which later became a household name in Ceylon during the total eclipse of June 1954), Bala migrated to Australia where he too died in the prime of his life. He was a Public Schools tennis player who later represented the University. Bala's younger sister Rani is also a doctor who graduated from Peradeniya the same year that I did from Colombo. The list of Manning Town Doctors would not be complete unless I add my own name to it!

Among the others who distinguished themselves in their chosen professions, one big name that comes to mind is Gunasiri Weerakoon (F27) who retired as Sri Lanka's Commissioner of Labour. Besides his brothers Drs Ranjith and Eric mentioned earlier, the Weerakoon family contributed another professional - Nihal who retired as Regional Telecommunications Engineer, Badulla. Namasivayam Ganeshalingam entered the Faculty of Engineering in the University of Ceylon and graduated as an engineer. Shanthi Canagasabey who also died early in life was a planter. His younger brother Nihal is a mercantile executive in Colombo. Kirthi Rasaputra (G29) who entered the Science Faculty of the University and obtained his B.Sc, later qualified as a textile technologist. His younger brother Kithsiri joined the Army and retired as a Brigadier. Their uncle Warnasena who resided in Manning Town in the same Rasaputra household at some time during his own university days, was the Governor of the Central Bank and later was Ambassador to the United States.

Talking about the Sri Lanka Army, I also wish to mention that late Major General Vijaya Wimalaratne (who died tragically in Kayts along with General Denzil Kobbekaduwa) lived at G11 in Manning Town in the fifties.
The sporty ones

Among the other outstanding sportsmen produced by Manning Town of the fifties were the Jebarajah brothers. Mervyn was a leading swimmer at Royal College and blossomed out to be Ceylon's best-known diver after joining the Navy. Brother Milroy played cricket for Wesley and later turned out for Tamil Union in Saravanamuttu Trophy cricket.

K.Vincent Perera who was the Librarian in Parliament, occupied G15 on Mangala Road. His elder daughter Chitra graduated with a BA from the Peradeniya University. Another arts graduate is Jayanthi Gooneratne (now Liyanage) who retired recently from UNICEF, a case of my former fellow Manning Towner becoming my office colleague some forty years later! Jayanthi's elder brother Elmo Gooneratne (G3) is a senior journalist.

My own sister Vinitha also graduated from the Peradeniya Arts Faculty while my younger brother Ananda has just completed 30 years with the well-known electronics group Avnet. Inc. of San Jose, California.

Before the "Sinhala Only"cry was raised by the Nationalists in 1956, and when English was the language used in the day-to-day affairs of the country, the Burgher community had an important place in society. They were omnipresent in all fields of activity and the Public Service in particular, was well served by members of this community. The large number of Permanent Secretaries heading Ministries at that time was ample proof that Burghers played an important role as government servants. Manning Town was no exception because many of the bungalows were occupied by Burgher families. Names of Burgher Manning Town residents that readily come to mind are: Woutersz, Reimers, Cole, Berman, Leonard, Sanders, Jansz, Slemmerman, Cannon, Koch, Paulersz and Assauwe.

Michael (Brian) Berman (G5) qualified as an engineer having graduated from the University of Ceylon. He played first eleven cricket for St. Joseph's and the University of Ceylon. The Koch family lived in F19. The father and two Peterite sons Jan and Gordon were outstanding tennis players. Dodwell Soysa who occupied G21 was Ceylon's leading cricket umpire at that time. His son Anton did not play cricket, but entered the University and got his B.Sc in the Physical Sciences. Geoffrey Assauwe played cricket for Royal. Most of these Burgher families migrated to Australia after the "Cultural Revolution" of 1956.

... and the arty ones

Manning Town was not short of talent in music, art, films and drama. The well-known dancer and film actor/director Sesha Palihakkara lived in F24 opposite our own house on Mangala Path. His younger sister too qualified as a doctor. Wadham Dole (G2) was a well-known tennis player at Royal who later made a name for himself as a dancer. He earned popularity as a cabaret artiste who performed regularly at dances and in Colombo nightclubs in the early sixties. His professional career as a dancer was cut short by his early demise. Joe Jayasuriya (G12) became the leader of a popular band that dominated the music scene in the sixties and seventies.

Sockalingam Gnanalingam who lived next to the Doles at G1 was an all rounder. He played first eleven cricket for Thurstan College and was also one of the best products of the Amarasekara School of Art. On the same subject of art, accomplished artist Druvi Madawela is the daughter of Arlene Wickramasinghe (F24 after Palihakkaras) who later married Major General Mano
Madawela.

I am certain that Manning Town would have continued to produce high achievers in different fields in the years that followed, and continue to do so in the future. But I doubt very much that the output of such a versatile set of useful citizens by a few families that lived in that small neighbourhood in the 1949-56 era will ever be matched. (E-mail: abeyafln@dhec.sc.gov)

Delightful Dalreen

Dalreen - the name echoes with music in the world of show business. Dressed always in black with matching kohl-rimmed eyes, bandana on the head, elegant ethnic bangles and rings on her hands and fingers, she has been photographed, talked about and continuously pursued; she has never been anonymous! Always warm and friendly and ever willing to help out another musician, her phonebook is crowded with numbers of musicians who keep in constant touch with her. Her persona alluringly blends with the throbbing of guitars and drums and wins your instant appreciation. Her charisma on stage is unique and has won her a long line of fans over the years, not only in Sri Lanka, but also in every corner of the world.

Where do we begin to tell the story of Dalreen?

According to her mother Decima, who was a singer herself, Dalreen as a baby used to move her hands and gurgle her own baby notes whenever her mother sang to her even if it was a lullaby! She was destined to be a singer.

Dalreen spent most of her childhood days watching in wonderment as her mother and aunt Mignonne performed on stage as the Kelaart Sisters. The passion to be on stage grew within her and eventually could no longer be contained. At the age of nine, Dalreen made her debut singing Elvis Presley songs and when she turned twelve she was featured on Radio Ceylon, the national radio, with other professional singers. From then on, the child star became the talk of the town.

She joined her first band The Fireflies in 1966. They quickly landed a gig at the prestigious Ceylinco Hotel for the popular Sundown Dances. Soon after in 1967 she was selected by an American agent to sing for the USO in Vietnam. Dalreen joined The Savages which was the first group and female singer from Sri Lanka to perform abroad for the American forces. After a tour of nine months in Vietnam and upon her return to Sri Lanka, the excitement of being on stage led her to sing with The Spitfires, again at the Sundown Dances that by then had become extremely popular at the Ceylinco Hotel.

As Dalreen's popularity grew so did her musical career. In 1972 she made her first European tour and was signed by the Polydor (Ariola) recording label in Germany to record and release three singles. She actually recorded four singles for Polydor, two were in English titled 'Stranger Boy' and 'With a Little Love'. The other two were German songs 'Als der neue tag' and 'Sei weider gut', which she performed on German television. 'Stranger Boy' became a big hit for her.

The years with her bands Amazing Grace and Orpheus at the Little Hut, Mount Lavinia and the Blue Leopard, very popular venues in Sri Lanka, set new trends in music, with Dalreen radiating her never-ending charm. A rock singer in her early years, she also became a familiar figure on stage with leading pop names like Kumar Navaratnam, Upali Fernando and Prince Rajaratnam. Always a survivor in the ever changing musical world Dalreen switched her talents to the Asian music scene. Clarence Wijewardena composed four songs for her which were released on the Sooriya label one of which, 'Chuda Meneke', became an anthem for Dalreen.

