Dudley Senanayake at the White House

 Dudley Senanayake at the White House

I was surprised to see this old photograph recently. Much has been made, quite rightly, of President Jayawardena’s state visit to the USA when Ronald Regan was President. The lavish banquet, the speeches, Frank Sinatra singing “My Way”. But Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake’s visit when Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) was President has remained a mystery. So, I did some “research” on the Internet and found a load of information, and that also led to some personal reflections on my part.

One was the most powerful man in the world. The other, a three-time prime minister of a small country. Despite the power imbalance, the photograph shows that this was a friendly meeting, almost a one-to-one chat, although aides and secret service personnel would have been close at hand. Despite their marked differences – the scope of their power, family backgrounds, temperament, path to political leadership, legacy – they did share two characteristics in common: both were firm believers in democracy, and both were fluent speakers of English.

But what was Mr. Senanayake doing in the USA? He was on a private visit. Having suffered from a chronic stomach illness for many years, he was seeking treatment at the Walter Reed Hospital, where a Dr. Lattimore could treat him. Previously, during an election campaign in Ceylon, Dr. Lattimore had been a “quiet” member of Mr. Senanayake’s entourage, treating him almost daily. The doctors at Walter Reed concluded that the illness was not cancer, but a congenital condition aggravated by stress and anxiety.

The date of the meeting may have been 17 March 1966. One topic discussed was a request for enhanced aid to Ceylon. To Mr. Senanayake’s disappointment, the request was turned down. Ceylon’s nationalization of American oil companies (under the previous Prime Minister Mrs. Bandaranaike) still rankled.

Mr. Senanayake stopped over in London on the way back to Ceylon and was scheduled to meet the Queen for an audience, followed by lunch. But he was taken ill again, and botched treatment apparently by a Ceylonese physician caused him to blackout.  When the news spread, The Times newspaper of London had begun to draft his obituary!

Family Backgrounds and Path to Political Leadership

Dudley Senanayake came from an aristocratic lineage of landowners. The Senanayake’s were also active in the movement to gain independence from Britain. Dudley Senanayake attended the elite S. Thomas’ College in Ceylon, went onto Cambridge University in Britain and qualified as a barrister. His father, D.S. Senanayake, was a leading politician and had become Minister of Agriculture in Ceylon’s State Council.  Upon his return to Ceylon, Dudley Senanayake entered politics at his father’s urging, winning the Dedigama seat in the State Council in 1936. He won this seat continuously till 1970, seven elections in all.

Dudley Senanayake succeeded his father as the Minister of Agriculture in the State Council. In 1947, the elder Senanayake became the first Prime Minister of independent Ceylon. When he died unexpectedly in 1953, the son was appointed Prime Minister.

In stark contrast, LBJ was born in the rugged Hill country of Texas to a hard scrabble family. His father lost the family ranch, and humiliation and insecurity supposedly affected LBJ throughout his life. As a young man of 18, he worked on a road gang, using a pick and shovel, and driving a piece of heavy machinery pulled by two mules. It was backbreaking labor.

LBJ attended a local high school and, at his parents’ urging, entered Southwest Texas State Teachers College, qualifying as a high school teacher. His introduction to politics occurred in 1931 as an aide to a congressman from Texas. He entered the US House of Representatives in 1937 and served till 1949. He won a controversial victory to the Senate in 1948, being accused of voter fraud and ballot stuffing. He served till 1960, when he was elected vice-president under John F Kennedy. Upon Kennedy’s untimely death in 1963, LBJ was sworn in as President.

Thanks to a meticulously detailed four volume biography of LBJ by Robert Caro, which I have read in excerpts, LBJ’s life has been meticulously documented.   

Temperament

Dudley Senanayake has been described as kind and empathetic, simple and unassuming, intellectual and cultured, and a compassionate leader. What comes across is that he was not suited for the hurly burly of politics and was perhaps a reluctant politician. He was a cricketer, golfer, pipe smoker, and photographer, yet very much at ease with rural folk. He remained a lifelong bachelor.

LBJ’s cruel streak and lust for power stand in sharp contrast to Mr. Senanayake’s personality.  A reviewer of the third volume of Caro’s described LBJ as “corrupt, cruel, callous, crude, a vicious user of women, a bully of men and a shameless thief of elections”.

Especially as he rose in politics, LBJ is said to have charmed, bullied, and cajoled fellow politicians. As Senate majority leader, he was well known for “The Treatment” - his aggressive, personal style of persuasion, used to bend politicians to his will. Fully using his 6’4” height and booming voice, LBJ would “move in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. … The Treatment was an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless”. I have seen a few photos of LBJ rendering The Treatment, and it is remarkable how amiable he appears at the White House meeting with Mr. Senanayake.

Legacy

Dudley Senanayake is “respected for his simplicity, democratic toleration, and democratic toleration.” He continued his father’s legacy in agriculture. I recall his tenure as Prime Minster from 1965-70 as a peaceful and quietly prosperous period, when the minority ethnic and religious communities were treated well. Mr. Senanayake was hounded by leftist trade unions, but he served out his five-year term.

As far as I am aware, two schools, a Central College in the electorate he represented, and another school in Colombo, are named after Dudley Senanayake. Lasting memorials well deserved.

As President, LBJ more than redeemed himself with his domestic policies - the war on poverty, creation of Medicare and Medicaid, federally insured student loans, and enlightened immigration policies. Perhaps his crowning achievements were the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, which he forced through Congress amidst much opposition. But the disastrous Vietnam War was his undoing, and he withdrew from the Presidential race in 1968.

I saw Dudley Senanayake twice. In 1964, a bye election was conducted for the Nikaweretiya seat, and he, out of power by then, came to campaign for the United National Party (UNP) candidate. My father was managing a coconut estate in the area, and we stood by the road watching Mr. Senanayake being escorted to a meeting, dressed casually and walking behind supporters shouting “Jayawewa”. He seemed amused. My father doffed his hat and Mr. Senanayake acknowledged with a smile and a small wave.

The second time was at Badulla, in 1973. I was teaching there, and Mr. Senanayake addressed a political meeting. He was again out of power by then. He spoke in the pouring rain to the massive crowd that had turned up.  Mr. Senanayake passed away in Colombo a few days later from a heart attack.

As for LBJ, I was enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin in the late 1980s, and although he had passed away in 1973, LBJ was still a huge presence in Texas. His Presidential Library and Museum are located on the university campus, and I recall seeing a replica of his Oval Office and the Presidential limousine he used displayed at the museum. I have visited LBJ’s birthplace, home, ranch, and grave, which are in a National Historical Park not far from Austin. Colorful and outrageous stories about LBJ were rife, both in print and as word of mouth. His wife, Lady Bird Johnson, was still alive at that time.

Basil Fonseka

 

Basil Fonseka was my godfather.

