Memory Lane Days in Celyon Unabridged version In 1937, Isabella Hagger of Melbourn embarked on a sea voyage to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to visit her husband Cyril who was working for the Admiralty, constructing oil storage tanks. Isa (as she preferred to be called) kept a detailed journal of her out-going journey and of the seven months she spent in Ceylon. This journey was at a time when few ventured out of the country to see the world. On her return Isa was asked to give a talk about her experiences to the Congregational Church Women’s Group. Below is an abridged version of this interesting story which she wrote 80 years ago. The little launch landed us at Colombo and the Grand Oriental Hotel is just beside the landing stage. It is a huge modern hotel, and its big fan cooled lounges and airy bedrooms, each with a tiled bathroom adjoining, seemed so comfortable after over three weeks in my small cabin. We entertained some of my friends from the ship to lunch at the hotel and took them for a drive and then we saw them aboard again. We went on to the Galle Face and I saw the Rajputana sail away like a huge illuminated hotel and I was happy to be at my journey’s end and reunited with my husband. The Colombo shops were a revelation to me. Whenever one enters a native shop, a fan is switched on, and cigarettes and cool drinks are immediately offered. These shops are so interesting with their large stocks of silks, curios and jewels that I found it very hard to tear myself away. They also do a great amount of ladies’ dressmaking and are very skilful. Whenever a dress is shown to the native tailor he shakes his head in a funny little way which means yes and says “Can do lady can do”. He needs no paper pattern but can make a dress from a sketch or from description. The natives who manage and serve in these shops are educated and can speak English fairly well. They are never in a hurry and are quite pleased to show their stock. It is no exaggeration to say that they would turn out their entire stock to please a European. They wear ordinary trousers and shirts, but no collar and tie but the strange part about their dress is that they never wear their shirt inside their trousers but it flaps about outside. At first I thought that they had just forgotten to tuck it in, but I soon realised that it was just one more of their strange customs, and I became quite used to it before I left. One important appointment I had to make at Colombo was with a native dentist called Dr. Christoffeleze. He was a big burly man who had trained at Edinburgh. I was quite scared of him at first, and of all the other funny boys who ran around his waiting rooms, and I dare not go into his surgery alone, but www.melbourncambridge.co.uk
l found him a speedy and efficient dentist and within 24 hours he had made a new and comfortable denture for me, which helped me to forget ‘the tragedy of the Red Sea’. Colombo is a fine town with many beautiful buildings and wide streets, and with its harbour and huge shipping trade as well as being the capital of Ceylon it is always a busy town. I rode all around the native Quarter in a rickshaw but like most Europeans I could not enjoy it as I felt so sorry for the rickshaw cooly pulling me in that intense heat. On Wednesday Nov 3rd about 11 a.m. we set off by car for our journey to Trincomalee which is about 180 miles from Colombo. The first surprise to me was that on leaving the town behind, I expected to find a broad straight road on which we could quickly get along. This was not so. The first 70 or 80 miles of the road is mainly lined by little native villages, and boutiques or native shops. The natives stroll lazily all over the narrow roads and this makes progress very slow indeed. The bright clothes they wear all add to the beauty of the scene. Besides this, bullock carts amble leisurely along, dogs in large numbers sleep on the roads and great herds of the leanest cows you could possibly imagine are grazing at its side and often strolling into the road at frequent intervals, too. Black goats, brown goats, white goats, big goats and little kids are to be seen and as I told Mrs. Davis in one of my letters to her I thought of her every day of my stay in Ceylon because I never went out but I met large herds of her friends!! (Mrs Davis, the Congregational Church Minister’s wife, kept goats) I wish I could describe the beauty of this run, to you, as we progressed along our way. Great palm trees stand up straight and tall into the skyline, the flaming flower of the forest tree, with its brilliant orange blooms and the tulip tree, beautifully shaped and covered with red, pink and white tulip-like flowers, all add colour to the lovely country. Great boulders of rock lie heaped at the foot of a verdant mountain side, while a waterfall splashes down. If any of you have seen an illustrated Old Testament with the bright colours and the rocks and trees depicted in the pictures I think that will give as good idea as anything, of these lovely scenes. On our journey we stopped for cool drinks at several Rest Houses. These are run by the Ceylon Rest House Committee for the help and convenience of travellers and on their shady verandas which are usually hung with plants and ferns, one is glad to get out of the glare of sun and rest for a little. The Rest House keeper is always a native and they salaam and give each visitor a welcome. At last we reached the jungle road and began the 70 miles ride through a dense jungle with only a narrow cutting for melbournmagazine@gmail.com
