Pauline and Dick. Dick and Pauline. You couldn’t think of one without the other, so that in writing about one of them it is impossible to exclude mention of the other. Two people who truly loved this country and considered themselves Sri Lankan, they were held in high esteem and affection by Sri Lankans of every community, creed and class.
Both of them, she a Burgher and he a Tamil, worked untiringly all their lives to break down barriers of ethnicity, religion and class distinctions and it tore their hearts to watch helplessly as the war escalated and a widening divide loomed between Sinhalese and Tamils.
Dick, who appeared to be the sturdy one, taking care of frail-looking Pauline, went first, in 2008. How Pauline survived his loss, I don’t know, but her daughter Rohini has said that her Mum smiled much less frequently in the two years that followed. They had been married for 61 years. Both were teachers of English par excellence and their pupils at Bishop’s College and St. Thomas’s respectively, regarded them with deep affection and also with something akin to veneration.
I didn’t have the privilege of being a student of either, but I have heard them being extolled to the skies by some of those they had taught. Said one of them: “Pauline was probably the greatest teacher I ever had and she worked so closely with Dick that he too became my teacher in a way that it was difficult to separate what they did. They were a completely harmonious team.”
That was how I saw them too, although in a different context. I was moved by their genuine and ongoing concern for people, their acceptance of the under-privileged as human beings who equally deserved access to the good things of life of which the middle and upper classes seemed to have a monopoly. This was evident in the simple lifestyle of their modest home in Sri Dharmapala Road, Mount Lavinia, where the door was always open to the poorest of their neighbours as much as to all their many friends.
Alongside that, was also their total commitment to working to bring about an understanding of the ethnic problem and to bridge the divide between the two major communities. As in everything else, they were of one mind on this too. Pauline was the middle child of James Swan who was a Foreman in the Railway Workshop at Maradana, and his wife Erin. The Swan family worshipped at St. Paul’s Church, Milagiriya, as did the youthful Dick Hensman. At some point, Dick started giving tuition to Pauline’s younger sibling, her brother Edward, and that’s how he met Pauline at close quarters and they fell in love.
This was at a time when “mixed” marriages were rare and neither family was thrilled about the romance. But their love flourished amid opposition and eventually both sets of parents accepted the inevitable and Pauline married her “Dicky” in April 1947.
Pauline was a graduate of University College, Colombo, as was Dick. Pauline’s first teaching job was at Holy Family Convent, Dehiwela. Later, both of them taught at Dharmaraja College, Kandy. They moved to Colombo in 1948 and Pauline started teaching at Bishop’s College, Colombo, her old school, while Dick did the same at STC.
They didn’t, however, identify themselves exclusively with the English-speaking elite, but with all people, especially the disadvantaged and poor. Rohini says, “We children felt completely at home with their diverse group of friends from all communities, whom we called `Uncle’ and `Aunty’ and treated as relatives.”
Christians both of them, there was no incongruence between what they professed and how they lived.
The Pauline I knew appeared to be a calm person, although one who passionately espoused social issues. However, I learn from her daughters that, unlike their father, “Mum had a hot temper and you could always tell when she was angry!”
She was fiercely opposed to injustice and oppression and evidence of this incurred her wrath. She was apparently quite fearless, too, as an early incident in her life that has gone down in the annals of family history, proves.
When she was a young girl, an alcoholic man who had evidently harboured a grudge against Pauline’s mother because the latter had stood by his wife and rebuked him when the distressed wife came to her, once forced his way into their house in a drunken state, brandishing a knife and made straight for Mrs. Swan and thrust the knife in her face. The young Pauline jumped forward and bit his hand so hard that the assailant had to withdraw in agony. A couple of Mrs. Swan’s front teeth were lost in that encounter in which she might well have lost her life too, were it not for her intrepid young daughter’s instant intervention.
When I came to know her, Pauline always wore saree (generally rather carelessly draped), and she gave the impression that she had weightier matters on her mind than mere outward appearance. Dick and she did retreat to England from time to time when things here became too painful to contemplate.
I believe they went away in 1958 and again in the 1990s, but they always came back because this is the country they regarded as home and which permanently engaged their hearts. They were here for the tragic events of July 1983. I learned from Rohini that a trusted Sinhala friend “whose mother had saved their lives in 1958,” stood guard at their gate, but the mobs did not sight the the Hensman home.
Pauline co-authored with Dick a book on English teaching in the late 1950s, “The Better Way to English”. With advancing years, she wrote articles and discussion papers on the ethnic conflict and on theological issues in which she had become keenly interested.
She was, perhaps the first Sri Lankan woman to take Feminist Theology seriously and she expressed her belief in its validity both verbally and in writing.
I am indebted to a close friend of Pauline’s for a copy of a book by Pauline entitled “TO MERCY, PEACE AND LOVE” – Reflections and Notes on Social Transformation and Theology, published in 1993. The title was taken from William Blake’s poem, “To Mercy, Pity, Truth and Love.” It is a work that deserves our attention as much today as it did 17 years ago.
Pauline was a founder-member of the Women’s Ecumenical Theological Fellowship in 1982 and also a member of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians and the Sri Lanka Association of Theology.
In her introduction to the book, Pauline has written: “I passionately believe in the causes I have been espousing, and perhaps the book will be at work when I no longer am……..The articles and talks selected here were the spare-time work of a busy mother, teacher, housewife, grandmother, neighbour, churchperson and citizen who took these roles seriously.”
That certainly sums up who she was.
I was familiar with Pauline in some of those roles, but her children had left the nest when she and I became friends. I knew she was devoted to her two daughters, Rohini & Savi, and her son, Jimmy, but I had not personally witnessed this aspect of her multifaceted life.
I asked Rohini about Pauline, her mother, and she said: “Savi and I see Mum as a strong, intelligent and capable woman, but also an extremely loving and caring person who provided a role model for us.”
On that final day of her life on May 21, 2010, which ended after a losing battle with aspiration pneumonia, she was unconscious when her three children stood by her bedside. Says Rohini: “I believe she sensed we were there with her.
“We spoke to her, sang to her and prayed over her, later kissed her goodnight and told her how much we loved her. She breathed her last, not long after.
”The end was totally peaceful and painless, her forehead smooth and her eyes closed as if in sleep.”
Rest in peace, dear friend. Your children rise up and call you blessed – and so do all of us in whose bright and fond memories you will forever remain.
Anne Abayasekara |
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