It was not long before I realized that my influence at the Ministry did not sit well with Gail. The speed with which she turned hostile however I put down to Neil Kemp, whose own inadequacies had prompted resentment. Gail Liesching too proved determined to assert herself despite her lack of capacity.

Apart from what I suspect Neil contributed, she also fell prey to one of the Consultants, Richard Webber, who complained about me according to David. He was not very efficient though David stressed that the least efficient, Lesley Randles, was not as insidious. But with the Council now led by individuals who were concerned about their own positions, and not success in our work, it was soon obvious that I would not be allowed to work.

I note here too a sad occasion, the death of our neighbor of many years, Sundari Pathmanathan, whose son Gaji my father had sent to Oxford while I was there. She was a lovely gentle lady, who died young, the first I think of my parents’ generation to die naturally as it were, and that marked for me a shift in the status of the generations, with my own now taking as it were centre stage.

The letter I record collecting from the Ministry was the last of those in the grand tradition John Keleher had established, of helping the Ministry write to ODA and ODA to write to the Ministry. The pictures are of John Payne and Lesley Randles, there being none on the internet of their less pleasant counterparts.

Gail’s qualms

On the Monday I took Gail to the Ministry to meet Dharmasiri and other officials and began to sense she was not entirely happy about the regard in which I was held. We also met Nihal Cooray at the old Curriculum Development Centre, which was being closed so that its work would be absorbed within the NIE.

One of the other KELTs, Lesley Randles, whom David claimed did little work, had a party that evening, and then we were back at the Ministry next day to draft proposals for the ODA representatives were now in town. We had a preliminary meeting with them that morning and lunch at the Flower Drum before I went back to Nihal with the proposals, after which I went to the SLBC to record a programme on Richard’s poetry.

But that day was also a sad one for our neighbour of many years, Sundari Pathmanathan, whose son Gaji my father had financed at Oxford after his father’s sudden death, died suddenly. I went to her house for a wake that night, and then next day we met Lalith at the Ministry of Higher Education and then had lunch at the Galle Face with the ODA team, and dinner at Neil’s that night. In between I had collected from Kamala at the Ministry of Education Services the letter we had helped her draft for ODA.

The next day I went to Kandy with Neil and John Payne, who had a soft spot for Gill, to present our archaeology work to ODA after lunch at the Queen’s. That evening there was a party at the library for them before dinner at the Flower Song.