My grandfather was the manager of Mawatte Estate, a large coconut plantation, in the 1930s and early 40s. One of the main products of the estate was copra, which had to be sent to Colombo for export. For this purpose, the estate owned two barges, which traveled along the Hamilton Canal, which flowed not far from the estate. 

The "captain" in charge of these barges, known in Sinhala as "thandale", was a Fonseka. Basil was his son and thus became good friends with the Braine children. He was in and out of "The Meet", their home at nearby Boralessa.

This is what my father "Teddy" Braine wrote:

"The British navy called for applicants to open a Fleet Air Arm Unit to work in co-ordination with the Royal Navy. I thought this was a good opportunity to achieve my ambition of flying and having obtained Daddy’s permission went along with a few classmates for an interview at Maharagama. Only Basil Fonseka was selected as he was over 20 years in age. ... The camp buildings at Maharagama were subsequently used as the teachers training college."

That's why Basil Fonseka is wearing a uniform, that of the Fleet Air Arm.

Basil uncle, as we called him, was in and out of our home. Later, he joined the Public Works Department (PWD) as an overseer, a lucrative job, got married, and fathered a number of children. Towards the end of his life, he faced financial difficulties.

The photo was given to my sister, who lives in Negombo, by Basil uncle's niece, who is my age.

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.

From Moonshine to Whiskey and Beer

From Moonshine to Whiskey and Beer

I moved to Boralessa, my ancestral village, in 1977. Many villagers – who made a living as masons, carpenters, workers in tile factories and brick kilns – supplemented their income by brewing pot arrack. The main ingredient, coconut toddy, was readily available and so was the demand.  Pot arrack was a cottage industry: the males did the brewing and the women sold it from home.

Some of my immediate neighbors were brewers, the small time mudalali across the road being the main supplier for the area. In the evenings, a steady clientele of regulars could be seen going into his house. As the evening drew on, drunks, mainly middle aged men, would be staggering down the road, some singing bawdy songs and others picking quarrels with anyone around, using the foulest language.

Cleary, the making and selling of pot arrack was illegal. So, why didn’t the police crackdown? The MP for the area, who also happened to be a cabinet minister, had requested the police to go easy on the pot arrack dealers. Those who indulged in the business were not well off and it provided an essential supplementary income to “feed their families”, never mind the damage done to the consumers’ health and family harmony. Anyhow, not to be put off, the police also went around to the dealers every month collecting their cut!

Distribution

When the supply exceeded local demand, the brewers found a ready market in nearby Negombo and further afield in Colombo and the suburbs. Transport was through two modes, train and car. In those days, I was teaching at Kelaniya University and took the “office train” to work. Boralessa has a tiny railway station, manned by an agent (not a station master), with no security whatsoever. Men with four-gallon plastic containers filled with pot arrack would be hiding in the bushes around the station, and, as the train was pulling off, make a mad dash and scramble on to the train. The containers would be quickly hidden in the toilets or under seats. Although this was a daily spectacle witnessed by hundreds of passengers, not once did I see a raid by railway security, the police, or excise officers.

Transport by car was more spectacular. The chosen model was the sleek Austin Cambridge A50, vintage 1950s, perhaps the fastest and most maneuverable car in those days of tight import restrictions. Cars loaded with pot arrack would set off for Colombo, both day and night. The natural boundary between the north western province, where Boralessa is located, and the western province, where Colombo is, happens to be the Ma Oya river, crossed by the legendary Kochchikade bridge. 

Once the cars carrying pot arrack crossed the bridge, they were under a new jurisdiction and at the mercy of the police. Avoiding the main road on which a number of police stations were located, the drivers took circuitous back roads, but the police did their best to stop the cars. So it was a cat and mouse game - roadblocks, checkpoints, ambushes, gunfire, and high speed chases, the stuff of thriller movies. One of these drivers, I’ll call him Primus, recently told me of being fired on when he sped past the police. He is still alive to tell the tale, about 90 now.

Dankotuwa, a nearby town that was surrounded by large coconut plantations (providing coconut toddy, the essential ingredient for pot arrack), also supplied the brew to the Colombo area. The best of the liquor, on par or even better than the legitimate variety, whether from Boralessa or Dankotuwa, was known as “Dankotuwa Special”. Many local musicians in those days were heavy drinkers, and a top musician told me not long ago that whenever he managed to get a bottle of the coveted “Dankotuwa Special”, he would get together with another well-known musician to enjoy the treat.

From pot arrack to kasippu

In the 1980s, due to various reasons, the supply of coconut toddy declined, but the demand for illicit liquor prevailed. Ever creative, villagers found a new way to continue with production. Instead of toddy, they began to use sugar dissolved in water, with generous doses of added yeast, to produce alcohol. This was kasippu.

The 1980s were a turning point for Boralessa because large number of villagers began to travel to Italy, both illegally and legally, in search of work. Because the “Italians” had brought more prosperity to the villagers, the local MP, took a hands-off approach to the illicit trade; the police were given a free rein and could arrest and prosecute illegal brewers.

In the manufacture of kasippu, the fermentation process would take place in large, rusty barrels over a few days, and the barrels had to be hidden from the police. The village had enough hiding places – coconut groves, a weed-choked irrigation tank, long abandoned paddy fields, culverts, thickly wooded area - for the purpose. The bottom of my property has a pond surrounded by overgrown shrubs, and one day I found two barrels there. After I spoke with the prime suspect, the barrels disappeared.

Not all barrels were properly sealed, so passing lizards, rats, snakes and other creepy crawlies would fall in. To improve the “kick”, ammonia fertilizer, rusty barbed wire, and anything handy was added. Kasippu, unlike pot arrack, is very much a poison brew.

A grocery store not far from my house probably sold tons of sugar every week. This could be estimated from the lorry loads of sugar that were unloaded there. It also showed how much illicit liquor was brewed in the village.

The Italian sojourn brought prosperity and some villagers developed a taste for whiskey. The dealer across the road, who had given up his illicit trade because he now had two sons in Italy, once boasted to me that he now drank only “whishkey”.

Effects on the Lifestyle

A large number of villagers, both young and the elderly, consumed kasippu. I now realize that many, who worked as masons and carpenters, were alcoholics and this caused problems well beyond the immediate households.

Sundays were reserved for heavy drinking, which meant that, being severely hungover, nobody turned up for work on Mondays. A head carpenter I knew, who built roofs (backbreaking work under a blazing sun), who had a small team of assistants, dreaded Tuesdays because getting his men to turn-up for work took all morning. First, Anthony would call them, and they dutifully promised to turn-up at the worksite. But, often, they didn’t. Then, Anthony would have to go around to their homes in a hired tuk, pleading and coaxing the men to join him. This was repeated weekly and the Anthony was fed up, till the pandemic hit and put an end to house construction. 

Kasippu also affected family harmony because the men were habitually drunk, broke, and in poor health, leaving the womenfolk to keep the home fires burning. Domestic abuse was common. I know of broken homes where the women had fled, unable to bear their misery.