After her huge success in Europe, Dalreen was invited by the Travel Agents of the PATA Conference in 1975 to perform at the Sydney Opera House where she sang her Sinhala songs. Soon after there were more tours. Each one of them spelled excitement and happiness for Dalreen making all of her teenage dreams come true. The experience of touring was equally valuable. Her fame has taken her to India, Japan, Hong Kong, Berlin, Australia, Switzerland, Moscow, Rome, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Katmandu, London, United States, Canada and the countries of the Middle East.

Dalreen's happiness was great when in 1993 she won two Sunday Observer Golden Cleft Awards one for 'Singer of the Year' and one for 'Trio of the Year' for her group Dalreen and Company.

The publication 'India Today' profiled her as, "...the songstress who turns you on with her songs of love and life. To the people of Sri Lanka she is not just a 'singer par excellence' - she is a symbol - the woman who acts as a kind of ambassador, transporting a part of their world to the world outside..."

Music is an intrinsic part of Dalreen's family. Her two daughters have inherited their mothers' musical talents with the same degree of enthusiasm and commitment. Debbie, her elder daughter, a recognized keyboardist, pianist and singer too, enjoys a successful career as a soloist performing at countless venues and special events. She continues her music as a keyboardist in the popular group Phase 3. Thahani her teenage daughter is a singer in her own right excelling in today's pop music scene. She appears as a soloist in Dalreen's DVD 'Dalreen - Then to Now'. Debbie appears on the same DVD doing harmony and backup vocals.

Not to be left out musically is Dalreen's percussionist husband Thabit who is also a horticulturist and environmentalist at heart, lends continuous support to his musically minded family.

Dalreen is in high demand throughout the worlds musical stages. She recently returned home from a summer tour of the US and Canada with The Gypsies another popular Sri Lankan band.

Extracted from Dalreen's Website:
http://www.dalreen.com/index.htm

Message from Dalreen to all her fans:

Music, has always been my life, and today this celebration in song gives me so much happiness.

Winning a talent contest at the age of nine opened the doors to an exciting and fruitful musical career, and never did I think that I would have such a long stay in the scene as a singer and professionally, almost forty years. This is like the dream I had as a kid acting myself as a singer in front of the mirror.

It was no easy trek but my enthusiasm and determination gave me the success I enjoy today.

I cannot proceed without expressing my heartfelt thanks to all those who helped me to be what I am now.

I have always been associated with Sri Lanka's best professional musicians both in the western and Oriental scene, and shared the stage not only in Sri Lanka but overseas as well. I am proud to have represented my country at many International Music festivals and music events.

When I reflect now, I am happy that despite some of the obstacles in my way, I stood my ground and gave up the best by way of my singing to my people and all my fans who never failed to support me through all these years, without you I would be nothing or nobody.

I thank you for being here tonight and being a part of my show "LIFE OF SONG".

Love you all,
Dalreen

Note: This is from Dalreen to her audience (and now for you) at a recent concert in Colombo, Sri Lanka. A DVD of that concert is available and is a 'must have' if you are a Dalreen fan!

Home is where trhe heart is

By Rangi Akbar - Daily Mirror Mon July 30 2007

Ever wondered what happened to sports stars of the past such as Dhanasiri Weerasinghe, ‘Brute’ Mahendran, Maxim Flamer Caldera, Geoff Weinman, Dr. Larry Foenander etc.
Dhanasiri Weerasinghe led Ananda and later played for Bloomfield and Ceylon. He was Chairman of Selectors for Ceylon Cricket when Michael Tissera led the team. He now owns a 100 - acre farm in the Melbourne hills.

‘Brute’ Mahendran, an Old Trinitian and an Old Royalist, was the national champion in shot-put and was also the national heavyweight boxing champion. ‘Brute’ also represented the country in rugby-football.

It is said that in one day at 2.30 P.M. he won the national championship in shot-put and at 4.30 P.M represented the CR&FC to win the Clifford Cup final. Later in the evening at 8.00 P.M, he won the national heavy weight crown in boxing. A rare achievement for a sportsman!
‘Brute’, is nicknamed thus due to his size and sheer strength. He used to carry several opponents, who were trying to bring him down, on his back to score tries against opponents. He captained Police rugby during the sixties. He retired as Deputy Inspector General of Police prematurely and migrated to Australia with his doctor wife and children. In Australia he passed out as a lawyer and worked for the Government. He is now happily living in retirement.
Former Police rugby skipper S. Sivendran, who brought the Police rugby team to the A Division and the coveted Clifford Cup in the sixties was in Australia recently on the invitation of his eldest sister Padma Thangarajah, who lives in Sydney with her husband N. Thangarajah and their three daughters. They have two sons who are engineers and accountants. Padma is a retired graduate teacher who had her education at Methodist Girls High School, Point Pedro where she.excelled in athletics and netball. Her husband is a retired Superintendent of Surveys.
In Melbourne Sivendran had met Dhanasiri Weerasinghe, who had been his batch and roommate when he joined the Police Force as a Sub Inspector.

“Dhanasiri owns a hundred-acre farm in the hills. He took us there and we spent a day at the Farm House”, said Siva.

Another outstanding sportsman Siva had met in Melbourne is Micheal Schockman, a former Trinity College boxer, cricketer and rugby player and his wife Margo. Schokman played and captained Police rugby and Sivendran had played alongside him for several years.
“Schokman is actively involved in umpiring cricket matches for Victoria State. He is a qualified umpire, ” said Siva,

Sivendran had also witnessed Australia play England in a one-day match at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds which had been packed to capacity.

Another outstanding rugby player whom Siva had met in Australia is Maxim Flamer Caldera. Maxim manned the wing for S.Thomas College, Mount Lavinia at rugby, Havelocks Sports Club and Ceylon before migrating to Australia. He is a successful businessman Down Under. Maxim’s late father, Alan Namer Caldera was a Superintendent of Police in Sri Lanka before migrating to Australia. His sister Jilska Flamer Caldera was the national 110 metres hurdling champion in the sixties. She too is married and settled down in Sydney.Geof Weinman, the former Royal College, CR&FC and Ceylon wing forward is now living in Sydney. He coached the Police rugby team in 1964.

Alan Henricus,a former Lieutenant in the Navy was another Royal College and Navy Fly Half who lives in Sydney .

Alan Henricus too hails from a family of sportsmen. His eldest brother Barney Henricus, passed away recently in America. Barney was a Chief Inspector of Police and was the first to win a Gold Medal for Ceylon at the Empire Games. His other brother Basil Henricus, another Royalist athlete and rugby player, was a Major in the Army. Basil was a national sprinter and turned out for Havelocks and Ceylon at rugby-football. The other brothers Captain George and Derrick too were good sportsmen.

Sivendran had also met Dr Larry Foenander , the Army ruggerite and coach. “I was also happy to speak to Eustace Rulach, an old Trinitian who was a great rugby scribe during my playing days and his wife Jean. ”, Sivendran recalled that the Rulachs stayed down Peterson Lane, Wellawatte where he too stayed during his school days at St. Peter’s Bambalapitiya.

