Memories of a friendship gives life to children’s book
It is only human to want to honour the memory of a loved one, friend or family member. Instead of the usual memorial service, almsgiving and donations to charitable organisations, Angela Gnaniah chose to remember her close friend Cheryl Ramanayake by writing a children’s book, Cuddly and Poppy’s Tea Party, in her memory.
Angela Gnaniah: A book for Cheryl. Pic by Indika Handuwala
Angela and Cheryl were friends since childhood. They lived in the same neighbourhood and would walk to school – St. Bridget’s Convent – and back together. An unfortunate setback with her health left Cheryl with many physical limitations which however, didn’t deter her from living her life to the best aided by her many friends who made it a point to meet her regularly.
The pandemic and resulting lockdowns put a stop to these social outings, swapped then for regular phone calls which helped keep Cheryl’s spirits up. It was during one such call in 2021 that Angela and Cheryl started the ball rolling with this particular story.
It started with a random question about favourite animals. Going out for tea was a regular occurrence among the friends and one of Cheryl’s favourite activities and soon, ideas about animals and their imagined activities led to the story of a tea party and all the food such a party entails. It was sadly a few days after that Cheryl contracted COVID-19 and succumbed to it just two weeks later. Cheryl had been very insistent that Angela finish the story and had encouraged her to do so repeatedly: “The story was unfinished and I thought it was a perfect way to honour her. It was hard because I was grieving but I decided I would do it,” says Angela, who considered writing the book therapeutic too.
Cuddly and Poppy’s Tea Party is about Cuddly, a teddy bear and Poppy, a kangaroo, who decide to have a tea party one afternoon. It is written in the vein of Beatrix Potter whose furry creations were a favourite of Angela’s in her childhood. Taking inspiration from their own lives, Angela wanted to portray unity in diversity by including badgers and grasshoppers, animals not usually found in similar fictional settings.
Once she finished writing the story, she sent it to friends who promptly came back with positive feedback, culminating in contacting Jeremy Muller of The
Jam Fruit Tree Publications. Angela had also been on the lookout for an illustrator and was fortunate enough to find one in Farah Fazly, whose sample illustrations called out to her – “she really fell in love with the story and she imbibed the feeling of friendship into the illustrations.”
A mother of two and a banker for the past 30 years, Angela had dabbled in writing poems and songs in her free time but was always intimidated by more sizeable writing tasks. She considers writing this book to be a journey of discovery. She has now started writing a novel. Next, she hopes to get Cuddly and Poppy’s Tea Party translated into Sinhala and Tamil.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to LEADS, an organisation dedicated to providing safe spaces for children who have been abused. Angela has been involved in raising funds for them over many years.
Cuddly and Poppy’s Tea Party will be launched fittingly, on Children’s Day – October 1 at the Back to the Bible auditorium, Colombo 7 at 4.30 p.m
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