Beer

About ten years ago, a liquor store opened in Boralessa. Hard liquor was too expensive for most locals but beer sales exceeded expectations. The consumers were mainly young men, who had not developed a taste for the hard stuff. Perhaps, they had also seen the scourge that kasippu caused, even within their families, and spurned the stuff. Most evenings, they would converge on the beer shop and hang out for hours, even sitting on the railway tracks.

Boralessa had come a long way from the days of pot arrack. People still drank, some copiusly, but I no longer see anyone staggering down the quiet Kiragara Road that runs along my property, singing bawdy songs. Most of the heavy drinkers have passed away, and the younger generations, bolstered by cash infusions from abroad, have become “respectable”. But I do miss the old Boralessa, where moonshine was king and daredevil drivers played cat and mouse games with the police.

 Adventures in Academia 2: Asleep at The Oral Defense

About a week after I returned to Hong Kong upon delivering a keynote address at a joint China-US conference in Beijing, a new doctoral student from Mainland China walked into my office. When I asked Ming if he had attended the Beijing conference, which incidentally had been held at his university, he said no. Puzzled - who would avoid an international conference that came to one’s doorstep - I asked why. He mumbled an excuse, and I left it at that.

At the English department, doctoral students are paid a stipend. In return, they are affiliated to a professor each semester, and required to do a teaching assistantship (TA) as well as a research assistantship (RA). This involved attending and assisting with course lectures, teaching two small tutorial sections, and helping with the professor’s research. During his first semester, Ming was assigned to me.

Once, I asked him to photocopy 30 handouts to be distributed to students at the next lecture. Ming turned up, but without the handouts. When asked, he mumbled something incomprehensible, avoiding eye contact. When this happened twice more, I stopped asking him to do any more tasks. I also received complaints from students about his sloppy handling of the two tutorial sections. So, at the end of the semester, I asked the departmental secretary not to assign Ming to me again.

With other professors, too, Ming’s behavior did not change. After a few semesters, none wanted him. Hence, while his doctoral classmates performed their TA and RA duties, while conducting their own research and writing their theses, Ming had a free ride. To this day, I am not sure if he was incompetent, plain lazy, or an ace con artist who had found an easy way out.

A doctoral student needs four professors on his/her dissertation committee: the thesis supervisor, two committee members, and an external examiner. One day, Ming waked into my office and invited me to be a member on his committee. I inquired about his research topic, and on hearing that it related to memory mapping in vocabulary acquisition, a topic about which I knew nothing, I politely turned him down.

Before long, James, his thesis supervisor, came to me, and, as a favor to him, asked if I would oblige. Apparently, Ming’s past sins were catching up on him: no one wanted to be on his committee. After some cajoling, I agreed, telling James that I would not read the entire thesis. He said “OK”; all he needed were four warm bodies at the oral defense. (At the English department, only the committee members are allowed to attend an oral defense.)

About two weeks before the scheduled date for the defense, Ming handed me a tome, his thesis, more than 400 pages of dry, pedantic writing. I was bored reading just the first chapter. But, I would be expected to ask at least one question at the defense. So, after reading the first and last chapters, I formulated a question that would give the impression that I had carefully read the entire thesis!

The oral defense was scheduled for an afternoon, just after the lunch hour. We met at a conference room. The external examiner, Rupert, was from a smaller, liberal arts university in Hong Kong. Besides me, another professor, Janet, served as a committee member.

James, the thesis supervisor, suffered from sleep apnea, and his night sleep being often interrupted, tended to fall asleep at meetings. I, too, was missing my afternoon nap.

Ming began his defense with an oral presentation, droning on in his mumbling voice. True to form, James, who sat nearest to Ming at the long conference table, was soon fast asleep, with his head resting on an outstretched arm. I was sleepy, too, but, with a superhuman effort, managed to stay awake.

When Ming’s presentation ended, James woke up, and asked a few questions. The committee members were next in line, and I made the fatal mistake of telling Janet that she could go ahead with her questions. I was startled when she asked almost the exact question that I had come prepared with, leaving me high and dry. While Ming mumbled his answer, I quickly glanced through the thesis and came up with a new question. The day was saved. Rupert, the external examiner, who had come well prepared, wound up the defense with his questions.

But, there was more to come. At that time, the ranking of universities was a hot topic in Hong Kong. Being a small liberal arts institution, with little emphasis on research, Rupert’s university was ranked last in some polls. This stung, and Rupert came to his university’s defense by writing a letter to the local newspaper, criticizing the rankings. But, what matters here is how he concluded the letter: “This year I acted as external examiner of a PhD at, according to the poll, one of the most prestigious universities in Hong Kong. One internal member of the examinations board fell asleep during the student’s presentation and another, to judge from his question, apparently had not read the thesis …”

Guilty as charged!

Italian Exodus and its Consequences

 Italian Exodus and its Consequences

My village, Boralessa, is only 40 km from Colombo. Starting with my paternal grandmother, our family has resided at Boralessa for well over a century. My modest ancestral property, “Pondside,” was previously owned by my grandmother, an uncle, and an aunt. It has been mine for nearly fifty years. Most probably, I’ll be the last Braine to live there.

About 95% Sinhala Catholic, the villagers used to be masons, carpenters, sawyers, and workers in tile factories and brick kilns. Over the years, as the population grew, the large coconut plantations that surrounded the village were divided and sub-divided for distribution among landless villagers. Gradually, these plots have been reduced to only 10 perches.

The “Italians”

About forty years ago, looking for work, villagers began to travel to Italy, first illegally (on jam-packed, rickety fishing trawlers, and later with forged passports), then by legal means through family connections. Almost every household now has a parent, a child, or a relative living and working in Italy. Most work as carers for the elderly, shop assistants, farmhands, and in logistics. Many have gained citizenship there. Routinely, they would visit Boralessa for events like the annual church feast. They stood out for their flashy clothes and lavish spending and were referred to as Ithali karayo, or Italians.

As they accumulated wealth, these expats needed to show off to the villagers tangible evidence of their good fortune. So, they began to build houses, not just ordinary homes, but extravagant multistoried structures with gabled roofs, parapet walls, and massive gates. The construction would stretch over several years. First, a plot of land was bought. On the next visit, a parapet wall was built, along with the massive, elaborate gate, referred to as an “Italian gate”, that signified the owner’s affiliation to Italy. Building the foundation was the next step, followed by the walls and the roof. I have observed the entire construction taking seven years or more.

Usually, the elderly parents of the owners would reside in the backroom of the house. Cash, and gift boxes containing chocolates, pasta and other Italian items, would be sent regularly to these people. They may have missed their children but were well taken care of. The annual visits of the relatives from Italy was a time to celebrate and enjoyed by all.

