This deals with the project Derrick wanted for the little monks at Malwatte, but also mentions the last of the Christmas season wild life holidays I had with Ena and the Raheems, this one at Yala as opposed to the expansive ones at Wasgamuwa earlier in the decade. And this year for Christmas itself I was at Lakmahal, which had ...

Life became much more exciting in yet another way at this point, for I deal here with the setting up of the English Teaching project at Getamanna, with support from students from Sabaragamuwa and also Shantha who had been at USJP before coming to work with me at Belihuloya. And I deal too with plans for the little cottage I ...

I describe here my resignation from the post of Dean, for I realized that, with Somasundara no longer supporting me, I would not be able to go ahead with the reforms that Nirekha, pictured here and I had embarked on, and which contributed so much to the Sabaragamuwa Arts Faculty rapidly becoming one of the most highly thought of in ...

This post introduces the first suspicions about Somasundara, whom Nirekha had worried about for some time though I had thought him entirely positive. But in the end I had to grant that she had been right, and he had waited until he had been confirmed as Vice-Chancellor before adopting a less pleasant approach. The pictures are of happier matters and ...

After concluding my account of work and travel while at the British Council, I move forward now six years, to my second year at Sabaragamuwa University. Shadows started now and this post describes the person whom we initially thought the source of the troubles at the university which now began to hit us, Prof Sandanam who had been Vice-Chancellor at ...

And so finally I left the Council. But this post begins too with a reference to the problems that were to beset Lakmahal over the next few years, with increasing burdens being placed on my parents by my brother. The pictures, in this last account of work while at the British Council, are of two of Nirmali’s Easy Reading books ...

This describes the first workshop Nirmali and Paru and I conducted in a remote location, the first time the teachers in those parts had had such an interesting and productive time. And I note too the new books I had prepared for the courses I had developed, which in time led to texts that proved immensely popular and were even ...

This records my initial disappointment at the staff we had to recruit at Belihuloya though we did get a good coordinator, Panini Edirisinghe. Unfortunately he fell out with the Director and was very unfairly dismissed just when the AUC actually opened for students, while at Rahangala the coordinator we had got, Gamini Fonseka, almost immediately went to Norway for a ...

This looks at staff at another of the AUCs I had to look after initially, that at Anuradhapura, where we were lucky to find good teachers from the start. The pictures are of the Wehelles, after Mr Dorakumbura. I mention also here the recruitment of Scott Richards, who was at a loose end in London and wanted to continue his ...

This records increasing interactions with university hierarchies as I moved into the position I occupied for many years, that of principal innovator with regard to English, a position which continued even though sadly we soon enough lost the inspiration and encouragement of Arjuna Aluvihare who achieved so much when he chaired the University Grants Commission. The pictures are of Deepthi ...

I record here my resignation from the British Council after eight adventurous years which extended my horizons widely, in particular through enthusing me to work in English Language Teaching, which John Keleher accomplished though initially I was wary of the subject. And I should note again the influence of David Woolger who kept me at it, even when new management ...

This records my interview at USJP when I was duly selected, and then heavy involvement with the Affiliated University Colleges programme, with interviews at the remote one at Rahangala near Diyatalawa. The pictures are of the Abhayagiri before restoration, as I loved it – ‘You’re a romantic,’ said Roland Silva, ‘Just like Senaka’ – and afterwards. Appointment to the University ...

I note here more of the marvelous readers for youngsters that we had commissioned, Sybil Wettasinghe having illustrated her own delightful story. And then I go on to another visit to Polonnaruwa to see the lights, when I took not only the charming Swiss Ambassador but also the wife of a slightly senior contemporary of mine at Univ, Simon Vickers, ...

This looks at a characteristic blip in our efforts to popularize writing by Sri Lankans, the opposition of Ranjan Goonetilleke to the brilliant poetry of Jean Arasanayagam. Our solution as it turned out exacerbated what he had seen as a problem, though it served to widen the perceptions of our youngsters. Prejudice against Jean Arasanayagam’s genius The next day, Saturday, ...

After ten posts about travels with Kithsiri later in the nineties I go back to my time at the British Council, for ten posts more which will bring us to the end of my time there. Here I record here my decision to move to the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, which set the seal on the transformation of tertiary English ...

This post is full of deaths, Kithsiri’s father who died when only in his early fifties, and a long standing member of the Liberal Party who had been a feisty candidate for us at the first Provincial Council elections in 1988. And saddest of all for me was the death of Christine Simmons, who had been in charge of the ...

This post records the workshops Nirmali Hettiarachchi and I conducted for the MA programme we had started, which took off swimmingly though it then fell prey to internal problems, and only a few students completed the programmes. So I was delighted when students at the time, now running the English Department, decided to revive the programme, and I agreed to ...

I describe here how the honeymoon I had had at Sabaragamuwa, helped immeasurably by Nirekha Weeratunge’s professionalism, began to lose its lustre. The pictures are of the immensely able Priyanath and the less able Sunil who got further of course, given our system, with in between the current Speaker, in a different incarnation as a charming but even then not ...

This notes my 44th birthday, which I began at the university, and then goes on to more active political involvement, as also the first university convocation when Chandrika Kumaratunga the Chief Guest was characteristically late. The picture is of Ranga Jayasuriya, the brightest of my first year students, though much later in life. Reviving the Liberal Party Nirmali came up ...

I mention here a shortlived pleasure, seeing my father’s old friend Neville Kanakaratne in Galle, where he was now Governor of the Southern Province. I mention too a delightful colleague whom I have to confess I had forgotten till I started going through my diaries. This was Chris Mead, an elderly utterly conscientious volunteer from England, who entered actively into ...