told us that a couple of years before they had a visit from one of the main board directors from London, a titled gentleman who was making his first visit out East.
In his honour they had killed a large cockerel to give him a really tasty meal, quite unlike the force fed broilers of today. During the course of the splendid dinner the subject came round to snakes, and he confessed how absolutely terrified he was of them. He asked if there were many around, and Fred said, like we all do, that they were a very rare occurrence and it was not often one saw them. Anyway in due course they went to bed
and shortly after, they heard the most awful screams from his bedroom. They and the servants all rushed in to see what was the matter.
“I’ve been bitten by a snake when I got into bed. First my foot felt this cold thing, and then I got bitten and my foot is covered in blood”. There was a terrible scene the man was shaking with fear, so Fred said he went up and pulled the bedclothes back sharply and there in the bottom of the bed was his pet mongoose. It had discovered the cockerel’s head which had been thrown out on the rubbish heap, and brought it inside through the open window to eat in a safe place. Now mongooses always like a secluded place to hide away, and he had found a nice cosy bed, the cover turned back invitingly, with a hot water bottle airing it, and so he had crawled in with its trophy to chew it quietly. Suddenly when all was quiet and peaceful, a man comes with his big foot and tries to push it away, so he did what any self respecting mongoose would do: he bit it!
Everyone then had a good laugh, but the director was still extremely nervous and was not all amused!.
On Ury Estate on the Balagalla division was a bungalow that had been owned by a chap who was the last great elephant hunter. There was no one living there at the time as it was locked up and left in Fred’s charge. This character had elephant artefacts all over the house. Elephant legs as stools, trunks as standard lamps, elephant heads protruding out of the walls. The whole scene was completely and utterly nauseating, except for the feeling of wonder how Europeans could have been so grotesquely cruel, and furthermore to make such a spectacle of it. It was this house and person that was the inspiration for John Standish’s novel “Elephant Walk”.So ended our honeymoon and we drove back through Badulla to the Uva Club where in future we would have many a riotous party, to the quiet calm of Hugoland Estate and the start of married life.