Pandemic and Bankruptcy

Even before the pandemic arrived, this smooth arrangement ceased to function at some houses. The elderly parents or relatives who had been caretakers began to die off, mainly of old age. The pandemic, which caused travel restrictions, only exacerbated the problem. Boralessa’s population being depleted due to so many villagers being abroad, there simply was no one to take care and maintain these houses. That’s when I began to notice a marked shift in their appearance.

The front yards became overgrown with weeds and the once pristine outer walls began to show streaks of black mold, sure signs of a neglected house. The gate may be firmly padlocked but the iron frames showed signs of rust. Roof tiles, also moldy, showed damage from falling coconuts or coconut fronds. No lights came on at night.

Annual visits by “Italians” became irregular or stopped altogether. Travel, with broods of children or grandchildren, had become expensive. Instead of building and maintaining houses in Boralessa, they began to purchase property in Italy. A neighbor, after more than 30 years in Italy, bought a house in Italy only last year.

I live in Kiragara Road, which begins at Boralessa junction and runs through the village for a few kilometers. Within a 200-meter radius of my house are four abandoned structures, as seen in the photographs below. If I walk down the road for about a kilometer, I can count at least ten more abandoned houses.

The first house below was built about six years ago. Two storied, built along sleek modern lines sans multiple gables, the house was visited by the owner’s family only once. Behind the iron and concrete fence, the front yard is covered in weeds.

The second photo is what could be termed a shophouse, with accommodation for the owner on the upper floor. Built for a tailoring business about five years ago, it attracted a good clientele for about two years before the pandemic hit. When business declined, the seamstress who ran it returned to Italy, perhaps permanently.

Another multistoried house, enclosed by a tall fence, is better maintained because the owner’s relatives live nearby. He has not returned in more than five years, and, though built at great cost, the house has never been occupied.

Finally, one of the neighborhood boutiques (sillara kade), which had operated for as long as I have been in the village, closed when the family went abroad. It is very unlikely that it will open again.

Consequences

The pandemic and the bankruptcy that came on its heels hit Boralessa hard. The “Italians” stopped visiting and less money began to circulate in the village. Building construction stopped, throwing masons and carpenters out of work. Rata yanda (go abroad) was the response.

Italy was the prime target because relatives and friends there could help one to find work and settle down, even if one had entered illegally. Romania began recruiting workers in Sri Lanka, and, apparently, the route from Romania to Italy could be easily traversed. Amazingly, tiny Malta (120 sq. miles; 550,000 population) also became a draw because the route to Italy was only a ferry ride. So many Sri Lankans were applying for visas to Malta that an honorary consulate was opened in Colombo.

Let me cite two instances of neighbors emigrating recently. One, to escape her abusive husband, went to Romania as a seamstress, although she had never stitched anything in her life. She took her grown daughter with her. Within three months, she had entered Italy, illegally.

Sriyani, my caretake at “Pondside,” whose husband died of covid three years ago, has a 23-year-old son. I found him work at a nearby electronics factory, but the Rs. 35,000/ monthly salary did not attract him. The young man had also been bitten with the rata yanawa fever, and, after a year of trying, he managed to obtain a visa to Malta, paying a Sri Lankan there Euro 5000 and wiping out the family’s savings. He left for Malta three weeks ago, and his mother had to remit another Euro 500 after he landed. She is heavily in debt now. Lakshman’s job is to assemble pantry cupboards at salary of Euro 1000 per month, minus rent, health insurance, travel, and other miscellaneous expenses. He has not started work yet due to ill health.

The consequences of this exodus on the village have been drastic. Working age men, and to some extent women, are in short supply. Skilled craftsmen – electricians, plumbers, welders, mechanics – are impossible to find. A pall of gloom seems to hang over the village. While at Pondside, I love to watch the world go by, sitting on my verandah with a direct view of Kiragara Road. Once busy – with schoolchildren and office workers (on their way to the railway station) in the morning, housewives walking or riding to the market later on, idle young men roaring by on their motorbikes, the tuk tuks, occasional car or lorry – the road traffic has diminished greatly. Instead of three chuun paan men, only one plied Kiragara Road now. Most customers were gone.

Boralessa has changed, and it may be a microcosm of what is happening to other villages and towns in Sri Lanka.

The life and death of a recluse

 

Que Sera Sera

My memories go back 60+ years, when, as a 7-year old, I lived with my parents and two siblings in a provincial town. My sister had just been born. My father was unemployed and we relied on my mother’s meager salary to see us through. To make ends meet, mother even stitched all our clothes.

My school was more than a mile from home, and I trudged to school and back, crossing a railway line and walking along a busy road. Most students rode bicycles, and hundreds would be cycling along the road each morning. I passed the houses of three classmates on my way to school. One, who lived barely 500-yards from school, was driven there every day in a Hillman. I don’t remember ever being offered a ride.

We lived in a small rented house. Tiny veranda, sitting room, two bedrooms, and a small kitchen. No electricity or running water. An outhouse for a toilet, and water drawn from a well shared with a number of other houses.

My father tried to make some money by breeding German Shepherds and raising turkeys to be sold at Christmas time. But, a rabid dog bit the mother dog, so she and her puppies had to be destroyed. Unable to shoot his own dog, my father requested a policeman to do the job.  Adding to his woes, all the turkeys were stolen one night. Those were hard times.

Our landlady, Mrs. Ferdinando, lived nearby, and she had a teenage daughter. Every afternoon, they would listen to “Housewives’ Choice”, a request program on Radio Ceylon. On Sundays, it was “Sunday Choice”. Because their radio was turned-on at a high volume, we enjoyed Hank Locklin, Dean Martin, Jim Reeves, Hank Snow, Eddie Arnold, Harry Belafonte and other popular singers from home. Doris Day’s Que sera was the hottest single, and we heard it a number of times every day.

Roy and I also spent a lot of time in the large, lovely house in front of ours, where the Kuruppu family - parents, a son and a daughter, resided.

We were poor and they were well off. They had electricity, even a fridge! Mrs. Kuruppu was a kind person, and her children, Dilip and Malki, were welcoming to Roy and me. Dilip was a year older to me, and Malki two years younger. Dilip was considered very intelligent, literally a walking encyclopedia, and spent most of his time with books. He brooded, seemed shy, and perhaps had poor social skills. His parents had bought him many toys to distract him from books, and my favorite was a beautiful Hornby train set, “Made in England”, the Rolls Royce of toy trains. It had a green wind-up engine, wagons, stations, signals, bridges, and lengthy, winding tracks.

Especially during the month-long school holidays in April, August, and December, Roy and I spent hours at the Kuruppu home. We played mostly with Dilip’s toys, especially the train set, while he watched. We also chased butterflies in the lovely, spacious garden, breaking off the golden pupae and collecting them in jam jars.

Malki’s personality was the opposite of Dilip’s. She was cheerful and mischievous. Being closer to Roy in age, they played together often. She was proud of her school work, and showed me the gold stars on her report card. Today, my granddaughter Nelum reminds me of the Malki I knew.

