RADELLA
(505 acres)
Category - High Grown
1962/1964

    Radella was a gem! Its tea was relatively high jat, its tea prices in the top four in Ceylon and it had been extremely well managed by at least the last three PDs. In addition, set in a large, very attractive garden was the PD's bungalow which, though old, was attractive and overlooked the Radella Club and playing field which were in the plantation. Surrounding the club and grounds were the remnants of the one time racecourse now mostly reclaimed for tea. It was generally accepted that the PD of Radella was the Ground Secretary of the Club, although I cannot recall that this entailed must work.

   The VA, from about 1960, was the one I had on Forres.

     The plantation, owned by The Ceylon Proprietary Tea Plantations Co., started at an elevation of about 4500 ft. and climbed to about 5500 ft. In the office were a HC and two clerks, and in the factory a TM and an Assistant TM - there may have been a junior assistant TM as well.

     The office consisted of two rooms, one for the PD and one for the clerks. My first requirement in any office was that everything in it be conveniently to hand - left, right and centre - and this I did here. I was not happy with the arrangement with the single telephone which was on the PD's desk although used by all the clerks as well - a most unsatisfactory arrangement as it involved the clerks, and particularly the HC, running too and fro, from one room to the other. Soon, I devised a Heath Robinson solution to this; I knocked a hole in the end of the dividing wall behind my left shoulder, installed a concrete shelf just above desk height running from my office to the other, where the HC sat, and by means of rails, a little trolley and some thick twine, trundled the telephone from room to room as needed! For a degree of privacy on either side and as sound mitigation, a sliding door was fitted to the hole in the wall like a service hatch. Voila! …. no problem. As soon as I could, as I had done on Forres, I got new printed and bound diaries for Radella and, I think, paid the overtime I had paid on Forres.

     The factory was a challenge. Here was a place with a record of high tea prices, and in charge of it was a senior TM with many years on Radella. He was in his late fifties and I twenty-eight and not long a PD. Somehow I had to gain his confidence. From the inception I had, of course, familiarised myself with the manufacture and started my regular tea tasting, checking of the various aspects of manufacture, (including the very important fermenting,(42) ) and monitoring of Brokers reports etc. and had been tasting and discussing with the TM the tea samples from the area but, to get his enthusiastic support I had to convince him that I "knew my stuff". Having decided on what to do I told him one day that the following day I would taste tea "blind"(43) . When I arrived the next morning, he was prepared and started to brew five samples. I tasted them and, I could hardly believe it, I had identified all five correctly! Although I had been tasting such samples since I arrived on Radella my success must have had an element of luck in it. Be that as it may, I had made a point even though there was no obvious reaction from the TM that I can recall. Mind you, he had not at any stage been antagonistic or unco-operative - quite the reverse, but then, I had not yet started making changes to his manufacture. A new diary in my new format was ordered and delivered and we set about making changes that bore fruit.

     At one time I tasted a particularly fine BOPF sample, and the TM, his assistant, and I agreed that that particular invoice would fetch a top price. At just about this time the CTP Director in GS visited and when we were in the factory I told him about this tea and our expectations. I asked him to taste it but he said he knew nothing about tea tasting. However, when pressed, he agreed and the tea was brewed and tasted. He said he would note down the invoice number and keep a watch for what price it fetched. As it happened, it fetched the top price of Rs 2.58 or 2.86/ lb and also earned a certificate of some sort. During a visit I paid to the GS Director "of tea", whose career with GS had been on the tea manufacturing, tasting, selling and shipping side, and he told me that now that I was on Radella I would not be able to increase tea prices (as its prices were already at the top). I do not know whether this was a statement or a challenge but it was said in his usual friendly manner, and I countered with, 'All right, lets wait and see!' implying that I would increase the Radella prices. A year later when I saw him I said, 'During the last year (average) high grown prices fell by 15c a pound and Radella's prices went up by 7c a pound. That means, in effect, that my prices rose by 22c a pound!!' The GS directors with whom I came in contact, and the Assistant in charge of the CTP, were a pleasure to deal with; they were always friendly and easy to get on with despite my often forthright communications.