Siva had also been in touch with Dr Larry Foenander, the former Royal College, Havelocks SC and Army rugby player and coach

In Melbourne, Siva had visited the Dandenong Hills with his cousins and a friend. On their way back they had the opportunity to have lunch at a Ceylonese Restaurant and found that it was owned by Chou de Kauve, who had played rugby and boxed for the Air Force. “Chou recognised me promptly as a rugby player as he had watched me playing and later as a referee,”said Siva. “Chou was so hospitable that he had refused to give us the bill.” The lunch was his way of showing his appreciation at meeting some people from way back home.

Sivendran had been glad to meet former Deputy Inspector General of Police V. Vamadevan, who lives in Sydney with his wife Charmine. This couple had taken them on a sight seeing tour to the Blue Mountains and later they had visited the Blow Hole in Kiama. Siva had also spent four days with former Deputy Inspector General Douglas Ranmuthugala and his wife Janaki in Canberra where they had taken them to Parliament House and the War Memorial .Siva and his party had also met Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner Mr. Kusum Balapatabendi whilst in Canberra.

Even though Siva had been able to contact Leslie Ephraums, a former Police and Havelocks rugger player and his brother Conrad and Maurice de Silva, both Havelocks and Ceylon rugby players living in Brisbane, he had been unable to visit them due to a crowded schedule.
According to Sivendran all those who had migrated to Australia are living happily and their children too are prospering. But their thoughts are always with Sri Lanka, the land of their birth. Their dearest wish is to see peace return to the Paradise Isle.

Maureen Hingert

9 January 1937	is born in Colombo, Ceylon, of Dutch ancestry, the daughter of Lionel Hingert and Lorna Mabel de Run. Her father is president of the Bank of Ceylon and has extensive tea holdings.
c. 1942	enters the Holy Family Convent in Colombo and stays there until she is 18
?	studies languages, world history, and nursing. She speaks English, French, Spanish, Hindustani, and Tamil.
?	stars in a Ceylonese movie, Ram Gopal
c. 1954	is in Veit Harlan's Sterne ueber Colombo, a.k.a. Circus Girl, a German picture filmed in Ceylon
	wins the role of a solo dance in Elephant Walk
25 June 1955	is crowned “Miss Ceylon” in Colombo, Ceylon
22 July 1955	is heralded a favorite for the world beauty crown together with “Miss Sweden,” “Miss USA,” “Miss England,” and “Miss El Salvador”
	becomes second runner-up to Hillevi Rombin, “Miss Sweden,” in the "Miss Universe" contest held in Long Beach, California
July 1955	says: “I drink no alcoholic beverages and smoke no cigarettes.”
	the judges call her “one of the most beautiful Oriental entrants we have ever had”
October 1955	is heralded to make her screen debut playing an American Indian in Universal-International’s Pillars of the Sky
	is signed by 20th Century-Fox for their upcoming The King and I
26 October 1955	accompanies Ceylon's ambassador C. E. L. Wickremesinghe to a formal luncheon at the Wilton Hotel. There they dine with Mayor George Vermillion and Oscar Meinhardt, executive director of the "Miss Universe" beauty pageant.
21 January 1956	she and fellow beauty queen Hillevi Rombin attend a dinner date at the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium honoring Humberto Valenzuela, retired Chilean bank president and head of several large industries
April 1956	Jon Hall is reported paging her to play the jungle queen in his "Ramar of the Jungle" TV series
	lives at the well-chaperoned Hollywood Studio Club and will study at UCLA
?	performs classic Indian dances in Los Angeles
1956	tours Europe and the Middle East
1956 – 57	stars opposite Maxwell Reed as Anura, a beautiful South Seas native girl, in the British TV series “Captain David Grief.” The series is shot on location in Mexico.
October 1957	is pictured attending an installation banquet for Miss Universe Beauty Pageant officers at the Lafayette Hotel
Early April 1958	announces plans to marry Mario Armand Zamparelli, a Montrose artist, on June 4
April 1958	will start rehearsals in September for a New York stage production, Father India
1958	marries Zamparelli. He's 31; she's 21.
	films Fort Bowie on location at the Kanab Movie Fort at Kanab, Utah
	her daughter Regina N. is born in Los Angeles. She will become renown Los Angeles concert promoter Gina Zamparelli.
	her daughter Marisa N. is born in Los Angeles
	her third daughter is born in Los Angeles
2007	resides in the Los Angeles area

Sources: Syracuse Herald-American, Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram, The Lima News, The Lowell Sun, The Bennington Evening Banner, Oakland Tribune, Pasadena Independent, Long Beach Press-Telegram, Picture Show 1957, www.Ancestry.com

She was heralded a favorite for the world beauty crown together with “Miss Sweden,” “Miss USA,” “Miss England,” and “Miss El Salvador.” The Judges stated, “she is the most beautiful entrant we have ever had”.

Due to her win in the Miss Universe Pageant, she has long been revered as “putting Sri Lanka on the map” and being an ambassador to her country, Sri Lanka.

Hingert was born on January 9, 1937 in Colombo, Sri Lanka to Lionel Hingert and Lorna Mabel De Run. Her father, of Dutch people Dutch ancestry. He was the President of the Bank of Ceylon and he had extensive tea estates. The family lived in a large mansion in Ceylon

Hingert attended school at the Holy Family Convent in Colombo until she was eighteen. She studied world history, languages (English, French, Spanish, Hindustani, and Tamil), nursing and dancing.

In 1954, Hingert was crowned Miss Ceylon in her country and subsequently selected as a contestant in the 1955 Miss Universe pagent.

Following her victory in the contest, Hingert was put under contract to Universal International Studios and 20th Century Fox.

Some of the movies she appeared in include: The King and I, Fort Bowie, Gun Fever, The Adventures of Hiram Holiday, Moroccan Halk Moth, Pillars of the Sky,

Maureen Hingert is an actress.

As an actress, Maureen Hingert has performed in movies such as "Gunmen from Laredo", released in 1959, in which she portrayed Rosita, "Gun Fever"(1958), and "Fort Bowie"(1958).

Deshabandu Dr. Wimala de Silva

Appreciation:

DESHABANDU Dr. WIMALA De SILVA

DE SILVA - DESHABANDU DR (MRS) WIMALA (Former Chancellor of Sri Jayewardenepura University, founder Principal of Devi Balika Vidyalaya, former Principal of Maliyadeva Girls' School, Kurunegala and Princess of Wales College, Moratuwa). Beloved wife of the late Dr S.L. De Silva and sister of the late Mr P.M. Jayatilaka, passed away peacefully. Cortege leaves residence at 4.30 p.m. on Thursday the 19th April. Cremation at General Cemetery, Borella. No flowers by request. 26, Swarnadisi Place, off Koswatte Road, Nawala, Rajagiriya. DN Tue Apr 17 2007

** http://sachini-perera.blogspot.com/2007/04/death-grief.html

Grief, is a selfish thing, some claim. We grieve cos WE lose. Not the one who passed away.

I was swelled with grief, this morning too, when I scanned the obits in the DN & DM to find that Deshabandu Dr. Wimala de Silva (nee Jayatilaka), former Chancellor Sri Jayawardenapura University (1983-2000), had passed away, yesterday.

