The recurring picture of Clare in my mind’s eye is of her seated at her desk in her office in The Sunday Times building; always busy, but never too busy to greet me with a smile on my infrequent visits to her sanctum. It was during her 20 year reign at the helm of the new women’s magazine, the Lanka Woman of which she was founder editor when Wijeya Newspapers launched it in February 1984 and to which I was a contributor from that very first issue that I came to know Clare as I interacted closely with her.
Our acquaintance at Lake House in the early ’50s had been brief and fleeting. For I left soon after Clare David (as she then was) joined the Editorial Dept to look after my growing brood. I had known Nanda Senewiratne, the popular Transport Manager as who in that vast edifice didn’t? He rubbed shoulders with the small fry and the big and never let his family background (he was the great D. R. Wijewardene’s nephew), get in the way. His generosity in offering lifts to all and sundry in his posh family car, was well known and my husband and I, who then lived in far off Rajagiriya, were often among the beneficiaries. So, when we heard on the grapevine that Nanda was courting Clare, we hoped for a happy outcome. We attended their wedding at Christ Church, Galle Face, and the reception that followed.
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Clare did a great job with the women’s pages of the Ceylon Daily News and sometimes invited me to contribute articles. In due course, Clare and Nanda had a son, Viraj, who attended STC along with my nephews and he became a buddy of one of them in particular, a friendship that’s still alive and thriving today. It shouldn’t have come as any big surprise to us when, in the fullness of time, Viraj married Tishan’s sister Dhakshina in 1984. The same auspicious year that Clare took charge of the “Lanka Woman”.
The new women’s magazine, the only one of its kind in English, took women and men by storm. Clare was a revelation to us of what an editor should be – far seeing, innovative, bold, and with a gift for making women feel they had a stake in this paper, that it was THEIRS! She invited readers’ letters and comments and they were also welcome to share their own newsworthy experience by writing articles to LW. She had her team of handpicked writers from the start – Maureen Seneviratne, Daphne Cadiramen, Dr. Pam Wright, Beryl Gunasekera, Delrine Munzeer, Therese Motha. When she introduced my Counselling Page (originally called ‘Problem Page’) she took the bold step of permitting me to answer problems of a sexual nature, provided they weren’t too intimate.
This was a huge success, for it met a felt need. But I do remember that one irate father wrote in to say that he was cancelling his subscription forthwith, as he didn’t want his daughter to read such stuff. Clare staunchly stood by me. She took an interest in what each of us wrote and she would every now and then make suggestions or nudge us in some direction and her instincts for topics that she thought would hold a wide appeal, was always right. She gave me free rein and I wrote much else for the LW besides the counselling page, but I always valued and heeded Clare’s suggestions.
Clare herself made a huge impact on the readers, both male and female, with her forthright editorials on all manner of topics, from the political to the sartorial, and on manners and more. “She’s fearless when it comes to calling spade a spade,” one of her numerous, unknown fans admiringly said in my hearing once, as he came up to shake her hand at some event. She had strong opinions and was honest in holding fast on to her beliefs. Her life was firmly grounded on her Christian faith. Yet, Nanda’s death when it came, was a blow from which she never recovered, it seemed to me. Some spark went out with him and she missed him deeply to the end, while finding comfort and joy in her devoted son and daughter-in-law.
Her unforeseen bout with cancer was bravely faced and although she lost that fight, from the few times I spoke with her, I got the impression that she was ready and willing to go. Clare was a loving wife and mother and a loyal friend. As an editor, she was unsurpassed. The countless numbers who for 20 years, avidly read the Lanka Woman, she created in her own inimitable, incomparable fashion- as well as the few of us who wrote for her- will never forget her. On behalf of us all, I feel honoured to salute her memory today.
Anne Abayasekara |
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