chap 5
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
Over the next three years a start was made in each category. By sheer hard work, and reading agricultural books, the yield soon started to rise. Secondly he was able to acquire from a Tamil for the company 150acres of very poor tea on steep, dry quartzy soil at a lower and hotter elevation , to create the new Napalbokka Division of Luckyland. Thirdly he approached Hugh Gordon about coming in with him on the proposed new estate, and he agreed, and Fred Whittall also agreed to lend him the money for his share at the usurious rate for those days of 8%. Another bonus also came with the offer from the Comte de Luppe to overlook the nearby Downside Estate about which more will be said later.
So after a shaky and a rough beginning financially, slowly things began to improve. In October their first son was born and named after Hugh Gordon. Mother now was over the first six months gradually getting to grips with her situation. First she had to learn Tamil to be able to communicate with the servants both inside and outside the house. She was a quick learner but like most people occasionally there were absolute howlers, with calamatous but amusing consequences.
For example one afternoon she asked the boy to “bring the bath to the bedroom”. In those days there was no running water, and hotwater was heated in an oilbarrel with firewood and carried in to fill freestanding bath. She waited quietly in the morning room for him to call her when it was ready, when she suddenly heard a terrific noise of horses hooves and clatterring harness. She rose and went into the passage just in time to see the harnessed horse being led into the bedroom.
She inquired what on earth was he doing and then she eventually realised the mistake she had made. Instead of using the word “coothilee” for a bath, she had by mistake used the word “ Coothiree” for a horse. The simple estateTamils could never understand the extraordinary wants of the English anyway. “If Lady wants a horse in the bedroom, it’s none of our business, she can have it all arnessed and ready to go! ”
Another day not long after they arrived it was decided that they would have as a special treat , a roast chicken for Sunday lunch, so at the beginning of the week whilst they were working out menus, she told the cook. A few days later, Father told her that he had an unexpected guest coming on Sunday for lunch and she had better check on the size of the chicken to see if it were large enough. She went out to the kitchen at the back of the bungalow and asked the cook the same question , and he immediately rushed out with a mammoty (Digging Hoe) and started digging away in the vegetable garden. She followed him curiously to ask what he was doing and he replied,
“ Lady wanted to see the chicken, and I am getting it for you”.
“But why have you buried it?” she inquired.
“ Old Master (Fred Whittall) always had his chickens buried for at least five days before, so as to make them tender and tastier”.
Catering in the out stations was always a tricky business , particularly in the days before the first refrigerators came out. At places at High Elevation with the cooler air the problem was less acute, but in the low country with temperatures in the 90’s food deteriorated quickly. Each week a boy would be sent to the nearest town with a large tuck box and a shopping list for beef, whisky, HP or Worcester sauce and various groceries. In the Low Country the beef would be eaten hot roast the first day, thereafter one day cold, and then it would be reheated and soused in sauce to disguise the flavour as it rapidly went off.
At Luckyland there was no need for quite such drastic action, but the same regime of a weekly beefbox continued up to more or less the present day. In 1926 Father purchased what in those days was unheard of a “Frigidaire” refrigerator which ran off paraffin and it was still in use some 40 years later, testimony to the solid engineering of an early model created before ideas such as “built in obsolescence” became the vogue!
Mother found to start with the constant even temperature of 70 F and used to long for an English winter, although during the rainy North East Monsoon, the house would get penetratingly cold and damp, and fires would be lit in the sitting room to give cheer and warm the place up. In April and May ( the hot season) she would slip into her swimsuit and run up and down the lawn in the rain when there was a big midday thunderstorm. She was very secretive about this, and never told Father who she feared was ratheer prim in these matters!
About six months after they had been at Luckyland, she laid out on the bed some pairs of shorts and long socks.
“Look what I have bought for you to wear round the Estate. You will find them far cooler for walking around instead of your long cotton trousers. It is becoming the fashion and you will be far more comfortable!”
“Do you honestly think that I can go around the Estate like that showing off my knees. What would the coolies think? They would burst out laughing at me!”
Eventually after a long argument she was at long last able to persuade him that the dress was quite seemly and soon everyone would be the same when working on the Estates.
But dress codes were very severe. It was not until 1932 that after a stormy meeting at Dickson’s Corner Club, it became possible to wear white shorts for the annual tennis meet. In the evening most elderly planters from the pre war days would change into evening dress for dinner, even when by themselves. The interwar generation compromised with a dark blue blazer and tie. Of course on the ships going back and forth to England evening dress was mandatory until the last night on board, when rules were relaxed.
In early 1922, two years after Hugh was born, Mother had a welcome visit from her Mother, who came out to see just where she was living and the sort of life that she was leading.At the same time that she was there her sister Helen and her husband Frank the architect, had also decided to come out to Ceylon and wanted to stay at Luckyland and “creep” with Father. He had not been progressing well in the large firm that employed him in London and both felt that the opportunities and good life of Ceylon would be preferable to the drudge of working in England. The company of Helen was pleasant, but Frank was very difficult as he was one of those men who after half an hours training, reckoned he was more expert than the expert! Tensions arose with Father who took a dislike to Frank, who in a minor way started to cause discord in the house ,which from very small beginnings at first , would sadly and steadily increase and cause a severe strain on the marriage.
