with the current as we pushed. Eventually we got it through to the high ground, and when our driver pressed the self starter she fired first go and with lots of rupees passed round and lots of thanks and smiles we drove off!
When we reached the coastal area the scene of devastation was terrible with trees uprooted and coconut palms snapped in half by the force of the hurricane. We arrived at the resthouse where we were due to stay only to find that the huge spreading rain tree (mara) had been blown over right across the building totally destroying it. We were now in a quandry as to where to stay. There was another new hotel that had recently been built there and when we arrived we were at first told it was closed due to the storm and no electricity.But I went in and spoke to the eurasian manager an ex-planter called Cook who had worked under our friend David Perkins. We had a chat and he introduced us to the proprietor Mr Wickremasinghe who was also the owner of the main newspaper chain in Sri Lanka. He very courteously invited us to be his guests with Barbara Sansoni the wife of the High Court Judge. She had built up a thriving business in hand loom textiles in the most beautiful colours and styles and so gave employment to hundreds of poor villagers who otherwise would have been destitute. Also there was a most amusing young artist Lucky Senanayake whose paintings and sketches had a style and craftsmanship which is so rare. He also had a contract for producing the designs for the Sri Lankan stamps. We all had a wonderful time together and Wickremasinghe explained how his press had put all its efforts to bring about a right wing government which had now been in place for two years and already the economy was improving from the socialist chaos of the first Bandaranaike administration. That evening we retired to our rooms facing directly on to the sea. They were full of mosquitos from the storm which we had to spray before we snuggled under our nets. We had brought with us a few bags of delicious mangoes to eat on our journey and I placed them on the window ledge of our verandah facing the sea so as not to encourage ants in the bedroom. In the middle of the night I awoke to a flapping on the verandah to find that they were being devoured by about three large fruit bats. These ancient creatures which travel for about fifty miles in the night had such powers of smell that they could home in and discover my fruit in a verandah immediately overlooking the sea and its clean air!
The next morning we all went walking along the beach to go snorkelling and suddenly Janet pushed me over to one side;
“Watch out Dad you were about to step on a snake barefoot”
Sure enough curled up exhausted on the beach was an Indian Krait about 18” long. They are extremely rare being mainly nocturnal and are banded black and white. He had obviously been swept down stream in the floods and then had been washed ashore half dead. But he was still alive and probably still full of venom which contains both a neurotoxin as well as a haemotoxin. I picked up the poor creature with a stick and carefully placed him in some undergrowth out of the sun under a tree to recover from his traumatic experience. After all it must be quite a tough life being a snake especially when you have been caught in a hurricane and washed out to sea, and then you do need some love and kindness!
When we left we took Barbara Sansoni to a friend upcountry at Haputale and we then journeyed back to Colombo through the lush low country heat of Ratnapura .
Back in England after completing her course at St James, Janet was lucky to get a job at Sothebys. As I had predicted they were only interested in her secretarial skills and also the fact that she was fluent in French. But at least it was an opening and a chance and the value of her degree would come later as she developed her career. In April she called in at Vougue to see her friend who was busy and heard two other girls discussing the merits of this wonderful chap Paul Gleeson that they had met and one of the girls Belinda was dying to find out his address and have another introduction.
“ It is not the boy from Witney in Oxfordshire is it she asked” It was confirmed that in fact that was the one and Janet promised to give him a ring and see what she could do. She phoned , they met again for dinner, discovered that he was now a commodity broker, and it was love all over again after a gap of about 5 years since they had lost touch, when he had gone to Australia, and she had gone to France and Nottingham University. I was very pleased for her to have a friend again in London, and I remembered him out of the many admirers as being particularly charming and well spoken in that quiet Irish way.
One weekend in April she was down at Stoneways and she said to me that she wanted to move in with him at his flat. I replied that doing so would be an extremely foolish thing to do without any commitment on his part, as he would be getting all the advantages and she could be left any time in the lurch. It was quite one thing to have him visit you in your own place, and quite another to share a home. She then asked me what I thought of him as a husband especially being Irish and coming from staunch Catholic family. I laughingly replied that as a family we were already a polyglot of at least half a dozen European types. There were up until now no Irish but a Celtic strain could only be beneficial to the future blood of family as the Irish are all incurable romantics! As for the Catholic religious viewpoint, well half our family was Catholic, and I and all the rest were baptized Catholic and although brought up C of E we have all got on and been tolerant of each others faith. She said nothing and Jill advised her to think carefully and make her own decision. Paul was a very gregarious and charming personality, a great sportsman ex rugby player and golf enthusiast. He was not an intellectual and he loved the pub, his chums and the whole social life of the city, and I advised Janet that were she to marry him she must comes to terms with that sort of lifestyle and never try to cramp or change him. The decision must be hers alone as after all she was going to have to live with him and once made if she was really in love with him, she would have to stick by it .
The very next week she was back, this time with him and she proudly showed us her engagement ring that she had been given the day before! We were all absolutely delighted, and more so when we were later charmed by his mother and father who was a retired doctor at Minster Lovell. We found them truly delightful, very Irish with that quiet and rather chaotic, grace living in a most beautiful Cotswold stone home in a picture postcard village. Sheila his mother had those stunningly attractive looks that so many of the Irish have, and was always immaculately dressed in Jaeger styles, whilst Joe his Father always looked polished in an old world elegance. Both were strict Catholics and one could immediately see that Sheila, elegant, frail and charming as she was on the surface, below she had a moral stance of steel through which she had raised her four sons within a firm religious framework, and above all with a very close family bonding. They both obviously adored Janet I think in a way because of her more unconventional and colonial background, where she seemed a flavour more European rather than purely English.
Preparations were made for the wedding to take place in six months time at the beginning of November at our home. Because it was autumn, we had a marquee set up on our hard Badmington court, where we all gathered after the wedding ceremony in St Mary’s Catholic church in Horsham. The party was terrific with about 80 guests about half Irish and the others ex-colonials. In the corner of the tent was a large table around which all the old folk sat, mostly the grandparents and aunts from Ireland together with Ma, Aunt Nancy and Mother. She was enjoying every minute as she had been particularly close to Janet and wanted to savour every minute of the happy occasion. Imagine her surprise when with all the champagne flowing like water and the speeches all over and the party in full swing old Mrs. O’Neil leant over to her and said out of the blue “And one day Northern Ireland will be ours!”

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Janet & Paul's Wedding 3rd of November 1979.

Mother, Sheila & Joe Gleeson.