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cars. For miles and miles there is not a native, or a hut to be seen and my first ride along this road seemed very weird to me. We met many monkeys, snakes, civet cats, jackals, and wild buffalo which all ran back into the jungle at the sound of the car. On arriving at Trincomalee and our bungalow the boys, who really behave like very young children, were terribly excited about my arrival. They gave me a good reception and had dinner ready for us and I soon settled down for my stay there. It is quite impossible in Ceylon to lead the active life we lead at home. At first I used to try to do all sorts of things in the bungalow but I found it was quite hopeless to try to work in the heat and to keep well. It was a novel and exciting experience for me to run a bungalow in Ceylon with the native boys and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It calls for plenty of tact and patience and it is useless to attempt to adopt home methods. The first thing one has to fight against is insects of all kinds. There are mosquitoes, literally in hundreds, eye flies, which can be very troublesome, scorpions, snakes, and blind bats and many more brutes. I have often seen 5 bats in my bedroom and it is quite a joy to creep under the mosquitonet at bedtime, and to be safe for a few hours. I think however ants are the biggest pest in the bungalow. Every cupboard has to stand in water to keep the ants from eating the contents, if one leaves a tin of sweets or biscuits for a few minutes they are in it in swarms. They make huge trails all over the floors and ceilings and one morning I was very annoyed to wake up and find a trail had started in my bedroom window across the floor up my bed post and I was literally covered with them. The second thing is dirt. No matter how clean and efficient the boys are and although they will keep the bungalow well polished and dusted, they leave the kitchen and their own quarters in a filthy condition, unless they are made to clean these rooms every day. They are born and brought up in poor dirty little huts, with mud floors and therefore they cannot understand that dirt breeds germs, and that cleaning in the kitchen is essential. I was told it was wise not to visit the kitchen too much or I would not be able to eat well and really that is very true. Our cook was fairly clean but even he had fixed ideas about things. I went into the kitchen one day and found him with a fish on the dirty floor and holding it down with his bare foot and happily filleting it for lunch! I remonstrated with him and he replied “But, lady you not understand, very nice, very clean now washing in medicine”. This ‘medicine’ is a weak solution of permanganate of potash in which nearly everything is washed in the hope that it will kill the germs. A lady in Colombo told me of her cook. She had always admired the shape of his rissoles and determined to find out how he made them. One day knowing she had ordered some for lunch she went into the kitchen to see them made. There was cook with the rissoles lying on the table and to obtain this marvellous shape he picked each up in turn, and popped it under his arms and shaped it – thus. The same lady had some friends to lunch unexpectedly, and as the joint was almost finished and meat is so difficult to procure, cook www.melbourncambridge.co.uk
said he would make rissoles. He brought them to the table at lunchtime and offered them to the ladies who took one each. He then went to the first gentleman guest and as he was talking to his hostess he unthinkingly helped himself to two rissoles. As quick as a flash cook snatched back one rissole from the plate with his hand and put it back on the dish saying “No master no can do. One master one rissole”. Each bungalow has a cook, a house boy and a small boy for odd jobs who is called a podian and most people also have a personal servant. The routine seems to be the same in all cases. Immediately after breakfast the cook sees the lady of the house about food for the day and it is usually not what one would like, but what can be procured that influences the menu most. Having received his orders and his marketing money, Cook then goes to market on his bicycle, looking clean and smart in a white jacket and white shirt and a long white sarong and always carrying an umbrella under his arm. He returns after a very long time having bought the vegetables and fruit etc. and certainly having enjoyed a lengthy chat with his pals. It is quite generally known that every cook retails stories of the household in which he is employed, daily, at the market. He then shows the lady of the house his purchases and it is well to be on the lookout, as nearly all the cooks are bent on money making out of the marketing. Jacko, our cook always bought fish daily as this is easily obtained at Trinco. It is rather strange fish, because the temperature of the sea is generally about 80 degrees. If a chicken is wanted the cook brings it home alive and in ten minutes it is in the oven. Do you wonder that most people in the East learn to look upon chicken on the menu as a necessary evil? They are very cheap, very thin, very tough, and quite tasteless. The cook in the bungalow will only cook and serve at table and each of the boys will only do their own special jobs, which really makes things rather difficult at times. Their methods are most strange and so different from ours. The first time my bedroom was turned out, I was horrified to find everything had been taken out of my room and bucket after bucket of water thrown on the floor. The boys never use a rag to rub brasso on to anything they are cleaning, but put a generous supply on their hands and vigorously rub the brass. To polish a floor they apply polish in the same way, then twisting a duster round their bare feet they slip up and down the floor and obtain a brilliant polish in this way. The podian’s job is an unenviable one. He is at the beck and call of the other boys, and has to help the cook and often pull the punkah for him in the kitchen. Work certainly does not come first with the natives of Ceylon. It is quite usual to see a group of natives sit contentedly for hours and hours just talking and dozing and without an apparent care in the world. The women are very little seen and as their poor little huts are quite without furniture or any of the things we are so proud to have in our homes, they have only food to prepare. Every day and for every meal the menu is the same – curry and rice. I was told that the three favourite curries are vegetable, fish and meat curry. I asked Jacko all about these native curries one day and he told me that it was melbournmagazine@gmail.com