Although she was much older to me, by 28 years, I remembered the wonderful Sundays in the Seventies, when a few of us young chaps, friends of her maternal first cousin, Lal de Silva (ex Ananda College, now living in Toronto, Canada), gathered at her beautiful home in Koswatte to play Bridge with her and her wonderful husband, the late Dr Luxman de Silva, ex Chairman State Rubber Manufacturing Corporation and ex President Insitute of Engineers Sri Lanka, who passed away in 1992.

Her humor, her laughter, her intelligence, and her beautiful conversation, mixed with the humongous hospitality that she showered upon us, young men, which included a grand Sunday lunch cooked in typical Sinhala style, is something I find very hard to forget.

It is more than 30 years since I last saw her but the fact that she has always been someone whom I have admired immensely, for her magnificent manners and charming character, will always linger in my heart and mind.

I wanted to so much to try and see her in 2006, when I was down in Colombo on a short vacation, but failed on account of busy schedules and family commitments. It hurts me so much that I didn't make the effort and take the time to call on her just to say hello.

Now I grieve, so sadly. Yes I do. I grieve for myself. That is the basic essence of grief, I think?

They dont make people like her, anymore.

May she be in splendor wherever she has gone to.

Fazli Sameer, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Tue Apr 17 2007

---

The lessons of a father:

Dr. Wimala de Silva's childhood

By Roshan Peiris

She grew up with her father to guide her, in an old world house in Negombo. Her mother had died when she was five years old. Her father, a practising Buddhist, sent his only daughter (there was also a son) to a little village Buddhist school which he helped to build and manage.

In the village school, her best friends were the vegetable amme's daughter and the labourer's daughter with whom she sat on the school bench together.

Dr. Wimala de Silva Chancellor of the Sri Jayewardenapura University and the first and only woman Chancellor in Sri Lanka says it was her father's influence that taught her one must not look down on people because they were deprived.

Dr. de Silva recalls, "Ours was a traditional Sinhala home where even my aunts did not sit at table with my father. It was also a hospitable home where all were welcome to stay or have a meal. To me as a young child I valued tradition, for it gave me a sense of belonging and security and a tranquil home.

"My father was Eastern oriented and my aunts who attended Newstead, Negombo were Western oriented and so early in my life I came under the influence of two different cultures.

"I read Sinhala books since my father did so and English books and Latin because of my aunts. I think my father was a very tactful person and in a way a good psychologist. He once found me trying to fix a piece of lace for my underskirt and asked why I was doing this. Why do you want this? Who will notice it and how much does it cost? I replied that it cost fifty cents a yard. He told me rice was five cents a measure and one can buy 10 measures of rice for that money.

"He thus taught me relative values at an early age. It was done tactfully and gently with no scolding."

On another occasion while at Newstead, Dr. de Silva recalled the visit of Tagore's troupe.

"Our dancing teacher Gem Paulickpulle had told us about oriental dancing and we were going to be taken for the performance. But when I told my father he reminded me a teacher from my first village school was getting married on the same day and she would feel very hurt if I did not attend the wedding. I was very unhappy about it but now in retrospect I am glad that as a teenager I was given two lessons in life. One not to hurt people and second to get one's priorities straight. These lessons have stood me in good stead.

"At school as a bright student I was chosen to do Western classics. All very well, said my father as long as you do not forget or neglect the value of your mother tongue. So, I always kept up with my Sinhala which has undoubtedly helped me.'

'I did well in my Cambridge Senior and when my aunts and I were jubilant wanting to celebrate, my father said, don't be boastful and invite envy- another good lesson. On his death bed he told a fellow ayurvedic physician Mudaliyar S. B. A. Samarasinghe to please look after his pupils, particularly the youngest of them. He said he was happy to die, having built a free ayurvedic dispensary for everyone irrespective of race or caste. Until his end he taught me the salutary lesson of selflessness.

"I learnt at school, the ideals of simplicity, responsibility and concern for others. The Methodist Missionary school is very firm about instilling these values .I still recall and cherish Miss Dixon the principal, who in one of her prize day speeches said we are sending from Newstead girls who find happiness in simple things, dependable girls who put their conscience into their work and girls who can take responsibility. This is something that has stayed with me.

"My husband Dr. S.L. de Silva always told me whatever we buy for the house must be functional. We must not buy to keep up with the Joneses. He also wanted to build a house in a rural setting so that we could live a quiet life with no pretences.

"He also asked me not to wear ostentatious jewellery for he felt it was in bad taste. These are the influences he had on me."

At the University Mrs. Silva sat for English honours and while there inculcated a measure of independence.

Today our first woman Chancellor lives in her beautiful house with a large garden and says humbly it was all because of the influences in her early life which set her values.

---

Madhur Jaffrey Recollects

‘I could settle down and live here’

By Madhur Jaffrey
Published: September 22 2006

I am sitting at a long, generous table set this evening to accommodate 14 of Colombo’s movers and shakers. “Koluu”, our host, is a caterer, restaurateur and a high priest of Sri Lankan food, one of those rare geniuses who have a perfect pitch for both design and the culinary graces.
He has already plied us with drinks, served on his cool front verandah, accompanied by what Sri Lankans charmingly call “short eats”, in this case mouth-wateringly scrumptious, crisp fish balls (malu cutliss) and pork curry (ooroomas curry) placed on wedges of a coconut- flavoured flatbread (roti).

For the second act of this meal, we are led into a pillared dining pavilion that is partly open to the elements to catch the evening air. We have a superb fish mulligatawny soup. This is only a start. Parallel to the dining table is another even longer refectory-type table groaning under the weight of the main rice-and-curry course.

The version of this Sri Lankan staple cooked by Koluu (whose real name is Hemalallindre Ranawake) consists of 25 dishes at least, most ensconced in traditional terracotta pots. There are rices (yellow rice, coconut rice) noodles (string hoppers), curries (coconut, jackfruit, cashew, onion and tomato, beef, tripe, mutton ball, fish, prawn), vegetables (okra, wing beans, green beans, eggplant), sambals (coconut, dried fish, onion), pickles and of course the salad-like mallungs. The last, unique to Sri Lanka, generally consist of vitamin-rich greens, chopped, quickly wilted over low heat and seasoned.

Sri Lanka, a teardrop-shaped tropical island that hangs like an off-centre pendant just below the coastline of south-eastern India, has a cuisine that nods its acknowledgement to the two South Indian states closest to it, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, but then veers off in a direction gloriously its own.

One part of the pendant’s chain – in culinary and geographic terms – connects it with India, where many of its inhabitants and its main religion, Buddhism, came from some millennia ago. The other, when you look at its fruit and seasonings, gives evidence of its primeval links to Malaysia and Indonesia. And then there are the influences of its early Arab traders, and its succession of colonial masters anxious for a piece of the spice trade, the Portuguese, Dutch and finally the British.

On this, my first visit to Sri Lanka, I land in Colombo in the dead of night and then am whisked off to the south-western port city of Galle (pronounced ‘Gaul’) by car, set to arrive there in time for breakfast.