Mrs. Kuruppu played the piano, and also taught music and elocution. So, their house was filled with music all the time. She liked us, and we often enjoyed the delicious cakes she baked and the wonderful desserts she made. I am sure we often had meals at their place.

About two years later, we moved to another house closer to the school that brother Roy and I attended, and to my mother’s place of work. A few years later, Dilip also joined the school, but he was very much the shy loner, and we never spoke again. Years later, I came to know that Dilip had become a lawyer. When I drove past their former home, I saw that it had become the office of a finance company. I did wonder what had happened to the Kuruppu family but did not follow up.

Malki – 60 years later

The year was 2017. Upon her return to Sri Lanka from the States, my sister Beaula volunteered to cut hair at charitable homes. One day, after a visit to a home, she was talking about a lonely woman who did not socialize with others, and who appeared to be from a well-off family. She mentioned the woman’s name, Malki, and I knew at once that this was our old friend.

About two weeks later, Beaula and I visited the Berkshire Home, a lovely, old bungalow away from town, where Malki resides. The residents live in a cheerful, caring environment, all placed there due to being mentally or physically handicapped.

My sister had already mentioned to her that George and Roy were her brothers, and Malki recognized me at once.

We talked. Or, I asked and she answered, looking away and never meeting my eyes. She had been brought to the Home about ten years earlier, after her mother passed away. Other than an occasional visit by a cousin, she had no visits from relatives. Malki had attended prestigious girls schools. Later, she had taught music and elocution, like her mother. Her father had died more than twenty years ago, and her mother in 2006. She had not seen her brother Dilip since coming to the Home.

Although some visitors to the Home knew off the Kuruppu family, and had even studied music or elocution from Mrs. Kuruppu or Malki herself, the manager of the Home told me that no one appeared to be interested in her family, least of all about Dilip.

 

Later, I learned that Malki was on psychiatric medication. Her teeth are in bad shape, but there were no other outward signs of poor health. Malki is well liked at the Home, because, at the slightest invitation, she would sit at the battered upright piano and play favorites songs from the 60s and 70s. At my request, she played Que sera sera, but I could barely recognize the tune.

When I asked to see a photo of her family, Malki told me she had none. I was saddened because, for ten years at the Home, she didn’t even have a photo of her family to remember them and find some comfort. I thought she would be very lonely, and decided to meet Dilip and get a photo. When asked, Malki gave me his address, repeating it mechanically.

Dilip – After 60 years

Dilip still lived in the old neighborhood, at a house not far from where the Kuruppu family had resided in the 1950s. Knowing his mental background, I didn’t expect to see him living in comfort. But, not in my wildest dreams did I anticipate the neglect and squalor I encountered.

The house, almost at the end of a quiet, narrow lane, was large but run down. I stood near his padlocked gate and yelled “DILIP”. An apparition emerged, a withered, bent old man in a filthy, strung-up sarong, staring bleakly out at me through dirty spectacles. The specks of white on the bony chest, which I first assumed was paint, turned out to be spilled grains of rice. I thought it was a servant, but I barely opened my mouth again before the man said “George Braine”. It was Dilip, and he had recognized me after 60 years.

I was in shock, but managed to carry on a short conversation with him. He clearly remembered our childhood days, even the name of the dog that had to be put down (“Rani”). He knew that my brother Roy had passed away. I told him that I had seen Malki, and he quickly said that she was sent to the Home because she had a breakdown. He had never visited her. I asked him how he spent his time, and asked him if I could bring some reading material. When I mentioned The New Yorker magazine, he perked-up, talking about Harold Ross and Tina Brown, former editors of the magazine, and also James Thurber and a few other cartoonists and writers.

He did not unlock the gate for me, saying that someone had threatened him, and a burglar who had tried to break-in.

A few days later, I returned to the Berkshire Home, photographed Malki, and videoed her at the piano.

Later, I visited Dilip, armed with a pile of old New Yorker magazines and some snacks. This time, he quickly unlocked the gate for me, and I walked into a dark, damp, filthy hovel, the scattered furniture coated with grime, the entire floor and even the beds piled with garbage. One room was littered with empty 2-liter Coca Cola bottles. Another, with mounds of old books and papers piled high on the bed and the floor. The electricity had been cut off, and the roof leaked. The two toilets were horrors. Dilip’s life seemed straight out of a dark Gothic novel.

We sat and talked. His only income is Rs. 14,000/ per month, from a bank deposit. He said he had life interest ownership of the house, and that it would belong to a female cousin upon his demise. (This is the cousin who had taken Malki to Berkshire Home.) “What about Malki?” I asked, and Dilip then said she had co-ownership of the house. He talked briefly about his life as a lawyer. (I don’t think he ever argued a case, and perhaps only handled paperwork.) He talked about the time Malki became unbalanced, saying it was when she was told, wrongly, in the 1960s, that her father had passed away. He also mentioned a drunkard uncle. I got the feeling that Dilip had been swindled out of a large amount of money, apparently by a woman.

I showed him the video of Malki playing the piano, and asked him if he would like to visit her, or even move to Berkshire Home.  He emphatically declined, claiming that he was a loner and preferred his “gay, bachelor” life. I detected a high degree of resentment towards Malki. He occasionally attended church (not true, as I learned later). When I offered to bring someone to clean-up the house, he said “No, No” and claimed that he cleaned the house himself. Not true; it has not been cleaned in years. As for meals, his lunch was supplied by a neighbor, he said.

With the doors and windows firmly closed, the air was fetid, and I began to feel nauseous and wanted to leave. But Dilip was eager to chat, so I stayed a while longer.

Malki’s photos were on the wall, and Dilip allowed me to borrow them to be copied and given to Malki. He found a leaflet of a memorial service that had been conducted for Mrs. Kuruppu, and autographed it for me, recalling “fond memories of those halcyon days in 1957”. I left with a mental list of items for Dilip when I next visited.

On the way out, I met a neighbor, who had lived there for more than twenty years. They remembered the time when Mrs. Kuruppu, Dilip, and Malki lived together in the house. With Mrs. Kuruppu’s passing, the life they knew was gone. Malki was taken away to the Home, and Dilip became a recluse. The neighbor told me that some people had tried to take him away, there had been much shouting, but he had refused to be moved.

I drove straight to the Methodist Church in town (the Kuruppus were Methodists). I spoke at length with the pastor, showing him the photos of Dilip’s house, explaining his plight, and urging the church to intervene. A few days later, I drove the pastor to Dilip’s house, and asked if the church could help in cleaning up the place and help in other ways, too. The pastor turned my request down, saying that his congregation consisted mainly of elderly men and women who were unable to perform any physical labor.

I then approached two of the Lions Clubs in town, but they did not respond. I wondered if the Kuruppu family had a dark past that the townspeople were familiar with, and I wasn’t. I had been away from Sri Lanka for more than 30 years, and upon my return, resided more than ten kilometers from the town where Dilip lived.

