MY BROTHER HUGH Born 5th October 1920 died 9th May 2006
Soon after I arrived there was Labour Trouble with Communists setting up Trade Unions etc. With Percy Will’s support I was first very firm with them so they knew who was boss, but soon I realised that the ringleaders were a bunch of highly intelligent men who needed promotion and encouragement. Once they were promoted and given more responsible jobs, and they all saw that I was no easy pushover , there was no further trouble.
One of my friends was John Benest…..commonly known as ‘Beesnest’. One evening he was over at my bungalow on Balagalla and we had spent a long time having a beer and then supper when we started talking about snakes:
“What would you say Beesnest if I told you that you should never ever be fearful of a snake providing you do not bother or antagonise it in any way. To prove my point what would you say if I told you that there is a snake asleep under the cushion of the very chair that you have been sitting on all evening?”
“All I would say to you Hugh” he retorted, “ that if there was one under my cushion, I would never ever step my foot in your bungalow again!”.
“Well stand up and look and pull out the cushion”
This he did and there was a small mapilla, a pretty marked but thin snake, fast asleep still under his cushion……..He stormed out of the bungalow, but we remained good friends, but the incident obviously was etched in his memory as he recounted the story some 15 years later to my brother Mike!
3.THE WAR
Whilst on Glen Alpin I enlisted as with so many of my contemporaries in the CPRC (Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps) . I did a lot of my basic training nearby at Diyatalawa close to Bandarawela the next town about a hour away. But after Pearl Harbour in December 1941 the Japanese swept through Malaya and a telegram arrived to say that I was now fully mobilised, and shortly after I was back in Barracks permanently that were infested with thousands of bed bugs! In those days DDT had not yet arrived so we would spend Sundays trying to catch as many as possible and spread and washed Jeyes fluid everywhere to make their life difficult. Anyway for three months we were marched and drilled and had life made as uncomfortable as possible before being finally sent down to Hambantota in the most southern point of the Island for Jungle training. Our Billet was by the huge Salt pans close to the fishing village and the heat at around 95F and humidity was unbelievable as the area is dry with low scrub bush for the most part. But here I came into my own, as this was the country I loved and could use the bush craft that I knew so well. We spread out from our base far and wide into and through the jungle surrounding, practising how to make things as unpleasant as possible for any Jap Invader. The Army was short of everything, including food, motorbikes and above all quinine. I used my own motor bike until more army ones arrived, and would go into the jungle and get some bush meat to supplement our diet. A bit later we got bren gun carriers and I managed to become one of the crew and learnt how to maintain and use tracked vehicles, and how to travel across country along elephant tracks in dense forest. I also managed to get malaria and as there was a shortage of quinine, there was no question of being fully cured. I would take a dose in the early morning and often was on parade with a temperature of 102F…….I lost over a stone in weight and was only saved by the arrival of an Australian Division and we were pulled out.