the sea. As he did this the rats rushed out of their holes and hiding places and followed him over the road and over the edge of the sea wall where they tumbled into the sea and drowned. She was never ever troubled again! It is an amazing story and the whole family used to repeatably retell the story and marvel how it was done, and how it compared with the ancient story of the pied piper.
As he grew up into his late teens it was a great worry to the family as to what he could do. Opportunities in the British Concession in Smyrna were meagre, but then there was a fortunate stroke of luck. Alfred had been very friendly with the Whittall family, in Smyrna. They were phenomenally wealthy traders with branches of the family scattered throughout the Levant and also the Far East. One of the branch had in the mid nineteenth century gone to Ceylon and started a trading house which to this day bears their name. Fred Whittall a relation had also gone to work in Colombo but did not like it, and instead went tea planting upcountry as he was keen on growing things and preferred the better climate.
He returned back to Turkey in 1907 on leave and went to see his old friend Alfred who told him of the problem facing his son.
“ He is a good lad, very studious and hard working, an excellent shot and I am sure you could find something for him out there to get his teeth into”
“ Well as it happens” said Fred Whittall”, I have a problem which may well work out right to our mutual advantage. I will train him in tea planting , and help him find a job on the one condition that when I retire in 10 years time, he will come and manage the new Estate of Luckyland that I am opening up. If he is agreeable and gives me that solemn undertaking then I will help him to the best of my ability”
Father jumped at the opportunity. At last there was an opening to a wider world and he had an entree which whatever happened would lead him to new experiences and a
technical training, and the rest would be luck and his unstoppable energy and ambition. He also told me that as a boy he was acutely self conscious of the tragedy of his father losing his fortune, and the penny pinching which followed, all the harder when the family originally had wealth and position. He was determined to rectify and restore the family fortunes. So it was on a bitterly cold day in the first week of February 1908 still only 17 years of age, that he boarded a ship at Smyrna, bound for Alexandria, from where he could connect with a Bibby Line boat for Ceylon.
As he left home the family bade him farewell, and Alfred gave him £5 for his travelling expenses and starting him off. He tucked himself well into his great coat against the biting wind, and Elise kissed him and also asked to post a letter to a friend which he promptly put in his great coat pocket and forgot. Once the ship was on its way, he never looked at his coat again until 1914 when he came home that winter to join up. He then found the old letter from his Mother which he opened, to see that she had written to say how glad she was that he was at last going away, as he was getting on her nerves and also was getting too fresh with the young Greek maid, and if he had not been leaving , no doubt she would soon be pregnant!
LIFE IN CEYLON
Father eventually arrived in Colombo in March 1908 when he was almost 18 years old. The contrast of Colombo with its heat,the glaring sun, humidity and thriving bustle was in complete contrast to sleepy Smyrna. After the debacle and the wiping out in the 1880’s of coffee due to a fungal blight, there was a tremendous upsurge in replacing the blighted area with tea. The other crops such as coconut mainly grown for its oil, and the new emerging rubber plantations , had given the island now with 2 million inhabitants an unbelievable prosperity. Colombo with it position astride the main shipping routes to Australasia and the Far East, was primarily a refuelling port and was reckoned to be the second busiest port in the world after London.The climate was in complete contrast to the stark dry summers of the Mediterranean which also had winters, and a floral spring that carpeted the hillsides with flowers. Instead here were palms, brilliant yellow cassias, scarlet flamboyants, and a whole host of other flowering trees. The walls and sidewalks were clothed in bouganvilleas of every colour and ginger lilies of every description thrived in the hot, sticky clammy heat. Almost every day in the ensuing few months, there would be sharp thunderstorms, drenching the land with rain, followed in turn by brilliant sunshine, so that the hothouse environment completely dominated ones life out there. After paying his respects at Whittalls Agency Head Office in the the Fort District of Colombo, he took the train upcountry through the steamy low country of palms and rubber trees, into the great open vistas of the tea country. The single track railway itself was a marvel of engineering hacking its way through precipitouis granite mountains, with a sheer determination of tunnels, terraces, bridges all blasted out by hand with gunpowder and dynamite. Eventually some 8 hours after leaving Colombo the main line train stopped at Nanoya station, from where he changed onto a minor narrow gauge which took him to the hill station of Nuwara Eliya 6,500 ft above sea level and cool like a European country. After spending a night at the Grand Hotel, in the cool he took the liitle train down towards Ragalla which was the end of the line, where he was met by Fred Whittall on horseback. They welcomed each other, and walked on for about 1/2 mile towards Ragalla Bungalow where they were due to have lunch. As they rounded a corner they were met by a horse and trap and two very smartly dressed young men in velvet coats and cravats looking very raffish as they drove swiftly by.
The smartness of the scene took Father completely by surprise. After a day and a half’s travel from the hot city of Colombo, to the outback of the hill country, the last thing he expected to see were such elegantly dressed men. He turned to Fred Whittall and said, “ They seem verfy smartly dressed for the outback upcountry. Who are they?”. Fred pulled up his horse and turned to him sternly, “ They are your next door neighbours, the brothers Charlie and Hubert Patterson, on Allagolla. Let me make one thing quite plain, if I ever catch you having anything whatsoever to do with them, it will mean the sack instantly. They are the most wild and disreputable rascals in the district, constantly drunk and constantly causing a commotion. The Superintendant of Police and Mayor has banned them from ever setting foot in Nuwara Eliya any more, and as I said a similar ban applies to you from having any dealings with them”.
And so they proceeded on to Ragalla for lunch, and over the years the Pattersons became very close friends as will become clearer later. After lunch they rode through the beautiful district of Udapussellawa through to Gampaha Estate where Fred was planting, with his new Estate of Luckyland adjoining. Udapussellawa is one of the finest tea growing areas of Ceylon and is situated on the North Eastern side of the main range at an elevation of about 4,000ft to 5,000 ft for the most part giving it a cool climate rarely exceeding 75 F. in the shade at mid-day and dropping to rarely less than 50F at night. It has stunningly breathtaking views over the wild low country jungle below the cascading hills which drop away sharply from the main tea areas.
