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, ...

I note here work I did for ITN in introducing the Shakespeare series they had bought, in an effort to make it more meaningful for viewers, and not just students. I also mention the Summer School as we called it, talks on literature for students. But most important was a wonderful production which Steve de la Zylwa put on in ...

This describes a very pleasant episode during a performance of ‘The Merchant’ for I stayed, while the youngsters performed in Katugastota, at the Catholic Seminary in Ampitiya where I much loved talking to Fr Joe de Mel. He was the youngest of a distinguished Catholic family, his elder brother Royce having been involved in the 1962 coup attempt. Needless to ...

I come now to the performances of Richard’s production, which proved a tremendous success. We toured it widely, as we had done his one man shows, but though this was more complicated we managed, given too the great professionalism of the cast. But in addition to rehearsals and performances and travel which took up much time, I had other work ...

This post goes deeper into politics, and something that shocked me then, the contempt for my cousin Ranil Wickremesinghe evinced by someone who stood firmly for the values of the old UNP. These were being traduced by JR Jayewardene, and I knew how solidly Ranil backed JR, but I had not realized that a member of my own family should ...

After that splendid New Year’s holiday, with much interaction with friends who were also in the area, and a return via a lovely temple my father patronized, it was back to the regular run of work for the Council. But this first task, the Medici concert, fell foul of what was to become worse over the year, disruption by the ...

I move now to one of the greatest changes John Keleher and I achieved while we were at the Council, namely the revitalization of English courses at Sri Lankan universities. It was a slow and depressing process, and I think only took off properly after I joined the university system again under the patronage of Arjuna Aluwihare. But the efforts ...

My efforts to fine tune Richard’s play bore fruit professionally and also in the form of a marriage between my wonderful assistant Ranmali Pathirana and Kumar whom Richard brought in for an inspiring Lancelot Gobbo. I then go on to describe more extended literary programmes, now using others to introduce poets whom Richard read, though I had to continue to ...

And now I start writing about the very full programme I embarked on this year, though I am still talking largely about arts work. There were literature classes I had started at the Council on a formal basis while I did some too for Richard and some of his students, including a dedicated youngster called Sheran Fernando who was to ...

All was not plain sailing in my new rooms and in time I had to move to the bigger room, which I stayed in for over a quarter of a century. In the wider world I continued to travel on holiday more in these early months, including for my last stay in a plantation bungalow, appropriately enough with Derrick Nugawela ...

After ten posts about travels from Oxford in student days I revert to the following decade and my work at the British Council. I had only nine posts last time round because that brought me to the end of 1986, or rather to the end of my work in Colombo that year for I was away for several months in ...

Paul left Standlake in the middle of July, but with much work still to finish I stayed on there by myself till the end of the month. I had taken most of my stuff to Corpus Christi to which I was moving the next year, as E K Chambers Student, a scholarship for Classicists to work in English which meant ...

In the summer of 1976 when Hope Todd came to England, I could not meet him at the airport, but having arramged for that to be done I went to London to see him and then after that gave him a day looking round Oxford, taking him out to Mallard Lodge too for he was driven up by another friend ...

I was sad to find an invitation from Angus Wilson for a party that had already happened, but he more than made up for that in the years that followed. I gave him introductions for the visit he made a few months later to Sri Lanka, and he was delighted with the people he met and they with him. Thankfully ...

It was in the Hilary term when I was still at Rectory Road that I renewed my acquaintance with Angus Wilson, whom I had met in my first year when he came for a feast at Univ. Volunteers had been asked for to carry baggage, and I took on the task in order to meet four people. But when I ...

When my mother was in London she would, typically, stay with people she thought needed company, both of them in the Harrow area. One was her old school friend Jean Viswalingam who had married a Sri Lankan doctor in Kuala Lumpur, and with whose family I had stayed when I went there on my own in 1969. But he had ...

My work had suffered in the Michaelmas not only because I had to be away at Clara’s, but also because of much socializing just before that. Robert was going back to Australia, and Andrew had a dinner for him in the rather elegant flat he had in Boar’s Hill, and then I organized a Vile Bodies pudding party for him, ...

I went often in the four years I had as a graduate to spend nights in London with my friends. Both Nick and Richard, who had shared a flat in a terrible part of London, bought places in Clapham, where I spend many happy evenings. The former had a house which was very pleasant and I once consumed with him ...

When talking about accommodation for the following year, Charles and Paul and I had blithely assumed that finding a decent place for a reasonable charge would be easy. This was quite wrong. Those within our price range were in great demand and I remember losing out on one place in very elegant Parktown, quite near to the centre in ...

I had another trip with John in that summer of 1975, between finals and results. He and I drove down with Bruce Balden, a freshman of this year who had become a good friend, to stay with another friend from that year, Ian Kramer who had been at school with Bruce. His mother, who continued in touch even after Ian ...