increasing time just talking to each in turn to moderate their racialist tone and not be plain idiotic. During the wet weather everyone was so busy working that there was not much time for anything else. But once the hot dry winds started to blow month after month and everyone’s nerves got on edge, the agitators began to have a field day. The Tamils had mostly joined a trade union called the Ceylon Workers Congress or CWC under the leadership of a young Mr Thondaman and they now started to have a grudge against our field conductor Mr Taylor a Eurasian born of English and Sinhalese parents, who had a pretty Sinhalese wife and five children of all different colour shades like Mendels sweet peas! Taylor of course was fluent in Sinhalese, and he had a good rapport with the villagers, about two hundred of whom worked on the estate, and was a kind man and very efficient at his job. But when people have been whipped up, and work is slack and the incessant wind causes tempers to fray, all common sense is lost and the Estate Tamils felt that he was biased in favour of the Sinhalese. One day in late August we were pruning on the lower slopes of our Pussella Division. I took Taylor along with me in mid morning on the back of my 350 cc Velocette motor bike and parked on a slope of the hill to discuss the work with him. The gang of about a dozen men were just about to stop for their morning tea break as we were about to leave. I started up the machine and Taylor got on the pillion as I slowly drove off up the steep road. There was then a loud shout in Tamil:
“Come for Tea” and on this the pruners all rushed at us with their knives, swiping hard on Taylor’s elbow with a large hooked pruning knive. I could not drive away to escape due to the steep incline, and so in a flash jumped off the bike and threw it over at the men, who sprang back startled. At that instant we both leapt down into a ravine tumbling down as we fell, and we then picked ourselves up and ran down into the paddy fields below and to a sleepy village where all came to give help. Taylor’s arm had an 8” slash down it and the force was so severe that it had sliced away a part of the bone from the elbow. I left him in the village and ran back to the bungalow, got the car and then drove for an hour to Badulla Hospital where he was stitched up by the excellent doctors there. It had been a quite terrifying experience to have someone as close by, slashed on ones pillion, and I never quite knew whether I would have been next. Somehow I doubted it, but when racial tensions and emotions are running high, and the weather is irritating, one could never be totally sure. When we finally returned to the factory at about five o’clock there was a vast crowd of Sinhalese now baying for the blood of the Tamils shouting the same slogans that Rajaratne had whipped into their heads. In the meantime the 400 Tamil workers together with their children and old folk had left their homes to seek shelter at Luckyland and other nearby Estates. It was an unprecedented experience on any estate to have ones labour all leave in such a fashion. I was very apprehensive of Jill and the children being in such an isolated spot at the time of racial tensions and so the next day I drove her and the twins down to Colombo and left her safely in the Mount Lavinia Hotel by the sea . Whilst in Colombo I reported to George Steuarts and also contacted the Ceylon Planters Society which was our National Union who in turn contacted Thondaman and three days later we all turned up for a meeting at the Welimada Resthouse. I sat completely silent while Thondaman and our representative outlined their respective positions each stating their case forcibly and then arguing points with each other. Then suddenly my blood seemed to come to a sudden boil, and I turned onto Thondaman and said:
“ Look I have no objection to you having a union on our Estate. But our place is a family business and has been a place of contentment for the past 35 years from the time my Father started it up from small beginnings. If I want and were so inclined I could shut your dammed Union down tomorrow and furthermore I will if they go on being so crassly stupid as to antagonise the local population. What you can do in Dimbula or Dickoya in the big tea districts you just cannot do here where we are , just a small island in a sea of Sinhalese villagers. It is my job, and it should be yours too if you have any sense at all, to not be party to whipping up tensions in which everyone is a loser, your Tamils particularly”.
I sat down and was expecting a torrent of anti-European / Colonialist abuse, but instead there was silence for a few moments and then he shouted to the waiter:
“ Boy bring us drinks and bring Mr Charnaud a double whisky!” and turning to me he said:
“ Do you know that you are the very first British planter to have ever spoken to me as roughly and as straight as that. Everyone else I deal with has a fear of me, and I despise them for it and they in turn curse me behind my back. But you are the first person who has no fear at all of me, and I respect you for it and we will drink to you in friendship. I am sure that we can sort this all out quickly to bring sense and reason into a good peaceful accommodation”.
With that gallant gesture, out of a confronation between two strong men each knowing and respecting the others strengths, in the space of half an hour an amicable arrangement was set in motion over a couple of rounds of drinks, and the Tamils all returned peacefully with no further racial agitation. At the end of the week I was able to return to Colombo and collect Jill and the twins from the palm fringed beach and rolling Indian Ocean breakers. It was interesting to note the twins differing approach to the sea, and to underlying fear in general at that young age of 16 months. Janet absolutely adored being held by one of us in the salt water as we bounced up and down waist high in the water in the surf. But Peter was absolutely petrified by the sea. He clung like a limpet with his arms around a coconut tree, body taut with fear, and nothing either of us could do would persuade him to go anywhere near that fearful sea at that time. A couple of months later we had a Elephant working for us on the estate, and again he was very fearful and nothing would induce him to ride it with Mr Ponnamulam the Teamaker, although again Janet was not the least bit worried.