 

 

Keeping an eye

The first step was to rid the house - of four bedrooms, two toilets, a spacious sitting room, and a kitchen - of all that accumulated filth. I brought two workers, with rakes, hoes and baskets. Wearing face masks and gloves, they worked till late afternoon, clearing the accumulated Coca Cola empties, the books and papers, the old mattress ,pillows, and bed sheets. Without electricity in the house, they worked in semi-darkness. We realized that the tiled floor was caked in filth, which had to be scraped off. We piled all that filth in the garden and made a huge bonfire.

I had brought a new mattress, sheets, pillows, and a sarong and T-shirts for Dilip. When cleaning the house, we realized that the water service came only up to a tap in the garden, and Dilip collected a trickle for toilet use. Obviously, he had not washed or bathed in years.

Unable to persuade Dilip to move, or to get the church and the Lions Clubs to help him, and his adamant refusal to leave the house, I realized all I could do was visit him with food and reading material. And, for the next two years, whenever I was in Sri Lanka, that’s what I did.

He would first wolf down all the pastries I brought, and then we would chat, seated on rickety chairs on the dilapidated veranda, the only place with some light. He was pleased with the newspapers, magazines, and books I had brought. He wanted me to order some law books, some from the UK, so that he could begin a magnum opus on the legal system in Sri Lanka. A pipe dream. I also noticed that the interior of the house, which we had cleaned only a couple of months ago, was back to its filthy state.

I left Sri Lanka in late 2019, and could not return for two years due to the covid pandemic. Dilip did not have a phone, so I could not call while I was away. When I went to Dilip’s house December 2021 and yelled his name as usual, no one came to the door. The few houses on his lane were all quiet, the people hunkered down because covid was still spreading.

Back in Sri Lanka in February this year, I again stopped by Dilip’s place, only to see that his house had been completely razed. Not a brick was standing. A neighbor, who had moved there recently, had heard that the man who lived in the house had passed away.

How did Dilip die? Was he alone? Who discovered him? After how many days? In that dark, fetid house, the nights would have been dreadful. The covid lockdowns would have worsened his isolation. But, at last, he was at peace.

An old friend, a gentle, soft spoken doctor, had died alone in the USA, and was discovered after seven days when the police broke down her door. A retired professor in Hong Kong, a former colleague, was found days after he passed away, alone in his apartment. So, Dilip’s passing resonated.

The Kuruppus had been an old, respected family for generations. A road in town is named after the family. Dilip’s father had been a civil servant, with a degree from a top British university. Dilip’s plight, and to a lesser extent that of Malki’s, two children lovingly brought up by doting parents, is indeed a tragedy.

"Que será, será
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que será, será
What will be, will be"

(Note: Names of people and places have been changed.)

GEORGE BRAINE

Ceylonese planters, too, died at Gallipoli

 

Ceylonese planters, too, died at Gallipoli

By GEORGE BRAINE

My sister and I were at the Beach Cemetery in Gallipoli, where 285 British Commonwealth troops are buried. Our Turkish guide was listing the countries from where the fallen were from, and Ceylon was not mentioned. I was wondering around, peering closely at the gravestones, when I spotted three graves of riflemen from the Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps. I shouted out that Ceylonese were also buried there, and the guide came running to check. From now on, he assured me, Ceylon would be among the countries he listed.

The Beach Cemetery

The three graves, of A. Forrest, G. Middlemiss, and H.A. Carlisle, are located next to each other. The first landing by the Corps at Anzac Cove was on April 25, 1915, so these three had succumbed within about ten days of the landing.

Fascinated by its location sraddling Europe and Asia, I was fulfilling a longstanding wish to visit Istanbul, taking my sister along. We enjoyed the sights, savored the fabulous cuisine, took a day cruise, witnessed the Whirling Dervishes, and returned again and again to the Grand Bazaar. We also met with old friends. The only excursion away from Istanbul was to Gallipoli.

I am not an Australian or a New Zealander, nor do I have an ancestor who fought at Gallipoli, but the annual ANZAC commemoration ceremonies, and the near reverential tones in which Gallipoli is referred to, made me curious. So, we took the 10-hour strenuous roundtrip by coach to Gallipoli from Istanbul.

During World War I, Turkey was an ally of the Germans, and the purpose of the Gallipoli campaign was to force Turkey out of the war. Winston Churchill, as the First Lord of Admiralty, spearheaded the effort, which eventually cost 120,000 British casualties (killed or wounded), half of them from illness due to the extremely unsanitary conditions. An untold number died in the ships that were sunk. The debacle led to Churchill’s resignation.

The Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps (CPRC) was formed in 1900, and consisted mainly of European tea and rubber planters, all volunteers. During World War I, eight officers and 221 other ranks embarked for Egypt, and were trained there. Eighty of these troops were sent to Gallipoli, the first group landing there on April 25, 1915. The troops were mainly used as the ANZAC commander’s bodyguard. In addition to the three buried at the Beach Cemetery, three more, who died on board hospital ships on the way home, are said to be buried in Colombo.

One CPRC soldier who survived was Herbert Brett, who planted at Pannala, in the NWP, on a coconut estate named Yakwila. He was a close friend of my English grandfather, who was also planted nearby. Brett, like many others in the Corps, joined the British army, was commissioned, eventually rising to the rank of major. He landed at Gallipoli on May 29. After the battalion he commanded was decimated (out of 500 soldiers, only 18 men and one officer were left), Brett surrendered to the Turks on August 6, and was mistreated as a POW. He did not return to Ceylon.

The 31 Allied cemeteries at Gallipoli are managed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and are situated in beautifully landscaped, picturesque locations. All are meticulously maintained, and some have intriguing names like Pink Farm, Twelve Tree Copse, Canterbury, Johnston’s Jolly, and Lone Pine. Of the 22,000 Allied troops buried at Gallipoli, only about 9000 have been identified.

In addition to the huge casualties suffered by the UK, the French suffered 27,000 casualties, the Australians, 28,000 (8700 dead), and the New Zealanders 7400 (2779 dead). The total Allied deaths were around 44,000.

Due to the heavy casualties they suffered, Australia and New Zealand regard the Gallipoli campaign as a baptism of fire, leading to their emergence as independent countries.

According to one estimate, despite their victory, 325,000 Ottoman (Turkish and Arab) troops died during the eleven-month campaign. Of this number, 85,000 were combat related and 240,000 were due to sickness. A staggering 1,965,000 were permanently wounded, sick, or missing.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) rose to prominence as a commander at Gallipoli, became the founding president of Turkey in 1923. Despite the massive losses his country had suffered at Gallipoli, Atatürk made a magnanimous speech in 1934, which contained the following words:

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives … you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours … You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

The Memorial at Anzac Cove, with Atatürk’s words

Irrepressible Julia Margaret Cameron, at peace in Bogawantalawa

Some years ago, my sister, BIL, and I drove to the Dimbula area, visiting Anglican churches and graveyards looking for evidence of our ancestors. At the quaint St. Mary’s church at Bogawantalawa, we found the grave my grand uncle, Frank Wyndham Becher Braine, who had died on March 9, 1879, at only 11 months. We may have been the first family members to visit his grave in more than a hundred years.