     In the process of the selection of suitable clonal tea, the first characteristics sought were the physical ones such as rooting, branching, yield and resistance to pests and diseases. Thereafter came selection in respect of the characteristics "in the cup". Put simply, these were colour, strength and flavour. At the TRI this was done and those clones with the prefix TRI and numbers in the low 2000 produced excellent teas in the cup. However, it became apparent with the passage of time that when many, if not most, of these clones were mixed during manufacture the results in the cup were undesirable at best. This was a major problem particularly on plantations where there had been large areas of clonal planting. One such large plantation, where a replanting programme on a large scale had been initiated in the early fifties, was especially affected and the PD asked me whether I would mind tasting and evaluating for him a variety of the mixes he was getting in his factory. Both to help him, and so as not to miss such an unusual and interesting opportunity, I said that I would be happy to do so. Consequently, he started sending me samples which I tasted and reported on to him. The results were remarkable, as was the problem this presented.

     On its higher elevation plantations the Company had a variety of shade trees. As high shade there were, not necessarily on the one plantation, Grevillea robusta, Albizzia moluccana and Albizzia sumatrana, and as low shade as well as for green manure Acacia decurrans, Accacia pruinosa, Accacia terminalis and the dadap (Erythrina indica). The high shade trees and the dapaps were planted on a grid, more open for the former, and the Accacia's either on a grid or in lines as wind breaks. The low shade was lopped periodically at a height of about six feet above the tea and the loppings forked into the ground. Grevilleas had been found to be a focus of infection by the poria fungus which then spread to the tea with serious consequences. Consequently, on many plantations these were being ring barked so as to kill the tree as well as deplete the source of food for the fungus in the tree's roots. I for one, was not planting any more grevilleas.

     The question of shade was being debated amongst the planting community following the TRI's conclusion that its removal resulted in huge increases in yield. Initially the Institute found that this increased yield fell off sharply after two years, but later found that the cause of this fall was the depletion of nutrients in the soil and the plants and that this was avoided by the application of sufficient fertilizer, for nitrogen, to sustain the increased yield. There was concern from some that, without the trees and windbreaks, wind would adversely affect yield. If it did, it was not evident and there was also the fact that a complete cover of tea on the slope reduced the impact of wind. Amongst the planters there were the "troglodytes", the "cautious" and the "movers". I fell into the last category, as did my VA. The high shade on Radella was not particularly dense. If it had not been stopped prior to my arrival, I stopped the planting of any more shade trees.

     From observing the state of foliage and budding points on bushes under the high shade trees, in particular the grevilleas, and the medium shade trees other than the dadaps, it was obvious to me that these bushes were yielding 10% or less of their potential. I roughly extrapolated this to a possible annual yield loss of at least 70,000 lbs for the plantation and discussed it with my VA. Everything considered, I started removing all shade other than the dadaps and, on one occasion, the VA commented in his report that he was not pleased that I had removed the high shade from a particular field. Comments from GS were faintly critical and those from the Board even less so. I cannot, today, explain why he said what he did but he must have had a reason and we, no doubt, discussed it. Later, I removed all the dadap shade as well but things were not as they seemed as I had pollarded the trees below the level of the tea so that they were there should it be necessary to quickly re-establish some shade. This was simply a precaution, as I had no doubt as to the validity of the case for no shade, provided, of course, that fertilizer was at least adequate. I heard of one of our senior CTP PDs, on whose plantation the planting of shade was going ahead full steam, sitting on the Club verandah, looking up at the apparently shadeless Radella and saying, 'I am looking at the demise of Radella!'

     We were also talking about the need, with ever increasing tea yields on old and new plantings, to replace the existing policy of basing the fertilizer requirements of a field in one year on its yield in the previous year, by one based on its potential in the coming year. In fact, we may even have started that policy in estimates finalised while I was on Radella. I cannot remember specific annual yield figures, but I get the impression that these, from about 1961, were 1200 and 1400 with projections of 1800 which was not excessive as the existing tea had good potential and there was a programme of replanting in place with clones with the potential to yield 3500 lbs/ acre.

     As one would expect on a plantation such as this, plucking was a major activity, and one involving the co-opting of men pluckers more than usual on other plantations. The men's standard of work was above average when compared to other places. Some of them were really excellent pluckers, and not just in terms of the amount of leaf they brought in.

