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Published: December 18th 2006
Having joined my good pal Harsha here in Colombo and assisted in the delivery of a junior cricket coaching camp over four mornings in the Christmas holidays, I was rewarded with gifts not only from the gracious Harsha himself to say ‘thanks’ for coaching, but also from the unlikely-named Alan de Silva, one of the young boys who took part in the camp and who had a great time smacking a few cricket balls in the sunshine. It was rather humbling to be the recipient of a gift from one of the children on the camp, due to the relative lack of funds of the families who send along their off-spring in the holidays, and I was incredibly grateful for both presents (a snazzy watch from Harsh - he knew I was in need of one - and an even more snazzy and very colourful Sri Lankan shirt from young Alan). As it happened I really needed the shirt aswell - 80% of my luggage from the UK was made up of coaching equipment and gifts for donation to an orphanage and to some schools, and the remainder of it consisted of just a handful of clothing.
I do find
the juxtaposition of names here in Sri Lanka quite fascinating - the likes of ‘Alan de Silva’, ‘Stanley Jayasinghe’ and ‘Lionel Goonetilleke’ share this attractive European/Singhalese combination, offering a throwback to Colonial times with first names that ought to belong more to Colchester than to Colombo. One of my longest-standing friends here also possesses my clear favourite in terms of names - the man in question is the inimitable Basil Perera who works for Sri Lanka Cricket as a tournament director. He joins the elite band of people familiar to me that share that particular first name, and he therefore takes his place alongside the likes of D’Oliveira, Fawlty, Rathbone, Butcher and Brush, but if you can offer me more, please get in touch as I complete my thesis into all things “Basil”!
A CHANCE TO COMMENT
As well as coaching cricket here in sunny Sri Lanka, my time will be spent over the next few weeks seeking out pastures new to me around this beautiful country, although these trips to the ‘outstations’ have been delayed slightly by an opportunity to become a cricket commentator for a couple of weeks, oddly enough. Having been given a chance to offer
Cricket coaching camp Q&A
Does Murali actually chuck it...?? Naaahsome analysis as the only foreign commentator for a Sri Lankan transmission that is sold to an Indian internet company, I took up my position in the studio here in Colombo and offered an English perspective on the events of the Third Ashes Test between Australia and England at Perth. The coverage is provided for those in India who wish to remain updated with live radio-style commentary on the latest cricket around the world, perhaps because they do not have instant access to TV screens; customers listen to the commentary through their PCs or over their mobile phones, and in the case of the company for whom I was involved, this means exposure to upwards of a few thousand people. In terms of the nation of India, this is of course a small-scale, however I took up the opportunity to become a budding Richie Benaud or Mark Nicholas, for those of you who know your cricket! I have heard it said before that I have a face for radio.
As well as taking part in the transmissions of the Ashes series, I have already joined other commentators in the studio for one of the other series currently taking place,
Mike on the mic
Yep, England can definitely save this game... between India and South Africa, and for which I had to quickly gen up on the current form of players I knew little about...in some ways I was fortunate because in an attempt to arrest a poor run of recent form, India had recalled some of its more well-known players for this series, so I was able to sidestep a few verbal landmines and blag my way through to some degree.
By nature, the vast majority of Sri Lankans are humble and modest people, and an event last Sunday has proved to me that even a long spell living in the status-symbol land of the United Kingdom couldn’t diminish these virtues for one such Sri Lankan friend and his family.
GOVERNOR’S MANSION
I was invited by Frank and his wife Joy to Hatton for a relaxing day in the cooler air of the hill country. Hatton is one of a handful of places that was favoured by the British who settled here in years gone by in what was then Ceylon, and which was developed to resemble a ‘Little England’ in the middle of a tropical paradise, complete with colonial-style buildings, London pillar boxes, Royal Doulton bogs and
even English weather to boot. At 5,000 feet it gets nippy. The town itself nestles in amongst the lush tea plantations in central Sri Lanka, and is an hour from its more famous neighbour, Nuwara Eliya. I didn’t realise what Frank had in mind for this day of leisure, although after a couple of long days in the commentary studio (extremely long days if you were an England fan, as it turned out), I was ready to chill, literally and metaphorically. His driver had picked me up and after the adventures of navigating the roads of Colombo, where patience is tested and the cocophony of car horns and tuk-tuks an ever-present feature, we eventually began the quiet ascent at the foot of the hill-country. The air was noticeably cooler, and for many residents of steamy Colombo this is a welcome relief if they can manage to get away. We found ourselves bouncing slowly along some rocky and very uneven roads that trailed up through the hills - this path had simply been casually carved out of the hillside some 70 or 80 years back, but tarmac lorries, steamrollers or the like had yet to see the light of day here.
The driver, Gamini, pointed across the valley where there stood what turned out to be a large, dilapidated, disused tea plantation factory building, and he indicated that the state of the roads would actually become rather worse before we reached it. The seatbelts in the majority of vehicles in Sri Lanka are non-existent. Gamini’s vehicle was in the majority. We held on tight. Beyond the building that we’d spotted, we continued up a further hill and suddenly, opening up in front of us between rows of tea-leaf bushes and to my enormous surprise, there stood a magnificent mansion bearing Frank’s name! There were construction workers and security men ferreting away engrossed in their many tasks as Frank himself, unusually with muddy shoes on having been busy himself, appeared at the entrance to greet me. Frank had acquired this remarkable building recently, as it turned out, and this was news to me as I had been preparing for a simple, leisurely stroll through the plantations and maybe one of the grand hotels nearby for some high tea or a game of billiards (possible in the hill country) during this casual visit. He’d said nothing of this new purchase, and it
became difficult to understand how he could have kept this news to himself when you consider some of the contents of his new ‘estate’:
40 rooms
36 fireplaces
Billiards room
Grass tennis court
Water feature fed by natural waterfall
Several acres of tea plantation, plus staff
Outbuilding for permanent on-site security staff
Fruit trees
A room used by the Queen (TRUE)
En-suite facilities attached to Queen’s room. A throne-from-home you might say. It was clean.
Frank already enjoyed a comfortable apartment in Colombo, but this palace in the countryside offered him and his family a retreat from the hustle-bustle of both Colombo and London, where he resided throughout most of the year. I was astounded by what I saw and he was ever-modest in his explanation of how he came across this place - he had become the third owner following the building of the mansion by an uncle of the Queen before the Second World War, and whose rooms designed by him offered reminders of life back in Blighty at every turn. After 90 minutes walking round the house, exploring broad corridors, walk-in wardrobes, servants’ quarters, drying rooms, pantries, bathrooms, balconies and kitchens, we settled down to
some tea and a hundred questions. The photographs of some of this splendour are shown in this blog, and Frank hopes to bring the house fully to its former glory after some years of relative neglect by its recent local owners. I cannot wait to pay another visit to this jewel in the hillside to experience the place as if it were still hosting parties of hunting, shooting Brits (including royals) from 60 years ago.
Dragging myself away from the central highlands, my return to the capital was marked by some unseasonal coastal rain and my very late arrival back in the smog, dust and noise of Colombo was in darkness. Not sure how pleased I was to be back.
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Pikey
non-member comment
Marvellous Effort That
Mikey, What an adventure! Would have loved to have heard you commentating. Were the Indian names similar to the twelfth man tapes. The boy has shown a lot of guts Tony. Keep em coming A