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Geoff Middleton had fallen seriously ill and was to be sent to England for treatment, rest and recuperation. I was therefore appointed Acting Superintendent of Alton in 1961. Peter Easteal a reputed Planter who was on Gouravilla overlooked the “rookie” Acting Superintendent. Peter and his wife Marjorie Read More
I was on my first posting as a PD in 1963 on Mincing Lane, Upcot between Fairlawn, Eddie Jayawardene and Alton, Geoff Middleton..............although during part of that period Ian “Guna” Gardner was acting on Alton and we became good friends as I did with Eddie on Fairlawn. Chris Bean was on Stockholm and we had already established our friendship through Rugby. Read More
Imboolpittia Estate, Nawalapitiya was owned by a sterling company and managed by Ms Backwoods Estates & Agencies Limited in the late 1915 and Mr Leslie Dunuwille took over the property from Sidney Hall, an Englishman. Thus Mr.Dunuwille became the first Sri Lankan to manage Imboolpittia Estate. Read More
Derek Samarasingha made an outstanding contribution to our country as a pioneer Sri Lankan tea planter, shareholding director of John Keells Ltd., a leading estate management company and later as the CEO/Managing Director of two privatised plantation companies. Those Sri Lankans who worked with him gained from him invaluable knowledge and experience. Read More
MARK Bracegirdle was born in London on September 10, 1912. On Boxing Day 15 years later, he and his younger brother and their artistic mother, Ina, a suffragette and divorcee, arrived in Sydney, their move to Australia having been sponsored by the Salvation Army Migration Scheme. Read More
The Bracegirdle Incident is the true story of how an Australian communist labour agitator almost brought down the British colonial government in Ceylon in 1936. Unknown in Australia, the case of Mark Anthony Lyster Bracegirdle became a cause celebre in Ceylon’s independence struggle, and his name remains revered among the Left in Sri Lanka today. The son of an artistic English blue stocking, Bracegirdle arrived in Australia in 1927. Read More
As the working people of Sri Lanka prepare to celebrate another May Day to defend our hard-won freedom, it behoves us to go back 74 years, to May Day 1937 which was a crucial one in the struggle of Sri Lanka for independence from the British Empire. Read More
In 1936, Mark Bracegirdle, who has died of a stroke aged 86, arrived in Ceylon from Australia, and for seven months worked on the Relugas estate, Madulkelle, as an apprentice tea planter. The workforce was Indian Tamil; their hours were long, their wages low, their living conditions shocking - and they were illiterate. Read More
