Sri Lanka through the British Council 107

This describes the meandering tour through the country I took with John Harrison over the Christmas period, inclusive of Christmas itself with Ena at the Talgasmankada Bungalow in Yala, a repeat of a holiday we had spent there over Christmas 1987 though Ena’s daughter Kusum was not married then and John was not with us.

But at the end of the trip I had a terrific shock, the suicide of the husband on one of our oldest friends. The first picture is of them, and then there are Jean and Richard Martin Hurst, on the right, and the Nalanda Gedige and Gadaladeniya.

Travels with John Harrison

That evening we put on a show directed by Steve de la Zylwa at the Council, where I got to the opening and the end, going in between to a party Gill had for her parents who were visiting. And then next morning I set off with John, via the NOH for lunch, a walk in the fort and then the Matara Education office, to the Hambantota Resthouse where I was delighted to see Preethi Kodagoda and her family.

We had a swim that evening before dinner, and another next morning, before going on to Yala where Raji and Mali and our Danish friend Michael Hjalsted met us at the Resthouse. My car then went back to Colombo, and Ena then joined us that evening along with Kusum and her husband David Gilmour, and we had a glorious four nights, with Christmas decorations round the Talgasmankada bungalow, as we had had in 1987.

The car came back for us on Friday the 28^th, and John and I went via Wellawaya and lunch at the Ella Resthouse to Kandy where we had a couple of nights, the first at a small hotel because the Queen’s was full. But next morning we booked there for that night, and then I took John to the University to see the Chaplaincy, where we met Fr Kumara Illangasinghe who was later to be Bishop of Kurunagala. Then we went to Lankatilleka and Gadaladiya and the Botanical Gardens, after which Jean Arasanayagam gave us lunch. We had a nap then and walked round the lake before tea and a visit to the Maligawa, and then had drinks on a balcony over the lake before dinner and a walk when we bumped into the Devarajans, my parents’ old friends.

Next morning we saw the Dambulla Caves and the Nalanda Gedige and had lunch at the Resthouse there before going to Ena’s for quiet New Year’s Eve, with a nephew joining us for dinner, preceded by drinks on the lawn beneath a fabulous Full Moon, plus flares on the edge.

Next morning we went to Negombo via Kurunagala where I showed John the Old Place, now decaying. We stayed this time in a smaller hotel but had dinner at Brown’s with Richard Martin Hurst who was visiting again. But next morning I heard the terrible news that Sharya’s husband Shamol had commtted suicide the previous day.   

It was a shock. The couple had seemed perfectly happy when I went to dinner there in October for their sixth anniversary, and to date no one quite understands what drove him to take his own life.