As the sky lightens, I can see that we are driving down a busy, narrow road that snakes southwards, hugging the west coast. Uniformed children with dark, coconut-oiled hair walk to school in giggling groups. Some play cricket on empty beaches. Bananas and papayas fruit in tropical abundance. I can see thousands of proud coconut palms that withstood the tsunami still leaning generously towards the sea as if they bear it no grudges.

Galle is a large sprawling city but its prettiest part, where I am to stay, is a small, colonial township, set within a thick-walled fortress on a south-facing promontory. Once Sri Lanka’s main port where Solomon is said to have traded in jewels, peacocks and spices, this area, known as the Galle Fort, was occupied by the Portuguese in the late 16th century, the Dutch in the 17th and early 18th centuries, and then by the British, who held it from 1796 until independence in 1948.

Somehow, the whole township – now a Unesco world heritage site – stayed mostly the way the Dutch had built it, with verandah-fronted homes, in ochre and lime wash, standing neatly side by side along narrow streets laid out in a grid formation.

The Galle Fort Hotel, in the heart of the township and once a crumbling Dutch villa, has like many homes here been completely renovated. The present owners, armed with unfailing good taste and culinary skills, came from Australia and despite tribulations, including the tsunami that swept through the Fort, have opened what must be one of South Asia’s most exquisite yet casual boutique hotels.

My room, I should say my suite, has a four-poster bed with mosquito netting. The sheets, the pillows, the light throw are all luxurious. I could just settle down and live here.

Breakfast, offered on the inside verandah, which looks out on the welcoming inner garden with its cool pool and frangipani trees, offers tropical fruit, home-made granola, local yoghurt and honey for the western traveller on a regimen. For the more adventurous, there are appa or hoppers, cup-shaped pancakes of South Indian ancestry with crisp edges and spongy bottoms, served with spicy sambals.

After breakfast, I hasten to the kitchen where the chef is to prepare a traditional rice and curry tiffin for the evening. I want to catalogue the uniqueness of Sri Lankan curries: a tuna fish curry, malu ambulthiyal, is soured with goraka, the skin from a fruit of the mangosteen family that is dried over home hearths giving it a slightly smoky aroma. A chicken curry, kukulmas curry, may be flavoured with the three fresh culinary aromatics of this land, curry leaves, pandanaus or screw-pine leaves (rampe) and lemon grass. These are to be served with rice, of course, and a salad-like sambal of fried slivers of okra tossed with sliced shallots, tomatoes, chillies, lime juice and pounded Maldive fish. The last, mandaka sambal, verges on perfection.

I become obsessed with dried Maldive fish as they flavour so much of the food here. Bonito, a small tuna that dries almost as hard as wood, is used all along the arc that stretches from Japan to Sri Lanka. Here it is cut into batons, blanched in salted water and then squeezed dry with a cloth, after which it is rubbed with coconut wood ash and dried in the sun to make the beloved, kindling-like strips known as umbalakada.

I am equally curious about the cinnamon. A valuable item of trade since antiquity, it flavours almost every Sri Lankan curry. As we set out towards the hill town of Kandy, my driver assures me that he has a friend running a cinnamon plantation along the way. I learn that harvesting starts when cinnamon trees are barely six months old and generally ends at two years when the trees are cut off at the ground. By then, of course, new shoots have already started up another life cycle.

Up a hill, in the shade of a small cottage, a white-haired woman sits on a mat holding a long cinnamon trunk about half an inch in diameter. She scrapes off the outer brown-grey skin to expose a smooth, pale-yellow bark with greenish patches. This is cinnamon. She will rub the trunk with a brass tube to loosen the bark and then cut a slit along the entire length. The bark will then be eased off.

Sometimes a cinnamon stick, all curled up and damp, is over three feet long. For top quality, the sticks need to dry indoors, away from the harsh sun, for at least a week.

After a long drive I finally arrive in Kandy, the hill town on a lake, and am taken to Kandy House, a 200-year-old manor house belonging to local aristocracy but now converted into a new, stunningly designed, gleaming boutique hotel. As soon as I enter, I am offered the juice of a mandarin orange in a martini glass. I feel ready to settle in. The lawn at the back, graced by palms and ginger shrubs and manicured to the last blade of grass, slopes towards a luxurious pool.

Meals, served on the back verandah and prepared by a French chef who shops daily for local ingredients, might include exquisite ravioli stuffed with jackfruit seeds and kangkung (water spinach), Thai grilled chicken with lime rice and okra, and a guava upside-down cake.

I am back in the car and heading to the Horathopola Estate, once a British coconut plantation, now owned by a Sri Lankan family. The food, prepared over a wood fire by a family cook, is earthy and real, with freshly prepared red rice noodles, idi appa, served with kirihodi, a sublime coconut sauce, a curry of green jackfruit, cuttle fish curry and a stunning chutney-like sambal made with curry leaves, curra pincha sambal.

Colombo is not that far away and we make for the Hilton Hotel. Conveniently located, it is the proud owner of Curry Leaf, a superb restaurant offering a wide range of Sri Lankan specialities. You may watch the pancakes, or hoppers, being prepared in small, deep woks, munch on fried whitebait with your drink, walk to the buffet pavilion and pick up coconut rice and a Jaffna (Tamil-style) crab curry cooked with murunga leaves to balance its “heating” properties. Then go and watch the doughnut-like sweet keung, made of coconut honey, coconut milk and rice flour, being fried by experts.

The Gallery Café on Paradise Road is another worthy destination. Designed by Sri Lanka’s pre-eminent architect, the late Geoffrey Bawa, as his city office, it was given to designer Shanth Fernando on the condition that he always display art. It entrances visitors as soon as they enter with an open pavilion graced by a sleek water tank. Today it houses one of the city’s hottest restaurants as well as a small shop with exquisite Sri Lankan crafts (where I buy dozens of rice-stalk table mats). You can dine on beef smore, the spicy, coconut-sauced pot roast, or on the more eclectic mullet served with a green papaya salad, or the Dutch burgher dish of deep-fried aubergine batons dressed with vinegar and coconut palm sugar.

For another popular dining spot, totally washed away by the tsunami but now restored, there is the very casual fish shack Beach Wadiya. Here you may kick off your sandals and bury your feet in the sand.

I decide to have only a first course as I am to dine at Koluu’s home later. I sip my whisky, munch on the most delicious fried sardines (dipped in salt and lime juice first) and let the Indian Ocean breeze blow through my hair.