St. Mary’s, Bogawantalawa

That graveyard is also the resting place of a husband and wife, Charles Hay and Julia Margaret Cameron. Julia, during and after her lifetime, has been described as “indefatigable”, “a centripetal force”, “a bully”, “queenly”, “a one-woman empire”, “infernal”, “hot to handle”, “omnipresent”, “a tigress”. She was “impatient and restive”, for whom “a single lifetime wasn’t enough”. Who was this remarkable Victorian? Why is she buried at Bogawantalawa?

Julia was born in Calcutta, in 1815, one of seven daughters of James Pattle of the Indian Civil Service. They belonged to the Anglo-Indian upper class, and were all sent to France - their mother Adeline Marie was of the French aristocracy - for their education. The sisters were well accomplished and known for their “charm, wit, and beauty”, and “unconventional behavior and dress”: they conversed among themselves in Hindustani, even in England. They served curry. They all married well, four spouses being fellow Anglo-Indians in the civil service and military.

Julia lived at various times in England, France, back in India, South Africa, in India again, on the Isle of Wight, and finally in Ceylon. Travel to Cape Town in 1835 was for her health, after recovering from serious illnesses. Charles Hay Cameron, a distinguished legal scholar from Calcutta, was also in Cape Town, perhaps after a severe bout of malaria. They met, and married back in Calcutta in 1838. Charles was twenty years her senior. Together, they raised 11 children, five of their own and the rest adopted.

Julia’s introduction to London’s artistic and cultural milieu came in 1845, at her sister Sara Prinsep’s residence in Kensington. Sara conducted a salon at home, where poets, artists, writers and philosophers such as Tennyson, Rossetti, the Brownings, Longfellow, Trollope, Darwin, Thackeray, Henry Taylor, du Maurier and Leighton were regular attendees. Julia’s “hero worship” of these luminaries began at that time.

“Dimbola”

In 1860, the Camerons moved to the Isle of Wight, to a home named “Dimbola”, obviously after Dimbula in Ceylon, where Charles Cameron had invested in vast coffee and rubber plantations. He had served on the Colebrooke-Cameron Commission (appointed in 1833) to assess the administration of Ceylon and make recommendations for administrative, financial, economic, and judicial reform. The poet Henry Taylor, a close friend of Julia, wrote that Charles had “a passionate love for the island [and] he never ceased to yearn after the island as his place of abode”.

Incidentally, an English planter named Herbert Brett, known to my family, named his British home “Yakvilla”. He had once been the manager of Yakwila Estate, near Pannala in the NWP.

“Dimbola” had been purchased because it was next door to Tennyson’s home, and a private gate connected the two properties. Better known as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, he had become Britain’s Poet Laureate by then. Julia and the poet addressed each other by their first names. When he refused to be vaccinated against smallpox, Julia supposedly went to his home and yelled at him: “You’re a coward, Alfred, a coward!”

Soon, the Cameron and Tennyson families began entertaining well-known visitors to the Poet Laureate with music, poetry readings, and amateur plays, creating an artistic ambience similar to that seen earlier at Sara Princep’s home in Kensington. in keeping with Julia’s personality, the activities could be indefatigable. “Mrs. Cameron seemed to be omnipresent—organizing happy things, summoning one person and another, ordering all the day and long into the night, for of an evening came impromptu plays and waltzes in the wooden ballroom, and young partners dancing under the stars”, wrote Anne Thackeray, the novelist’s daughter. Even Julia’s generosity could be overwhelming. Henry Taylor expressed this best: “she keeps showering upon us her ‘barbaric pearls and gold,’—India shawls, turquoise bracelets, inlaid portfolios, ivory elephants”.

Photography

A turning point in Julia’s life came in 1863, when she was already 48. Charles was in Ceylon, and Julia was bored. A daughter gifted her a camera to keep her “amused”. A clumsy affair in those early days of photography, it consisted of two wooden boxes, bound in brass, one of which slid inside the other, with a single focus lens. The timber tripod was unwieldy. Images were recorded on a heavy, rectangular glass plate measuring 11 x 9 inches.

Julia took to photography with her usual energy and enthusiasm, converting a chicken coop to a studio. If the camera was clumsy, the process of photo development was even more complicated and challenging, with the use of chemicals – collodion, silver nitrate, potassium cyanide, gold chloride (even egg white was used) – and the need to work quickly. Julia’s hands and clothes are said to have become black and brown with the chemicals. The process was riven with trial and error.

Julia managed to coerce illustrious visitors to Tennyson’s home to pose for her. They included Longfellow, Trollope, Darwin, John Herschel, Robert Browning, the painter George Watts, Thackeray, Carlyle, and Lewis Carrol, and Tennyson, of course. Her photograph of Tennyson is shown on this page. The men were photographed in pensive moods, intended to capture their “genius”. She also photographed women for their beauty, and children as “innocent, kind, and noble”, a prevailing Victorian notion.

Posing for a portrait was no easy task: the subject had to be within eight feet of the camera, and had to remain still for around 10 minutes. Julia chose not to use head supports. Here is a vivid description of a photographic session with Julia: “The studio, I remember, was very untidy and very uncomfortable. Mrs. Cameron

Tennyson, photographed by Julia Cameron

put a crown on my head and posed me as the heroic queen. … The exposure began. A minute went over and I felt as if I must scream, another minute and the sensation was as if my eyes were coming out of my head … a fifth—but here I utterly broke down …” No wonder Tennyson called Julia’s sitters “victims”.

Showing sound business acumen, Julia copyrighted, published, exhibited and marketed her work. Harper’s Weekly, writing on a London exhibition in 1870, noted that “many art critics to go into raptures over [Julia’s] work as something beyond the range of ordinary photographic achievement”.

For the sake of brevity, I have focused on her portraits. She also photographed individuals and groups of people depicting allegories, religion, and literature; illustrations for Tennyson’s Idylls of the King being especially noteworthy.  In Ceylon, her subjects were mainly ordinary people and plantation workers. Her career wasn’t long – only 12 years – and despite criticism of her work for technical imperfections and the numerous challenges she faced, Julia produced about 900 photographs. An incredible feat.

To Ceylon

From the early 1840s, Charles had bought up sprawling extents of land at Ceylon at bargain prices, and was thought to be the biggest landowner in Ceylon. The 1850s and 60s were the best years for coffee. But, in addition to being absentee landlords, the Camerons faced other problems: extremes of weather, a shortage of labor, transporting the coffee to Colombo on poor roads, incompetent managers, and, finally, the devastating coffee blight.

