Appreciations

My friend JPO passed away at the age of 92. James was my dear friend from the age of five. We joined prep school together, rode the first bicycles, fitted with solid tyres and no brakes. To stop you had to peddle backwards. At Royal College, James was an athlete, a talented tennis player, and a rifle shot. He won the Herman Loos Rifle Cup in 1933. James was annoyed when reference was sometimes made to his parents, when asked to stand on the form with the words "Arise Sir James".

James left school in 1933. Of our 60 class mates, only James and Clive De Mel managed to get admission to Cambridge and Oxford. When James arrived at his College in Cambridge, he saw a bearded pot-bellied man whom he thought was the hall porter. He asked him to help him carry his luggage to his room. James was horrified the next day, when he met his tutor. He was the same pot-bellied man he had met the previous day and true to British tradition he said nothing.

At Cambridge, James organized sports car racing for the undergraduates, and converted an abandoned air field into a race track. He qualified as a pilot at the University Flying Club. When war broke out, the Royal Air Force invited him to join as a pilot, but he declined and served as an observer of enemy planes in the Air Force.

When the war was over he sold his collection of sports cars and purchased a single engine airplane to fly back to Ceylon. His father was worried he would crash and wrote to James "Be careful when you fly over the Alps”.

His epic flight route was, however, down south through Arabia and India. I was delighted to receive him at home the day after he landed in Ceylon, and recounted our old days together. James flew his plane over Colombo. When he repeatedly flew over Ladies College, his girl friend, pointed up to the aeroplane, and told her class mates, "That's my boy".

In Ceylon he was a keen supporter of motor sports. He built his own Cooper Special racing car at home. James installed the first Intensive Care Unit within the operating theatre complex in this country. Of our 60 schoolmates, only five are still around today. We used to meet every year the day before the Royal Thomian match. Sadly, our dear friend James has left us. May his soul rest in peace.

A life decorated with flying colours