We stayed at Brede near Hastings for a few months, and put the children to a small local school under the gentle eye of Miss Greely, and just enjoyed the soft English spring and then summer, and the beautiful Sussex countryside. Mother no longer had her lovely house at Buxted. She had sold it in 1961 and rented a very spacious ,three bedroomed flat at Holland Park in Lansdowne Road which she viewed as a return to her childhood, and adolescent haunts. We would go up periodically and visit her often staying a few nights to show the children the usual sights of London. One day in early August whilst in her flat, I picked up a copy of the “Daily Telegraph” and noticed a small one inch item on the front page to the effect that a Mr Illangaratne had been appointed Minister of Finance in Sri Lanka as it was now called. Without any more ado I turned to Mother and my Jill and said:
“This is the end of Ceylon as we know it. He is a fanatical communist and it is only a matter of time before we lose everything. I am now 32 years old full of energy and the children need to start school immediately. If we go back we will be locked into a hopeless situation and each year will be worse, as one gets older, one has less energy for a major change.” Also I was due a bonus of £2,000 which if it was held back and paid as a pension /gratuity it would be taxed at a much lower rate. I rose walked over to Mother’s writing desk, took out her typewriter and wrote to George Steuart’s with my resignation, giving them 6 months notice.
Mother and Jill were appalled at the very idea of throwing up one of the best jobs in the island to return to nothing. But I had made up my mind, and I was adamant, and I wrote to Father and told him what I was doing and said that I would come out in a couple of weeks to spend a month with him in Turkey and quietly explain my reasoning. Also I telephoned my great friend David Hart who was also on leave, and told him of my decision, and he replied: “Well if you think it is time to go, so will I.” and we agreed that we would quit and return together in six months. Jill found a nice little chalet bungalow not far from her Mother’s near Basingstoke. It was clean, and modern, but had little insulation and she was to have a cold winter all alone with the three children. The children had to be found prep schools, and our first choice at Shinfield south of Reading was disastrous when I took Peter all smartly dressed up for an interview with the headmaster. I waited outside the study expecting the chat to be a mere formality, but the headmaster came out, and deeply regretted that he could not be accepted, as he completely refused to talk at all. I was very upset, and when we got back to the car I asked him the reason for his silence and he replied: “I just did not like him!”. So instead they went to Coombe Hill at Basingstoke, where Peter and Janet were both very happy. The autumn of 1963 in early September was bitterly cold, and before leaving I took Jill down Oxford Street to Fenwicks and Swan and Edgars to buy her a smart tweed coat and skirt, and a thick autumn toned heavy winter coat. Then on the 10th of September 1963 I boarded my first jet airliner, the new Comet 2 which after the petrol engined planes was unbelievably quiet. I headed for Istanbul and then changed planes for Izmir to meet Father and discuss my reasons for wanting to leave Ceylon, and also to meet the rest of the family of whom I had heard so much about, and could only have the vaguest childhood memories. Father lived in a small compound in one of two bungalows at Karsiyaka, on the the opposite side of the bay from the city of Izmir, formerly Smyrna. The bungalows had been owned by his two sisters Lucy Mainetti and Lilian Aliotti. Lucy had died some years previously, but Lilian was still in hers, pottering around and always fiddling in her chaotic garden in a muddled way which gave her great enjoyment. She too was now a widow, her husband Booby Aliotti having died from a heart attack one morning whilst walking round his dried fruit factory in Rhodes. The domestic arrangements for both houses were controlled in a militaristic manner by the family Greek cook “Grammatiki”. She was a tiny grey haired woman in her sixties who had grown up with the family all her life. She was totally illiterate, and completely dedicated to her sole life of cooking wonderfully complicated greek dishes, and looking after both the households and speaking her mind in the most forceful manner. She would prepare the meals and lay them out on the large table on the open terrace and then watch over us with folded arms, to see that we had really enjoyed the meal, and if not she would want to know why. She hardly ever ventured to the local shops which were only a few hundred yards away, and barely spoke any Turkish. Instead would purchase whatever was required from itinerant vendors who would regularly pass by with a donkey cart laden with vegetables, fruit, meat fish or whatever. Father and her were continually rowing, as both were strong adamant characters, and both spoke their minds frankly. But invariably she would win the argument because she would have Lilian on her side to back her up. Lilian was one of those rare people blessed by common-sense, kindness and a great religious piety. During the war, whilst in Rhodes she had rescued a downed RAF pilot and hid him in the loft, and upper rooms of the house for over a year until the island was liberated again. In gratitude the Pilot who was an artist, painted a plate with our family ‘coat of arms’ and it hangs on the wall in our study as I write this account. In the summer of each year she would be joined by Booby’s first cousin Pierrino Aliotti from Rome. He too was a softly spoken kind and very intelligent man who loved a good game of chess and we would both spend many an hour playing together under the cool shade of the the large pepperina tree that stood between the two houses. Lilian never had any children. For years before the war she had been mistress to Booby and only at the start of the war did she get married and regularise the relationship. Sadly once they both wed, and were living together permanently, they started quarelling and the last years before his sudden death were fraught with continuous bickering. At Karsiyaka, Lilian was a Mother to 16 or so stray cats which she fed daily and they in turn would stretch themselves out over every available branch and on top of walls and any available ledge. Each was given the name of a prominent politician. So the strong Tom was Mussolini, a fat one was Kruschev, the big black tom was Tshombe after the Conglese leader and so on. Also regular visitors to the house were Lucy’s two sons, Roget very often twice or thrice a week, and Fred when he was in town. Roget who had been orphaned when he was 14 years old in 1944, had now built up an enormous stake in heavy industrial trucks in partnership with another Italian who had the BP garage franchise.
As soon as I arrived there was a big family gathering with Roget, Fred and Lilian and Pierrino all present. I explained my reasons and said that Ceylon was now inevitably set on the path to outright communism, as the whole culture of the people and the press was moving that way. Our business was doomed, and the only thing that we could do at this stage was to start up another family profit centre in England whilst I was still young and full of energy. Roget immediately agreed with me:
“Michael is absolutely right, get what you can and get out. Sell your stake in Hugoland to the Governor General Sir Oliver Goonetileke, for even £25,000 if he pays you in London”. But Father who had such a love of the soil, and the time patience and effort that had gone into the creation of Hugoland could not contemplate the thought of losing his life’s work. Lilian then piped up:
“ Fred anybody who comes from East of the Dardenelles is not to be trusted. They are all cruel heartless and also very irrational people. Look at what the Turks have done this past year to their very own Prime Minister Demerel. Poor chap he survived a plane crash in England and a year later the was ousted in a coup and condemned to death and hung by the military junta for embezzlement they said. These people underneath their Western suits and facades are all savages!”