Charles was in poor health - “receiving visitors in his bedroom or walking about the garden reciting Homer and Virgil” - and had not worked since 1848, and the expenses of supporting a large family and their lifestyle at “Dimbola” had forced the Camerons to borrow heavily. In 1864, Charles admitted to being virtually “penniless”.

Charles was keen to move to Ceylon, but Julia was not. Attempting to change her mind, he wrote her a moving, lyrical description of his “Swiss cottage” bungalow and the surrounding plantations in Ceylon. In Ceylon, the cost of living would be cheaper, and he was confident that his health would improve.  Later, Julia wrote that Charles’ passion for his Ceylon properties had “weakened his love for England”. Lord Overstone, their main creditor, was pressuring them to sell Rathoongodde (Rahathungoda), their plantation in the Deltota area managed by son Ewen. 

Finally, Julia gave in, partly because four of their sons were already in Ceylon. Charles’ health is said to have magically improved. In 1875, when she was 60 years old and Charles was 80, they left “Dimbola” for Ceylon, taking a maid, a cow, Julia’s photographic equipment, and two coffins, packed with china and glass. Henry Taylor noted that they had departed for Ceylon “to live and die” there, and that Charles had “never ceased to yearn after the island as his place of abode”.

Their son, Hardinge, the Governor’s private secretary, owned a bungalow on the river at Kalutara, on the western coast. Julia and Charles divided their time in Ceylon between Kalutara and their plantations in the hill country. Julia soon fell under Ceylon’s spell, writing that “the glorious beauty of the scenery — the primitive simplicity of the inhabitants & the charms of the climate all make me love Ceylon more and more”.

When the botanical painter Marianne North visited the Camerons at Kalutara, Julia went into a “fever of excitement” at having found a European subject. She dressed North up “in flowing draperies of cashmere wool” (despite the intense heat), with “spiky coconut branches running into [her] head” to be photographed. A remarkable photo taken by Julia shows North standing at her easel on the spacious verandah of the Kalutara house, with a bare-bodied “native” holding a clay pot over his shoulder.

Julia must have been busy during this period, because North noted that “the walls of the room were covered with magnificent photographs; others were tumbling about the tables, chairs, and floors”. In contrast to the distinguished personalities she photographed in England, her subjects in Ceylon were ordinary “natives” and plantation workers. But, only about 30 photographs from Julia’s Ceylon period have survived. The architect Ismeth Raheem, who has conducted extensive research on Julia, has stated that some photographs given to the Colombo Museum appear to be lost.

After a visit to England – four weeks of “turmoil, sickness, sorrows, marriages, and deaths” -  Julia developed a dangerous chill (pneumonia?) upon her return to Ceylon. She died on 26 January1879 at Glencairn Estate. Charles and four of her sons were with her. Her coffin was drawn by white bulls and also carried by plantation workers to St. Mary’s. Charles died a year later and was also buried at St. Mary’s.

Back to the Braines

My great, great grandfather, Charles Joseph Braine, arrived in Ceylon in 1862, as the manager of Ceylon Company, which I believe is the predecessor of Ceylon Tea Plantations Company that eventually owned and managed vast acres of tea as well as rubber and coconut. By 1880, he is listed as the first owner of Abbotsleigh Estate in Hatton. (In contrast with Charles Cameron and Herbert Brett, who named their homes in England after plantations in Ceylon, Charles Joseph named his plantation in Ceylon after his property, Abbotsleigh, in England.)

The Camerons arrived in Ceylon in 1875. British planters, away from home and often stationed in remote plantations, socialized mainly at two locations: their clubs, and at church. I have no doubt that Charles Joseph Braine and the Camerons had met at the club, perhaps even during Charles’ previous visits to his plantations, and at church, especially when the Camerons stayed at the nearby Glencairn Estate, managed by their son Henry.

St. Mary’s Church, Bogawantalawa, was dedicated in 1877. Although Charles Cameron wasn’t religious and did not attend church, Julia did, traveling perhaps on horseback or bullock cart like the families of fellow planters. The Camerons gifted three stained glass windows to St. Mary’s, and that is obviously where Julia worshipped and both she and Charles wished to be buried.

Charles Joseph Braine’s son, Charles Frederick (my great grandfather) arrived in Ceylon in 1869, at 19 years of age, six years before the Camerons did, and worked at Meddecombra Estate in the Dimbula area. Later, he was the manager of the vast Wanarajah Estate. He, too, may have met Charles and later Julia Cameron. Braine must have worshipped at St. Mary’s, because, as I stated at the beginning of this article, his infant son was buried at St. Mary’s churchyard in March, 1879, only two months after Julia was buried there.

My grandfather, Charles Stanley, was born in Ceylon in 1874, and, as a child, is likely have met the Camerons, or at least Julia, at church. He has an angelic appearance in an early photograph – “innocent, kind, and noble” – the type of child Julia preferred to photograph, and I like to imagine Julia tousling his hair! Hence, although no records exist, three generations of my ancestors are likely to have been acquainted with the Camerons, and perhaps worshipped alongside her at St. Mary’s.

The legacy of the Camerons

Julia Margaret Cameron is acknowledged now as one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. Her work has been exhibited in important galleries and museums in the UK, the USA, Japan, and elsewhere. The photographer Stephen White, who calls Julia a “revered figure” in the history of photography, wrote in 2020 that an album of Julia’s photographs was valued at £3 million. Each of her prints are said to be worth about $50,000.

The Cameron home on the Isle of Wight, “Dimbola”, is now owned by the Julia Margaret Cameron Trust, and consists of a popular museum and galleries. It has a growing permanent collection of Julia’s photographs, and is dedicated to her life and work.

When I visited St. Mary’s church in 2012, looking for evidence of my ancestors, the churchyard was covered in weeds. Stephen White, who visited St. Mary’s Church in 2017, lamented that the grave of “a woman whose photographs still stirred thousands with their beauty, and whose name was spoken with reverence by lovers of photography around Europe and the States” could be so “forlorn … unattended [and] unadorned”. A photograph of the grave that accompanies his article indeed shows a neglected gravesite, the curb cracked. The more recent photo shown here, from the Thuppahi’s blog, displays a better maintained grave.

Ismeth Raheem wrote that the house on Glencairn Estate where Julia died had been demolished in 2021.

While Julia is the better known of the Camerons, Charles made a lasting impact on Ceylon as a member of the Colebrooke-Cameron Commission, which, among other contributions, provided a uniform code of justice for the island. His on and off association with Ceylon was much longer, about 50 years at the time he died. A romantic at heart, he loved Ceylon with a passion.

Recently, Ismeth Raheem and Dr. Martin Pieris have brought out a short film, “From the Isle of Wight to Ceylon”, based on substantial research on Julia’s life. Finally, in Sri Lanka, Julia Margaret Cameron appears to be receiving the recognition she fully deserves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charles & Julia Cameron’s gravesite at St. Mary’s churchyard