Mike Boyd-Moss and the Passing of an Era

 

@ History of Ceylon Tea

 

The following obituary appeared in a Sri Lankan newspaper some years ago and it brought back many memories.

BOYD MOSS M.R.P. MIKE Late Manager of Telbedde Estate, Badulla. Husband of Shelagh, father of Nicolla and Robin, father-in-law of Giovanni and Debs, grandfather of Paola Jemma James Chiri and Georgina, brother of Tony and John, passed away in Nairobi 16th October. Funeral 21st October P.O Box 14483, Nairobi, Kenya 00800. Service of Remembrance in Sri Lanka Saturday 24th October 6 p.m. Church of the Good Shepherd Jawatte Road, Thimbirigasyaya, Colombo 5.

After graduating from teachers college, my first job as an English teacher in 1972 was at Kandegolla Maha Vidyalaya, an overnight train journey from Colombo, in the remote hill country. The school was a 2 km. uphill trudge from the nearest bus stop. The villagers were subsistence farmers. Due to poverty, many students came to school on empty stomachs. I was young and didn't mind the hardship.

The area was dominated by Telbedde Estate, managed by Mike Boyd-Moss. He was, indisputably, the local monarch, but a benevolent "suddha" that people respected and were in awe of. I met him only once, when I organized the school's first ever sports meet and sought his help for the cross-country race, which would be run partly through Telbedde Estate. I needed his permission as well as a support vehicle to follow the runners and pick up stragglers. Lacking even a bicycle, I walked all the way to his office to meet him, enjoying the early morning walk through the greenery, inhaling the aroma of pine and eucalyptus along the way. To reach his office, I remember climbing a steep flight of steps. He gracefully agreed, and, during the race, a van from the estate followed the runners.

I invited him to be one of the chief guests at the sports meet, but he declined, perhaps because the other chief guest was the local MP, a prominent member of the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government, which was in the process of nationalizing plantations. But he donated a trophy to be awarded to the winner of the cross- country race.

Mike, and other British planters like him, were clearly on their way out of Sri Lanka. The Prime Minister Mrs. Bandaranaike, who led a left-wing coalition government, had misguidedly nationalized tea plantations, and the era of large plantations owned by companies such as Brooke Bonds and Liptons were coming to an end. British planters were leaving Sri Lanka, mostly for East Africa where their expertise was welcome. More about that later.

I previously published a version of this article on my blogsite. An anonymous commentator, who had worked with Mike Boyd-Moss as a divisional superintendent on the Westmoreland and Kendegolla Divisions of Telbedde Estate, wrote the following as a comment: “I consider myself most fortunate to have worked for a gentleman of the highest order and above all an Agriculturist of top quality. Over this period of time (1965-1976), 350 acres of VP tea was opened up. Telbedde in 1975 was one of the highest yielding estates in Uva, close to 2000 pounds per acre. The happiest days of my life were spent at Telbedde working with Mike as my manager.”

The planters worked hard, played hard, and partied hard, too. Life on the estates was lonely, with children away at schools in Britain. They mostly played rough and tumble rugby and their clubs such as Uva, Dickoya, and Dimbula that seem to be only a faint memory now. Many of these planters had been in Sri Lanka for generations. (My own great-great grandfather, great grandfather, grandfather, and father were also tea or coconut planters.) According to a short piece in The Island newspaper, Mike's brother John had been a planter at Downside Estate near Welimada. Another brother Tony was a planter at Luckyland Estate in Uda Pussellwa. Their parents and are probably buried in Bandarawela.

According to the article in The Island, Mike’s management on Telbedde had been legendary. Apart from his expertise in planting, he had sound engineering and management skills, too. He had been equally fluent in Sinhala and Tamil and apparently spoke Sinhala without an accent. The newspaper called him an "elite band of Britisher" who loved Sri Lanka and contributed much to our economy and way of life with their enlightened management of the vast estates that were their domain.

The obituary gives his last address as Nairobi, where he probably resided after his retirement from planting in Rwanda. With the expertise gained in Sri Lanka, these planters gave a fillip to East African teas, which sometimes outperformed Sri Lankan teas in the world market. In place of British planters, Mrs. Bandaranaike's government appointed its stooges, including gramasevakas, bus drivers and bus conductors to manage these plantations. I saw firsthand the consequences of the devastation caused by these appointees. When I visited my friend Brian Howie at Kataboola Estate in Nawalapitiya, he showed me where the previous "assistant manager" had done the cooking. It was in the living room, on a makeshift village hearth, with three large stones for support with firewood underneath. The previous occupant obviously didn't know how to use kitchen appliances. The whole bungalow was covered in soot. The furniture, carpets, and everything that could be moved had been carried off.

Mike’s son Robin, born in Ceylon, is a Cambridge Blue in cricket and later played county cricket in England.

The British planters had their clubs and their churches. Driving through the hill country even today, we come across tiny churches nestling in the hills, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Now, the congregations probably consist of Christian Tamil staff of the surrounding tea estates.

Indeed, the passing of Mike Boyd-Moss was the passing of an era.