     This was the time that well educated, English speaking, young men were being employed on plantations as Supervisors - a title to differentiate them from the KPs and Kanganies who, it seemed, they would eventually replace. I took on a few - perhaps because I had terminated the work of some kanganies - and one by the name of Welsh was particularly good, and soon came to know and understand what I wanted on a plantation and why. For one reason or another I found myself in need of a Plucking KP and offered the job to my ex Thalaivar 'friend' Veeriah on Cymru. It was a promotion and he jumped at it, and did a good job too.

     Inexplicably, I did not introduce, anywhere, the innovative practice of three-day plucking rounds that had been so successful on Cymru. Perhaps I did not have the time, as a PD, to devote to the training of pluckers - I do not know. However, a lot of constructive work went into plucking with excellent results and absolutely no trouble. I could see, from my garden, across a small valley, the path that led from the fields around the club to the factory. This path was rather steep and was the direct route to the factory for the pluckers with there baskets of leaf at the end of some days. Perhaps in 1962, when the flushing was at its highest, I saw these poor women lugging overfull, heavy baskets as well as shawls full of leaf up this path after "late plucking", and decided that I would immediately introduce a fourth weighing in the field each day in high yielding fields at 3.30 (or 4?) using the lorry for transport to the factory. I later realised that there were more benefits to this than worker contentment: there would be far less bruising and heating of the leaf and the pluckers, being relieved of the weight of leaf, would go like the clappers to refill their baskets! They did not, however, overload again.

     At a rough guess grass ravines comprised 1% of Radella, that is 5 acres, and these ravines cost money because the cooch grass on their edges had to be periodically dug out by hand to prevent incursion into the tea. I proposed, via the Estimates, that these ravines be reclaimed and planted in high yielding VP tea (by then there was no other material used) as production would be increased by about 17,500 lbs. per annum and maintenance costs eliminated. The proposal went through.

     I built a new store/green leaf weighing room in the factory compound across from the front door of the factory, and, I think, had plans drawn up for an extension to the factory ground floor in which may have been included the installation of a new Rotovane - one of the new generation of machines that were being developed to replace tea rollers. Since 1952, in the lofts of factories nylon mesh tats had replaced hessian tats and these, in turn, were soon to be replaced by withering troughs.

     The water for the PD's bungalow came from a spring a hundred yards away. The spring was just below a cart road and was exposed to pollution from road dust, rainwater runoff etc. To improve things I dug back into the bank a couple of yards, following the spring, built a small concrete bund through which ran a 2" galvanised pipe plus a 3" one about ten feet long, as an overflow, concreted in the lot and filled in the bank. The bungalow water supply pipe was attached to the 2" pipe. The overflow pipe was ten feet long so that, should there be any major labour trouble in the future and someone wanted to poison the PD's water supply, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to access the spring. Water for the staff was sourced from an open grass ravine in which the water was clear but the soil red with iron salts due to stagnation. I deepened the drainage drains, put in the tunnels etc., a la Tangakelle, levelled over the ravine and tapped the water underground in a way similar to what I had done for the PD's bungalow. For the workers I found a suitable spring some distance from the lines from which I piped the water to the lines but, as the water was not clean enough for my liking, I built a sand-filter tank between the spring and the lines.

     I had a very good HC. However, at one time the Estimates for the coming year were due, as usual, by a certain date and I was due to go on holidays after this date. Not long before this, my HC advised me that he would not be able to complete the estimates in time for me to approve them and despatch them to Colombo by the due date. I cannot remember what the reason for this was but it was not good enough, so I asked him to take down a letter to GS. In this letter I told GS that the HC was unable to meet the deadline, and asked whether they wished me to postpone my leave. They told me to go as planned and send the estimates in on my return. The poor HC was very upset by the severity of my action - and he may have been justified to a degree. However, that was the only blot on his copy- book and I would not have done anything but commend his work as a whole. On the subject of letters, the PD from whom I took over Radella went to Somerset which was next door(44) and, three months after the change, I received a letter from GS addressed to him, but at Radella! I noticed this when the letter was not making sense to me. Amongst other things it gave him the go-ahead to prune a certain field. I decided that I would have a tongue in cheek go at GS (also a mild rebuke?) but first phoned my friend next door and told him that he could go ahead and prune the particular field and a couple of other things. He could not work out how I knew all this until I told him what had happened. He said he would send his driver over to get the letter but I said, 'No, I am going to send it back to GS telling them that you left Radella three months ago and that you are now on Somerset.' This worried him and he tried to dissuade me; besides, he wanted his letter. Anyway, I sent the letter back to GS stating the above and a couple of days later got a reply, in no way varying from the norm, thanking me for my letter pointing out that Mr. T was on Somerset, and that they had sent it to him!