CHICKEN CURRY (KUKULMAS CURRY)
Ingredients

4lb/1.8kg chicken parts, skinned and cut into smaller serving pieces (legs into 2 pieces and breast into 2 pieces)
Salt
3 tablespoons whole coriander seeds
1½ tablespoons whole cumin seeds
2 teaspoons whole fennel seeds
½ teaspoon whole fenugreek seeds
5 tablespoons olive or corn oil
½lb shallots (or red onions), peeled and cut into fine slivers
2 tablespoons peeled and very finely chopped fresh ginger
1½ tablespoons peeled and finely chopped garlic
2 tablespoons bright red paprika
¼-¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
1 pound/450g tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1-3 fresh, hot green chillies, cut into fine rings
12 pods whole cardamom, lightly crushed
1 2in stick cinnamon
2 sticks fresh lemon grass (use the bottom 6in/15cm only and lightly crush the bulbous bottoms)
A handful of fresh curry leaves
4-5 pieces of rampe (called bai toey or paandaan leaves in south-east Asian groceries and often available frozen), about 4in/10cm long

Method
Wash the chicken and pat it dry. Spread the pieces out in a single layer and sprinkle 2½ teaspoons of salt on both sides. Refrigerate overnight ideally, or as long as you can. Put the coriander, cumin, fennel and fenugreek seeds in the container of a clean coffee grinder or other spice grinder and grind as finely as possible. Set aside. Put the oil in a large, wide pan and set over medium-high heat. When hot, put in the shallots. Stir and fry until they are medium-brown. Turn heat to medium. Put in the ginger and garlic. Stir for a minute. Add the paprika, cayenne, turmeric and the spices from the spice grinder. Stir once and put in the chicken, tomatoes and 1¼ English pints/750ml water. Now add the chillies, cardamom, cinnamon, lemon grass, curry leaves and rampe. Stir and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes, turning the pieces over now and then. Taste for salt. You may need to add another ½ teaspoon. Stir gently and simmer another 10 minutes or until tender.

SEE-FOOD TOUR

■ Madhur Jaffrey’s most recent books are a memoir of her childhood, ‘Climbing the Mango Tree’ and ‘Madhur Jaffrey’s Ultimate Curry Bible’, a compendium of recipes collected from the Indian diaspora. Madhur Jaffrey travelled as a guest of Cazenove+Loyd, tel: +44 (0)20 7384 2332, www.cazloyd.com.

Prices for the eight-night trip to southern and central Sri Lanka, staying at the Galle Fort Hotel, Illuketia, Kandy House and Horatha Pola Estate, start from £1,412 per person. This includes accommodation and breakfast, direct flights to Colombo with Sri Lankan Airways from London Heathrow. Regional add-ons are from £115 return.

Those Rugby Greats from SPC

A Tribute and a stroll down Memory Lane
By S Sivendran - 2006

RUGBY
With the curtains coming down on Club Rugby and the Schools Rugby Tournament occupying center stage, it is time to take a stroll down memory lane and recount the past Rugby Players of Schools and Clubs who have contributed immensely to this sport.

The first name that comes to my mind is

DARREL WIMALARATNE,
The unassuming ruggerite who captained St. Peter’s College, CH & FC, and represented the Low Country in the Capper Cup, and also Sri Lanka. Darrel also played for Colombo Schools and Combined Schools as a fly half. Having left school, first played for Havelocks SC and then joined CH & FC and went on t become the third Ceylonese Rugby Captain after Lorensz Pereira and Brian Baptist. CH & FC was, previously, an exclusively expatriate club catering to the English. When Darrel captained CH & FC he had some great rugby caps, viz:

LORENSZ PEREIRA
KUMAR BASTIANPILLAI
BRIAN BAPTIST
LAKSHMAN DE CHICKERA
MAURICE MARINNON (an Australian)
JIZWI NIXZAR
JOHN BURROWS
DAVE HUNTINGTON
MICHAEL HAWKE

Darrel also represented the Low Country captained by HADJIE OMAR, who was another Peterite and CR & FC Player who later captained Ceylon for several years and had players such as:-

Dr. TONY DE SILVA
SARI DE SILVA
BUMPY JAYASEKERA
OMAR SHERIFF
GEOFF RATNAM

The Up Country team was captained by ROHAN ABEYSUNDERA, a tall and hefty forward from St. Peter’s College who also went on to represent the Country.

Darrel was also selected to play for Ceylon against England.

Hadjie Omar captained a National Side which included,
JEYER RODRIGUEZ
ROHAN ABEYSUNDERA
ROYDEN DE SILVA
DARREL WIMALARATNE
DIDACUS DE ALMEIDA

All from St. Peter’s College.

DARREL’s CRICKET CAREER
Darrel was also an outstanding cricket player who played for St. Peter’s College as an opening batsman and opening bowler and went on to captain his alma mater and had in his team such greats as:-

RONNIE GUNARATNE
RODNEY PATTERNOTT
AUBREY PATTERNOTT
C NIRMALENDRAN
EVERARD HOFFMAN
STEPhEN DE NIESE
MERVYN FERNANDO

to name a few.

He also played for the Sri Lanka Schools Team under the captaincy of Anura Tennekoon. Having left school he joined Colombo Colts Cricket Club and later the Colombo Cricket Club and played with distinction. He is also a qualified Level 2 Cricket Coach, accredited to the Australian Cricket Board, and has functioned as head coach of St. Peter’s College who won the Schools Limited Over Championship. He also coached the Tamil Union and the Sinhalese Sports Club, later on.

Darrel, a naturally talented sportsman was a dashing fly half and a center three quarter who began his rugby career at St. Peter’s College, Bambalapitiya and represented his alma mater from 1963, and captained his school in 1965, playing in te pivotal position of fly half. He had, in his young side some brilliant rugby players, such as:

ROYDEN DE SILVA
A towering second row forward who went on to captain Havelocks Sports Club and also represented the country at Rugby and Basketball.

AUBREY PATTERNOTT
Another giant of a second row forward who later turned up for Havelocks, Dimbulla, CH & FC and the Ceylon Barbarians, is now living in Australia.

RONNIE GUNARATNE
A hard running center three quarter, who later played for UVA and CR & FC and presently the Vice President of the CR & FC. He is also a top cricket administrator with Sri Lanka Cricket.

HAMZIE HAMID
A public schools sprint champion who played as a flying winger, and went on to captain the Combined School’s Team, and later played for the CR & FC and Ceylon. He is now a successful businessman in Canada.

M JAINUDEEN
Was selected to play as Scrum Half for Colombo Schools.

DURAND BECKMEYER
Another fast winger now living in Canada.

RODNEY PATTERNOTT
A well built center three quarter, who later played for Havelocks Sprots Club, CR & FC, and the Presidents XV against foreign teams. He coached St. Thomas’ College Mount Lavinia and was an ‘A’ Division referee. He now lives in Australia.

RAJAN RAJENDRAN
A fast breaking wing forward and a hard tackler who continued his rugby at CR & FC and Kandy SC.

D WAKISHTA
Another crash tackling wing forward who later played for the University and CR & FC.

Dr. PARAMSOTHY
A well built wing forward who later played for the University, CR & FC, and Air Force, now practicing Medicine in Canada.

MICHAEL DE NIESE
A sturdy prop forward who later migrated to Australia and became a Professor but passed away at an early age.

CHRIS RAZEL
Another strong Prop Forward.

CHELLIAH NIRMALENDRAN
A dusky Hooker who is now in England.

JAMES ALAGARATNAM
An exciting No. 8 now living in Canada.

MERVYN FERNANDO
A lock forward now in the USA.

EVERARD HOFFMAN
A solid full back with a safe pair of hands who represented Colombo Schools and Havelocks SC. Now settled in Australia.

DENNIS KILLERLY
Another center three quarter now living down under in Australia.

HAROLD JANSZ
Another young Wing Forward.This champion team coached by the legendary Archibald Perera and was hailed by all as the best St. Peter’s College Rugby Team since WW II.

