Life at St. Anthony’s, Kandy

When I came to St. Anthony’s for the admission test, I knew only three complete English sentences: My name is J. Wickramaratne; My father is R. Wickramaratne; We live in Udispattuwa. The English test was a disaster. The questions on the board were in flowing letters. At the village school in the foothills of the Knuckles Range, I had been taught only to use block letters. I asked the supervisor what the first question was. “Write 10 sentences about the dog” he explained in Sinhala. I only knew that “balla” meant dog and had no option but to give a blank paper. Probably because I had done well in Sinhala and Arithmetic, I was selected.

I will remember St. Anthony’s as the school that taught me English. The first few months were really difficult, but I survived. We boarders were quite vocal at cricket matches and joined the seniors in cheering. “Krishna bowler” the cheer-leader would shout and we would all follow with “Thrash the bowler”. Who this Krishna was, I could not figure out. It took me two cricket seasons to realise that the cheer-leader was shouting “He’s no bowler”. Almost 50 years later, at the OBA dinner to mark the College’s 150th anniversary, I was sitting with Jayantha Udukumbura, my classmate and friend from lower school, and was happy to learn that he too had a similar difficulty with the same Krishna. Udda of course went on to captain the college team, while I opted to cheer him from the boundary lines.

I soon picked up grammar and pronunciation. We had little choice, for on boarders’ day one chap would recite the best “sixers” of the year at the assembly and we would not want to be quoted.

Learning English at the feet of Father Robinson in Upper School was a rich experience. He took us – along with Jim Hawkings, the one-legged Long John Silver, Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey and others – aboard the “Hispaniola” to the Treasure Island singing the famous pirates’ song, “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest ……Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest … …Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” What drama, what fun and what a lot we learnt!

Life as a boarder was never dull. But, honestly, I cannot talk good of the food. On weekends, I and Kithsiri Weerasuriya (Kiththa is a senior lawyer at Attanagalle courts) would spend hours gazing from the grounds at the College entrance for our parents to emerge, bringing eats, “feeds” as we called them. On most days, we would be disappointed.

I had the fortune of being in College in the Rosati era. When Father Rosati passed away, it was as if we had lost a close elderly relative. Father Leo (later Bishop Leo) was in charge of the Rainbow Cottages and I had the privilege, along with 125 others, of being caned by him on the day the College Hall was opened. His family joined the Rainbians at dinner and we reacted to laughter from the head table with a “hoot” as he was just coming in. He was furious and caned us all.

Another important thing that I learnt at St. Anthony’s was to respect the cultures of others. I had Sinhalese, Tamils, Burghers, Chettis, Muslims and even a German, Helmut, as fellows. It was a rich multi-cultural setting from which we all benefitted.

Years later, I was on the SACK staff for a short stint. It was nice to be on the staff along with those who had taught you- Messrs. Mendis, Weerasinghe, B.L. Fernando, Willie Fernando, Rajendran, Angelo Peris to name a few, not forgetting Mr. Brown – and his beautiful daughter, Drusilla, who was a good friend. You don’t want me to give their nicknames, or do you?

Source: http://www.antonian.org.au/ (From SACKOBA Centenary, the centennial publication of the Old Boys’ Association, St. Anthony’s College, Kandy.)