     The PD's bungalow had three bathrooms, attached to the three bedrooms, but these were at garden level whereas the house was about four feet higher. Hence, in each was a flight of steps from the bedrooms. I remedied this unsafe situation by raising the floors, and everything else with them, to the level of the bedrooms and it was a distinct improvement. Similarly, the entire rear area of the house, comprising the kitchen, storerooms etc. was below the house proper so, the year before I left, I designed alterations for the rear section that also included lifting it to the height of the rest of the house, and included these alterations in the Estimates for the coming year. They went through but I moved before the work could be done.

     In the CTP, PDs were paid Rs 480(45) per month as training fees and expenses during the six months of a creeper's training. It was on Radella that I got my first creeper, as did my friend on Somerset who, with me, went to Colombo to sit on a selection panel comprised of ourselves, the GS Director for the CTP and the CTP Assistant. The selection itself was virtually left to us PDs and I selected someone older than was customary for the CTP because his qualities prevailed over his age. The Company usually took creepers just about straight from school, if not straight from school, because, not having yet got used to city life they could be expected to adapt better to the relative solitude of plantation life. This creeper was twenty-five years old and some of his contemporaries had already been planting for five years or more. This meant that when he left me he would go straight into the lifestyle and attitudes of experienced young planters and I felt it incumbent on me to equip him for this as well as train him as a creeper. The main thing I thought was necessary was that I condition him to late nights and over -indulgence followed by early and punctual starts the next morning. This was all well and good except that to achieve this I had to keep him out late and get up early to spy on him to ensure that he did what was required! He did not let me down and I did not continue my spying after two observations.

     As I was to do with later creepers, and the SDs to come, I gave him my full support, my trust and my friendship but I required a high sense of duty and a high standard of work. I socialised with him but made sure that he knew the difference between work and play. I crammed his head with everything I could think of from CTP traditions and values, to the experiences of others and myself, to the finer points of planting, explaining that at some time in the future when faced with something, hopefully a bulb would light up in his head and bring to mind something helpful from what had gone in during his creeping. He impressed me during his creeping and he even blooded himself when first using a pruning knife! I imparted to him everything I knew. One evening I had gone down to the club early for something and he walked down later. He came up to me at the bar and, although the accepted dress was coat and tie, he was without either. I looked him up and down and asked him where his tie and coat were and ordered him back to the bungalow to get dressed properly. He left me with an excellent report.

     The CTP had some connections in Kerala, India, and had arranged for a PD from a plantation there to visit some of its plantations in Ceylon to see how they were run. Kerala was a 'dry' state.

     This PD came to Radella from Beaumont, a mid-country plantation, on a Friday and left on the Monday for Holyrood. Not only did I give him maximum information relative to tea as grown and manufactured on Radella but, the weekend coming in the middle of his visit, also and insight into the social aspects of planting in a non 'dry' place. I found him, first thing on the Saturday morning, attempting to bring his notes up to date. He was still doing the Beaumont notes whilst jovially bemoaning the hospitality shown him to date by his hosts. One wondered whether the social experience came at the cost of erudition. Be that as it may he enjoyed his stay.

     A friend of mine, and a contemporary more or less, who was VA of a few plantations, told me that he had been offered considerably more VAing and asked me whether, if he got that work, I would take over the VAing that he was doing and I was only too pleased to agree, subject, of course, to approval from the CTP. This came as a big surprise as I had given such a possibility no thought. In the end, he did not get his VAing and I did not get mine.

     Early in 1964, I received a letter from GS conveying a communication from the Board to the effect that Radella's profit for the year 1963 was a remarkable 284 Pounds Sterling per acre, and extending their own and the Board's congratulations. This equated to a profit for the plantation of about 144,000 Pounds Sterling or Rs. 1,728,000 - or about 864 times my monthly pay! Although this was possible only because of the previous PDs whose good work formed the platform from which I had worked, I was, naturally, pleased - it was quite an achievement.

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