We now come to the Provincial Council elections, where the Liberal Party played an interesting role as described. But as important in terms of my later work was my involvement with the Ministry of Education in the Furniture Project which the British government had instituted in token of its support for the Indo-Lankan Accord and what was supposed to be ...

This post describes the expansion of the opposition alliance, with an invitation to the newly formed Muslim Congress, which in those days before it acquired money arrived for meetings in a trishaw. I also talk about more publications, another book for the Council and the Liberal Review which Chanaka and I edited. The pictures, after the publications, are of Rukman ...

I have a few political vignettes here including a masterful response by Nissanka Wijeyeratne, who later became a strong admirer of mine, to a rather callow question. And then I describe by first interactions with the new British High Commissioner, David Gladstone, a relatively young man after ages, who made a forceful impact. These first interactions were worrying, but later ...

There is more politics in this post, but it also talks about two interesting programmes at the Council, one put on by former representative Bill McAlpine, and one of the film festivals I had begun on a regular basis, given the excellent film collection in London. I begin with two fabulous old posters, and then Dinesh and Richard at this ...

This post in fact has little about the Council, though it is full of travel. It also touches on politics, the recognition of the Liberal Party by the Elections Commissioner, but also the very sad assassination of Vijaya Kumaratunga. The pictures are of Vijaya and Hugh Fernando, and then Robert at a Telecommunications meeting with D B Wijetunge. But he ...

1988 saw me engaged in a range of new initiatives, both for the Council and outside. The first para here refers to political interests plus a String Quartet, but then I go on to a visit I made to England, which the Council kindly funded though the original idea was to use up the return ticket I still had after ...

The cancellation of a writer’s visit was however exceptional and in general we could continue with work this year, in film and literature and now archaeology which had been added to my responsibilities. I note also the beginning of the great days of the Council for Liberal Democracy when we had an immensely popular seminar series on Ideas for Constitutional ...

After elevent posts about seventies travel while at Oxford I am back to eighties travel in Sri Lanka. This one describes a visit to the Maldives, my first and my last, and the good time given me and our drama duo by the Hoopers who were stationed there as English consultants. But then I talk about how the violence began ...

I decided to include one more post today in this series, after the usual ten, for this brings me to the end of my student days in Oxford. About my last term of formal work, this takes up a thread from the past in describing a Victorian evening. This 1978 one was in Cambridge, but in emulation of those Adrian ...

I describe here active involvement in Oxford Union politics after a long time, when a group of us managed to promote the election of Daniel Moylan, now Lord Moylan, as President even though the previous term he had almost unprecedentedly been defeated when as Secretary he had stood for the post of Librarian. And I go on then to describe ...

This post describes tragedies, including the third blow my cousin Clara suffered, when her older son Rohan died, following on the deaths of her husband in 1973 and her daughter Manoji in 1975. And at the same time someone else who had been incredibly good to me when I first got to England, Pam Gooneratne, also died. But I go ...

Early in 1978,, in the Hilary Term, my brother arrived in Oxford, my father having had his way as usual. He had, seeing my face when he initially broached the subject, asked me whether I really did not want him at Oxford, and I could not disappoint him, so I said no but asked that he go to another College. ...

This post ends with a description of the Michaelmas vacation, when for the first time, and the last for several decades, I cooked Christmas lunch, for a lovely collection of friends including Sandra Barwick and Indrajith Coomaraswamy. And the year ended with a party on the roof of the Ministry of Defence. The pictures are of Sandra in the seventies ...

After my stay at David’s I went to Sicily with Richard Weatherill, and then on getting back to Oxford, with a few days in a Corpus Guestroom, I moved to the flat in Norham Gardens I had been lucky enough to get the lease of earlier in the summer. When I answered an advertisement, I was told it had been ...

Oxford had proved a joy for me at Corpus, my second College too. And it continued thus over the summer, which I spent there until well into August. I did have three breaks over the summer, going to Germany and to France and to Sicily, but they were only for a week or two at most. Again it was a ...

This post deals with the summer of 1977, which involved much hard work for both my sister and me, but also some delightful social occasions. The party I gave for my mother at Univ was a triumph, and I had lunch afterwards with Angus Wilson with whom and his friend Tony Garret I was now good friends. The pictures are ...

This post has much about a very active social life in this my 6th year, the highlight being the Oxford and Cambridge Arts Society (OCFAS) Film Festival, the brainchild of Phillip Bergson. I note too a new society that was set up, the Piers Gaveston, which was not for dining but rather for extravagant parties. The pictures are of the ...

I look here at the entertaining my sister and I did together, and then the hospitality I received over the Christmas vacation. The pictures are of the Corpus houses in Magpie Lane and then the Wood house in Charlbury Road, with another of Leslie and Susan Wood when she too was in his retirement home. Then there is Tony Firth ...

After ten posts about travels in Sri Lanka when I worked for the British Council, I go back a decade to look again at my time in Oxford. Here I move to my time at Corpus Christi College, to which I moved in September 1978 as E K Chambers Student. My sister joined me in Oxford this year, as I ...

I return to Sri Lanka to what was the beginning of the turmoil that beset the country for the next three years. But the violence that had accompanied the signing of the Indo-Lankan Accord was only simmering at this stage and we could continue with our work. Most interesting of the events of this month was a celebration of Sarachchandra, ...