Life in Badulla on the wings of World War II
View(s):Happiest schooldays, secondhand clothes, night mail train rides to Colombo and playing ‘murder’ in the basement of her father’s
official residence—memories of halcyon days spent upcountry
It was 1942; the excitement of the aborted Japanese attack in April was just over. Ceylon had dipped her fingers in the tides of war, but remained unscathed. There was an upheaval in my little world too. My father, Dr. Hilary Goonewardene, had just been appointed Visiting Physician, General Hospital, Badulla.
More than 50 years later the writer visits what was once her childhood ‘palace’
I was nine years old, how would I react to being transplanted from an elite Colombo school to a ‘rural’ –albeit, missionary one?
Badulla was a thriving ‘town-ship’, propped up commercially by the British planters, living in their little kingdoms on the hill-sides surrounding the town in the valley. There was no socialising between the Ceylonese public servant and their British neighbours.
My father, when called upon to visit a sick planter, was not a welcome guest, and had to enter through the servants’ entrance.
My mother propped up the ‘war effort’ by knitting helmets and socks for ’their boys’ at the front. She was famous for her milk wine, which formed the basis of a small business venture, Her bottles of milk wine and ginger wine were snapped up, [I think, at Rs.3.50 a bottle], the money was donated for the war effort. One of her best customers was the then Governor, Sir Andrew Caldecott.
We lived in a mansion owned by a respected politician. To me, it was nothing short of a palace. The floor was intricately tiled in beautiful designs, there were two living rooms. One contained a Chesterfield suite; on the walls were prints of old masters, contained in gilt frames. The other room contained furniture from the Dutch period, formidable ebony chairs, intricately carved, bristling with mythical creatures and bunches of grapes.
Below was a basement, stacked with old furniture; enveloped in gloom, and rumours of past murders, and moaning ghosts.
It was only the other day I ran into an old friend from the Badulla days, who immediately started reminiscing…’remember, how we used to play ‘murder’, in the basement of your home’?
And school?….my happiest years were spent in Badulla Girls High School. The pupils cut across a wide strata of society. There were the children of public servants; daughters of Tamil Kanganies and tea-makers, who propped up the tea industry, a few girls from remote rural areas; a clutch of Eurasian beauties, some from aristocratic Kandyan families with names like Dimbulanes, and Dambawinnas. Cheerful Muslim maidens whose fathers were businessmen. Girls from Burgher families, securely rooted in Badulla, such as the Blazes. We all got along famously, and the strong ties of friendship forged in the ’40s still persist.
It was wartime, a time of deprivation and rationing, but this barely registered with me. My sparse wardrobe was bolstered by secondhand clothes sold by the planters, who also widened the scope of our library with secondhand hand books: where were they off to, I wonder? Surely not back home to a war-ravaged country!
The social scene was embellished by a number of interesting characters. A few still remain etched in my memory. There was the popular eye surgeon, father of the U.K. minister appointed to the European Union- Dev-Aditiya. When inebriated, he would entertain us with an amusing rendition of “The Boozing Family”.
Winston Serasinghe, Superintendent of Prisons, held us spell-bound with an electrifying performance as “Merchant of Venice”.
Then there was the visiting Burgher G.P. from Bandarawela, his manicured fingernails indicated where his sexual preference lay; His piece de resistance was “there was a spider who swallowed a fly………” hugely entertaining, reaching epic proportions.
I looked forward to the holidays, with its initial excitement of travelling by ‘night-mail’. Bunk beds, with spotless crisp white sheets, tins of juicy Oxford sausages to feast upon. The train arrived at the Fort station around nine or ten in the morning. Our destination was my grandmother’s house. I am ashamed to confess that what I most looked forward to was her fabulous garden. A veritable garden of Eden planted many decades earlier by my late grandfather–dominated by the majestic Verallu and Sapadilla trees, which towered over the others.
There was the unique rosella cherry tree [I have never seen one anywhere else]. Its orange globules of sculpted fruit hung like pendants, a magnet for the birds. Most of my waking hours were spent on the climbable trees, of which there were plenty. I would have my fill of jumboos and custard apples. The other attraction was an old fashioned pigeon- cote, tenanted by cooing pigeons.
Alas, the memorable train rides, suburban holidays, the halcyon days spent in that happy valley, had inevitably to come to an end.
When I was twelve, my father was transferred back again to Colombo.
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