BURGHERS, BREUDHERS AND BOLO FIADO

WILLIAM WOUTERSZ

I have Pages 43, 44, 45 & 46 extracted from a souvenir or magazine of probably the DBU. But there is no indication of from where these have been extracted. These 4 Pages comprise two articles – one by Wilhelm Woutersz and the other by Mrs. Christobelle Oorloff who was a Past Principal of Lindsay Girls School, Colombo (wife of the late Mr. Cedric Oorloff CCS, Past Principal Wesley College, Colombo and Trinity College Kandy). Mrs Oorloff indicates in her article, a copy of which I will give to Fazli when I meet him so that he can post it in the genealogy website he hosts, her age as 91. She passed away in 2004 just after her 97th birthday. Hence, both articles would have been published around 1998. I am reproducing the Woutersz article which I believe may be of interest to many.

Mr. Wilhelm Woutersz was a career Foreign Service official in Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry having served as Ambassador in Italy and as Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the tail end of his career. He crossed the great divide sometime ago.

BURGHERS, BREUDHERS AND BOLO FIADO ---- MAKING A LAST DUTCH STAND!!

The DBU, the spiritual home to the last bastion of the “beleagured” Burgher community, soldiers on in a last Dutch stand. But the weaponry for survival is culinary, not military, a legacy of the old Dutch East India Company, the VOC - Breudhers and their lesser floury satellites of Fuggetti, Koekjes and Poffertjes. In this formidable arsenal the Breudher stood supreme.

“When good Burghers make Brueudhers the raisins don’t sink to the bottom”, my maiden aunt observed with some asperity. It was a recipe that defied description and you looked for it in vain in any cookery book. A good Breudher must rise and the secret of the “resurrected” Breudher was not a matter of virtue but the virtuosity of the Burgher Grand Dames who got off their rocking chairs each Christmas, rolled up their raglan sleeves and got down to their seasonal trade of “making Breudhers”. They did not bake or steam them. They simply made them, pure miracles with dough and yeast, a perennial part of the Sri Lankan X’mas Board, enduring and endearing.

This lasting legacy is a Burgher birthright invested with its own innocent snobbery in a genealogical culinary line stretching from Altendorff to Zieglaar with stops along the way to accommodate the lineage of Bartholomeusz, Holdenbottle, Keegal, Vander Straaten and perhaps a Woutersz or two - the line is unending.

The respectful company of breudher maker grows smaller, passing away or “passed” to Australia or surviving to rejoice in a Christmas Cantata at the DRC. But the passage from Mount Lavinia to Melbourne and Bambalapitiya to Brisbane is half-hearted and temporary. The heart lies closer home in the corner of a not so foreign field that is forever Sri Lanka with its magnetic pull at Christmastime and here the home spun philosophy abides - by their breudhers ye shall know!

article submitted by
Branu Rahim
brahim@eureka.lk
Colombo, Sri Lanka
February 2007

Email response to the above article on Lankan Friends Forum on Googlegroups by Elisabeth Leembruggen-Kallberg on Feb 26 2007:-

Thanks, Branu, Caryll, for sharing the article and the comments about my cousin, Wilhelm. He was wonderful, warm, witty and all those other lovely compliments you showered on him...a bit of cheeky rascal as well ;-)

He was several years my senior; I still see him in my mind's eye puffing away on his pipe, telling a joke or two, charming those around him. You would have loved his wife, Des, as well. There was something quintessential 'Sri Lankan' about both of them. Yes, they were Burghers, but they were more than that--I think he/she embodied the essence of Lankans, our warmth, our hospitality. I know I'm biased.

We spent far too many years apart, but his last posting to Italy meant my favourite 'coz' was closer than he'd been geographically in a long time. He is still sorely missed. And this article--which I had lost in my travels, Branu so thanks--is so 'Wilhelm'.

I can only second Branu's suggestion, Faz. (And maybe you see that this sort of story telling runs in the family ;-)

Thanks again and best regards,

Beth Leembruggen-Kallberg
(aka Liz)
-- Dr. Elisabeth Leembruggen-KallbergDocent,
ATHVrije Universiteit
Amsterdam
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri Feb 23, 2007

Hi Everyone,

My name is Branu Rahim. Although a Malay (and Muslim) my friends have
christened me a "Burgher Muslim" because of my unorthodox lifestyle.

Pls find as an attachment an article which I believe would be of interest to

Machang Fazli --- Why don't you post this on the genealogy website?

Cheers!!

Branu Rahim
brahim@eureka.lk
Colombo
Sri Lanka
----------

From the Ceylon Daily News, June 22nd 1937

A Sinhalese writes of

OUR GOOD FRIENDS, the BURGHERS

We cannot think of Ceylon without them

By T. Max Perera

I have a great predilection towards Burghers. Not only because I have many bosom cronies in that community, but because I have spent some of the happiest years of my boyhood in their homes.

The finest lady that I ever knew was a Burgher. The most select gentleman of my acquaintance is a Burgher; and if some unfortunate Sinhalese girl fails to discover me, I could still discover both intelligence and beauty in a Burgher girl and - marry her.

This is merely a personal outburst, because a fair face seldom fails to floor me. But the Burghers are not only fair of face � in truth, along with an attractive complexion they have, in addition, such a broad sense of fair play and fair dealing that they are the easiest to get on with in the world.

We have been brothers and sisters in blood for we have tasted more things than salt together, and I never set eyes on a Burgher but I take an instant liking to him or her.

THEY GIVE ZEST

They are a Western graft upon an Eastern tree, but so well have they acclimatized and endeared themselves to the native soil that we cannot think of a Ceylon without Burghers.

Wellawatte would be a dull strip of sand; Bambalapitiya a barren wilderness of wind; Colpetty and Dehiwala gloomy haunts of melancholy, if there were no Burgher girls to scatter radiance on the way.

With their good looks and musical voices they give a definite zest to social life, dancing with hips of rhythm and crooning melodies that are filled with moonlit dreams. The sparkle of life is in their eyes and the tremor of love is on their lips.

They have captured all the romance in the world and shut it all to themselves, that no Matchmakers can enter into their lives with deceitful talk of daughters and of dowries; and so they believe in marrying for love and believe also in all the sacrifices involved in the one great adventure of Love.

EYES SO FRANK

They wear their hearts on their sleeves and in the frank lustre of their eyes one can read their very souls. Faithful as friends and forgiving as enemies, they are always too good-natured to be obstinately malicious and too easy-going to bear any rancour.

They are the descendants of all those Portuguese who came along with Lorenzo d'Almeida or of the Dutch who arrived with Joris Van Spilbergen. The former held the land for 134 years and the Hollanders for over 156, and although their governments have disappeared, the two nations remain with us as - Burghers.

INTELLECTS

Theirs have been some of the greatest intellects of the land. The past has given us Dornhorst and Lorenz; the present has Blaze and Schneider.

The only Ceylonese Bishop in the island was a Burgher. Maartensz and Wille are men of the age we live in; and in the field of sport as in the realm of music, Kelaart, Foenander, Arndt and Zilwa are names of high repute, while the Van Langenbergs are men of wide renown.

Remains also with them the blessed light of Christianity that they brought into the Island; the Roman-Dutch Law ; the forts that they built and the canals they constructed. Those forts may crumble and the canals run dry but Portuguese or Dutch we have always in our midst our tried friends the Burghers.

