I note here my first meeting with Intake 51 at the Academy, the cadets I felt most familiar with for I took them in small groups for a number of core subjects, and did not have to worry about a senior batch too, as happened six months later when I taught Intake 52 while continuing with an academic programme for ...

My travels took on an additional element when in 2000 the Sri Lanka Military Academy commenced a degree programme in collaboration with Sabaragamuwa University. Under their thoughtful commandant Gamini Hettiarachchi, depicted here, they had approached the UGC about this soon after I joined Sabaragamuwa in 1997 and I believe the Chairman was happy to hand it over to us to ...

As noted at the end of the last post, I also went abroad in the midst of the election campaign, which was indeed a great relief, for I found the process of canvassing wearisome. Interviews I was quite happy with, and indeed did them well, but meetings to canvass support I did not enjoy at all, and dealing with some ...

I deal here with my candidacy for the Presidency in 1999, which most of the Liberal party supported though a couple on our Executive Committee had wanted to support Chandrika Kumaratunga. I did not spend much, but I did have two former students to stay at home and help me with leafletting, and friends in England contributed small sums to ...

Back today to travels at the turn of the century, after ten posts about earlier university days. Here I record a sudden and deeply saddening death, Neville Kanakaratne’s. He had seemed so vibrant, and so full of ideas when I had seen him over the preceding year, that it came as a terrible shock. I go on then to describe ...

I describe here my first journeys with a car and a driver from home, though before very long both these arrangements had to be aborted. The pictures are of the memorable Tangalle Bay and the Polhena Reef hotels, and then of Nihal Fernando. New travel arrangements I had by then trained one of the boys at home, Jayantha, to drive ...

I was introduced at the very start of 1993 to the vagaries of the university system for it was on strike when I got back for the beginning of term. But for me this was fortunate for I was able to spend more time with visiting friends, and also to work on the project I had proposed for Cambodia, though ...

This describes the recruitment of new staff, which I was generally satisfied with for I got both Paru and Dinali for the department and some good instructors for the Unit. But I was horrified by the racism which was displayed, overtly just by one instructor, but not argued against by the rest except for the utterly decent Oranee. Paru of ...

Yet another AUC was entrusted to me for English, in the Northern Province which I was glad about, and over the next few years I grew very fond of Vavuniya which President Premadasa had ensured developed apace, as part of his policy of showing those in the North how prosperity came to them within a united Sri Lanka. I was ...

I describe here swift progress on the texts we had put together for the AUCs, which I could not confidently feel would appear on time. The first one was in use along with the first of the workbooks I had put together, and even the speech text, ‘Interactions’, had been licked as it were into shape. And I note the ...

I describe here how our book publications programme expanded, with a book put together at the request of A J Goonewardene whom I could not refuse. Besides, I felt it was a good thing to have some record of the work of Ranjith Goonewardene with whom I had spoken at a programme at the British Council afterwards. He had thanked ...

I could not post yesterday because my computer collapsed on Thursday afternoon, but it was swiftly put right this morning by a youngster at Dell. So here we are with more wide-ranging work before classes began at USJP, including an account of the training programme Nirmali and Paru and I took for a host of teachers in deprived areas, at ...

I describe here the DELIC programme, for which I did a lot of work during this period for it was the flagship project of Nihal Cooray, Director of English at the NIE, who had been a great support while I was at the Council, and took forward many ideas we gave him. The pictures are of Chitra Wickramasuriya who also ...

I recount here the intensity of my work with the AUCs, which I combined with a continuation of the work for schools I had started while at the British Council But I note too a meeting with one of the best academics at USJP, who had started the Accountancy degree there and had insisted on English medium to ensure a ...

After ten posts about travels with Kithsiri in the late nineties, I go back to journeys undertaken after I changed my employment in 1992. This post relates my arrival at USJP to take up duties and a plunge into university politics. These were particularly complicated in the English Unit where a number of ladies, not all of whom were good ...

I record here another place I found to stay when I travelled east, a hotel in Amparai with a view, which also enabled me to have a beer with Kithsiri of an evening, not possible in the university guesthouse. I had got used to that very pleasant relaxation, and we also enjoyed a decent if simple dinner, which one could ...

This post deals with my visit to Galle with Peter to see the Australian test match, when we were delighted by Neville Kanakaratne’s total ignorance about cricket. But I note too a rather unfortunate element in Chandra Amerasekera, prejudice against good students, though perhaps I should note also that the two bright boys she seemed to dislike made no secret ...

This begins with the international conference I had organized at Belihuloya in response to Brendon’s request, when he had papers from a couple of distinguished academics including the brilliant Meenakshi Mukherjee, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University. I was happy to host her and her family at home, and indeed her daughter asked fondly after my father when I called her ...

I record here the taking forward of the SLMA degree programme through a Study Board, after Somasundara had appointed me Academic Coordinator for the programme. When it was rumoured after Nirekha and Ralf resigned that I might follow suit, it was reported that he had said he would ensure I stayed, and certainly he indulged me much over the years ...

I record much travel here, and mention a new initiative, connected with the wonderful estate at Haputale which Brendon Gooneratne had named Pemberley after his wife Yasmine’s interest in Jane Austen. Though it did not quite work out in the end, he hoped it would become a study centre rather like the Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio where both Yasmine and ...