MY BROTHER HUGH Born 5th October 1920 died 9th May 2006
Tamils from south India, Hindus by religion who were without exception most kind and courteous and treated Father and us all like Rajahs or Kings of Old. There were Sinhalese also in the villages below who too were Buddhist, very dignified and most kind, although they tended to be more aloof and more self contained in themselves My Father Fred Charnaud OBE (Military) was 30 years old when I was born. He was from a good family that had fallen on hard times and as a result he had no formal schooling apart from reading and help by the local Anglican Priest in Smyrna. He had an introduction to Ceylon and he arrived to learn tea-planting more or less on the date of his 18th birthday in March 1908. The Island fascinated him in every way, and his enthusiasm for the fauna, for shooting and the outdoor life was passed on to me. He taught me about plants, animals the characters of the local people, but above all he had a very strict code of ethics, of right and wrong that had seen him well through all the horrors of the First World War with his time in the trenches in France and later in Salonika in Greece. Father was an expert horseman, in fact he used to “break in” horses as a hobby for the army, a crack shot and a good all round sportsman, except for the fact that he absolutely loathed walking any distance. He had a horse called “Mary” and I was in the saddle when I could barely walk and so have been used to horses ever since. At age of six I was given my first Daisy Air Rifle and soon managed to shoot myself in the eyebrow. Father was furious and smashed the gun before my eyes, but 3 months later gave me another more powerful one that I would shoot bulbuls that ate our plums, and the cook would carefully pluck and grill for me. He was a very gregarious individual, he loved company, had a very quick and sharp brain, played a lot of bridge, and he worked hard building up his tea-planting career. He adored me and though I failed him miserably academically, his love of the outdoor life and fauna impressed itself on me from the earliest age and has remained constant to my dying day. Father was also intensely ambitious, having started with nothing, and he believed absolutely in the development of ones character. Either a person was a ‘doer’ or a slob. Everyone was judged, my self included, for their strength of character and for their variety of interests constantly. In our household one could never loll, we had at least half a dozen servants, but although they did the mundane household chores, all that meant we had more time for our own interests and pursuits which we were encouraged to partake. Life was made for living and enjoying and gaining a lot of different experiences, and always being different to the other guy in what one could do.
When I was 8 I was sent to Haddon Hill School in Nuwara Eliya. It was a cold draughty place 6,500 ft high . I got run down as the food was poor and I came home having awful nightmares of the place.
But in 1930 when just 10 years old I came with Mother to England and was sent to a Preparatory School called Temple Grove, near Eastbourne in Sussex. It was run by a Mr Waterfield and his sons, one of whom had been on Gampaha Estate, next door to us on Luckyland and who was very keen on making Horoscopes which intrigued Mother. I was very happy at Temple Grove as the Waterfield family were all characters, religious, but fair and strict and yet human. At the time I did not really appreciate their virtues, as I spent most of my time tending my hedgehogs, baby jackdaws etc or worrying where some particular bird had a nest. As I was small in stature but strong and wiry and very proud, I was constantly involved in scraps, because if one did not fight pretty well, I soon realised that one was treated like a doormat.
There were three of us who formed a gang: Smith Minor who was the son of an Indian Policeman, Graham who went onto Eton and myself.