"The Government officers", explains the well-known Dutch Burgher historian of Ceylon, "were known as Company's Servants and the non-officials as Burghers or Viyburgers (free Burghers)". From these Burghers were appointed officers for the Burgery, an armed force composed of Tupasses, (people of mixed Portuguese descent). When the rule of the Company ceased in 1796 there could be no Company's Servants any longer and all the Dutch people in Ceylon became Burghers.

They are the sponsors of western art and fashion in our midst. They are a vivacious Occidental group in a sedate Eastern land. Cocktails and Fox Trots will not join the Dodo as long as there are Burghers in the country. Besides, is not music the greatest passion of their lives and beauty their common heritage ? Great Race, this, the Burghers.

HAPPY BONDS

Politics do not flutter them; they like the men of the land and the men of the land are fond of them and these happy bonds of love are often drawn closer together with a ring of beaten gold and a vow before the Altar.

They are certainly not an effeminate people: The heroic spirit of Constantine de Sa and the martial spirit of Azevedo still linger in the hearts of their descendants, so, in every branch and walk of life have proved themselves to be an honour to their country and community.

Whether in the learned professions or in the Government service or lower down in the humbler crafts which the poorer ones follow for the sake of their living, they have singularly distinguished themselves by their honesty and integrity, just as wherever they go they must have, in their own characteristic manner and according to their lot in life, their feasts and musical festivals.

They fill a very big place in the social life of the country and if we Sinhalese have not quarreled with them and have found them to be the pleasantest of friends, it is mainly because of their savoir faire and good breeding and of the winning ways of their men as of the smiling charm of their ladies.
------------

Daily News Features Page, Thursday July 19 2007

Is it extinction of the Sri Lanka Burgher community?
A commentary on the Burgher birthrate:

J. B. Muller

Burgher Population: The Burgher Community in Sri Lanka faces extinction. In less than another 50 years the Burghers of Sri Lanka would be found only on the Internet and perhaps in a few books and in the archives of newspapers. Surprised? Shocked to learn that you are on the endangered species list? You may well be.

The net birthrate of the Burghers is abysmally low on the one hand and both the net emigration rate and death, on the other hand, is working against Burgher numbers. Whilst the population of Sri Lanka has been growing since the first census in 1871, the numbers of the Burghers has always been below 50,000 souls.

Burgher numbers have not been growing with the rest of the population. Further, Burgher girls have been constantly marrying outside the Community and their offspring have been quietly assimilated into other, non-Burgher ethnic communities. Burgher boys, too, have been marrying outside the Community and the process of assimilation (and eventual extinction) goes on apace.
The leadership of the Burgher Community must take concrete steps to encourage Burghers to marry members of their own community in increasing numbers to ensure that their numbers do not dwindle to the point of extinction!

Indeed, economic factors impinge heavily on this suggestion; however, there is a way out through focused and concentrated education and training to enhance the economic status of the Burghers. It is quite apparent that the Burgher population is ageing rapidly and that few younger Burghers are to be seen in any significant numbers at any gathering.

Economic uplift and development mean that economic status would improve raising living standards to the level that Burghers could afford to have larger families. In my own family, there was a member of the Ceylon Civil Service who had 24 children out of two marriages, 16 + 8. My father was the eldest son out of 15 children. This is not to say that Burghers go for such large families but that they should have at least five children to replace the ageing and those who die every year.

Burgher leaders have also come to an impasse over which to count as part of the Burgher population — a question necessitated by the increasingly porous nature of Sri Lankan society and the Community’s generally high rates of intermarriage.

Are those counted as Burghers only those whose male parent is a Burgher of original European ancestry or whose female parent was of original European ancestry also? For example, should an individual raised in a cultural milieu that is non-Burgher be considered a Burgher if he or she had one Burgher parent?

What if one born with one Burgher parent and raised in a non-Burgher cultural milieu asserts identification with the Burgher Community? What about the increasingly common situation of a non-Burgher not married to but living in the same household with a Burgher man or woman?
What about the children and the grandchildren of intermarried Burghers? If they were not raised as Burghers, should they nevertheless be considered part of the Burgher Community?
If there is any debate within the Burgher Community over absolute numbers, there is far wider agreement on the patterns of behaviour within the Burgher population. Two trends are particularly telling. First, in terms of median age, Burghers are older than other Sri Lankans. Second, even by the most cautious figures, at least half of all marriages involving a Burgher are to non-Burghers. Neither trend suggests demographic vitality.

There is considerable evidence pointing to the relatively advanced age of the Sri Lanka Burgher population. Among Sri Lankans of all kinds Burghers have the fewest number of siblings, the smallest household size, and the lowest number of children under eighteen at home.
Burghers marry later than other Sri Lankans with the greatest disparities occurring in the age group between twenty-five and thirty-four. For Burgher women in particular, late marriage means lower rates of fertility compared with other Sri Lankan women.

The fertility gap is especially enormous among Burgher under the age of thirty-five; even though the gap narrows considerably over the course of the next ten years, at no point do Burgher women attain the fertility levels of their non-Burgher peers or bear children in numbers sufficient to offset population losses from natural causes.

It is true that low fertility rates among Burgher women are not a new phenomenon. Economic advancement, the availability of birth control, and rising educational achievement caused Burgher fertility to start dropping as long ago as the middle of the 20th Century.
Nor, as is well known, is the phenomenon limited to Burghers, or to Sri Lanka. In the U.S.; in contemporary Europe and Japan, it has reached proportions that threaten catastrophe to those nations.

Still, Burgher women in Sri Lanka are significantly less fertile than their other Sri Lankan counterparts. This fact is attested to by the significantly better rates of educational achievement among Burgher women, who spend significantly more time than their non-Burgher peers in learning employable skills. For many of them, still more childless years follow as they work to advance their careers.

Add to all this the losses sustained through the high rate of intermarriage. Once upon a time, it was thought by at least some sociologists that intermarriage could prove to be a demographic boon. In the aggregate, said the optimists, it would take fewer intermarried Burghers producing children identifying themselves as Burghers to result in a net gain. But nothing of the sort has happened.

Not only does the birth rate among intermarried Burghers tend to be even lower than among those who marry within the Community. Nearly all of the children raised within intermarried families go on to marry non-Burghers themselves, and only a small percentage of these raise their own children as Burghers.

As for their links with Burgher life, only a minority of children raised by dual-religion parents identify themselves with Christianity or with the institutions of the Burgher Community.
In two generations, the process of assimilation would be complete, erasing the unique ethnic, social and cultural character of the Burghers. Although a number of adult children of intermarriage do express “somewhat” of a connection with the Burgher component of their identity, such feelings are rarely translated into behavior.

Like their parents, most tend not to affiliate with a church, contribute to Burgher causes, or participate in a Burgher event nearly as much as do the adult children of those who have married within the Community.

Advocating larger families would certainly beg the question of how to support a larger family when Burghers are (like everyone else) battling with an ever rising cost-of-living? The answer to that lies in better training for better-paid employment and in being competitive in the sense of doing better things with the resources we already possess.

As mentioned earlier, the key to increasing Burgher numbers is first, education and training. Every support should be given to Burghers to have larger families. The other part lies in the hands of the leaders who should motivate the Burghers to do what needs be done and to pursue education and training with single-minded purpose.