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only on Sunday that they had meat curry and that for himself and his wife and 3 boys their food cost 12 cents or 2D a day. It is a disgrace for a Ceylonese woman to do any washing so even the poorest send their washing to the dhobi. Just when the day was getting a little cooler I often saw a group of women and girls sitting on the door steps of their huts, in a circle and a favourite occupation is examining each other’s heads for livestock!! You can imagine them doing this little job for each other and with many smiles and great satisfaction if the “catch” was a good one. The women of Ceylon have a very hard life and we women ought all to be thankful we live in a Christian country. They are married off at the early age of 15 to a man usually considerably older than themselves and whom they have probably never seen. Instead of a honeymoon as we know it the husband and wife are shut up together for four days after the ceremony. The bridegroom’s father keeps the couple for a year and often they never have a home of their own but just live in the same hut as their people. The poor little bride seems just to have one baby after another until at the age of about 25, she looks old and haggard and then the husband looks for a new wife while the first one has all her jewels taken from her nose, ears and fingers leaving great repulsive holes and she just sits about for the rest of her life. The women are never allowed out walking, or to any of the local functions, and they are not treated as companions by their husbands. It is pitiful to see them at their hut doors gazing in wonder at a white woman and no doubt envying her freedom. The natives are all very kind to their children and the little black babies attracted me very much. As I went for my early morning walk I used to smile to lots of them playing on the side of the road. Sometimes one would be bold enough to give me a big smile, showing lovely white teeth. They do not remain shy for many years and almost as soon as they can walk, the begging instinct, which seems to be born in them, asserts itself, and they salaam and beg from every European who passes by. I attended the little Missionary chapel under very trying conditions. Can you picture a tin building with funny cane seats and a very old harmonium and a whole crowd of natives who were so pleased to see a European that they sat all around us and as close to us as possible. With a temperature well over 90 degrees it was not a very enjoyable experience. The mosquitoes too seemed to breed in the chapel and I have sometimes come out after an hour’s service with about 30 bites each as big as a half crown. Birds and blind bats fly in and out the open windows and the inevitable ants are as busy as usual. Mrs. Smith, the missionary’s wife, asked me to go to their Women’s meeting but I only went once although I was most interested in it, as the women were so amused to see me there, that they just burst into peels of laughter every time they looked at me, and so Mrs. Smith agreed that it was better for me to stay away, as I seemed to be such a disturbing influence!! We had a very simple life for the most part at Trinco. Our www.melbourncambridge.co.uk
main hobbies were bathing, sailing and motoring. We bathed most days in a delightful little bay called Sandy Cove and under very different conditions from those at home. The water is so warm and the danger is not of cold but to keep ones head wet to avoid sun stroke. It was marvellous to step into this lovely blue sea and to feel a wave splash over one’s body, just like a warm shower. The inner harbour is ideal for sailing and we spent many a delightful hour in the little sailing boat cooling down after a gruelling hot day. We were often out at sunset and what a wonderful sight the sun made, as it sank so quickly, but leaving a many hued sky, and the whole was again reflected in the water making a truly remarkable and lovely picture. I had many strange experiences but I think the one I found most frightening was the following. My husband and I went for the day to Polonnaruwa by car taking our boy John with us to cook our food. It is a ruined city about 85 miles from Trinco, through the jungle. Only a narrow cutting is made for cars and a very beautiful ride it is. All the time I spent in Ceylon, and especially when I first arrived, people delighted to tell me of the danger of meeting wild elephants on the jungle roads and for the first few weeks I was naturally rather nervous when driving through the jungle. However, as time went on, and we never saw a wild elephant, I became quite accustomed to the jungle and rarely gave the dangers a thought. This particular evening we were coming along just before dark, when in a small clearing I saw a big wild elephant, with its trunk curled up and its big mouth wide open and I said to my husband “Drive quickly a wild elephant”, when just at that moment it trumpeted at us and made us both jump. It is the most awful noise and quite indescribable. It made no attempt to chase us and we just kept on our way but I felt horribly nervous. My husband kept reassuring me and telling me that later on I would be so pleased I had seen one and how well it would sound in my women’s meeting paper !! and after about 20 miles of the road I began to feel quite calm again. Just then I glanced at my side and their standing quite still with its trunk hanging down was another one much bigger than the first. It was so near to us that it could easily have touched the car with its trunk, but it did not move. This time our boy John said to me “Lady, John a little fright” and I felt very “fright” as we could hear crashings and strange noises in the jungle. We were still 1 1/2 hours journey from Trinco. A herd of wild elephants is composed of from 5 to 50 and we knew from various signs that it must be a fairly big herd. I sat very quietly by my husband’s side and hoped that we would not be attacked and I was very relieved to reach the bungalow in safety. My friends at Trinco told me how fortunate I was to have seen a wild elephant at such close quarters, but I can assure you at the time I felt most unfortunate and unhappy. I feel I ought to mention the conditions under which Mr. Hagger works in Ceylon. As some of you may know he is building 75 oil tanks for the admiralty. The site of the job is at Chennanwadi 9 miles from Trinco and is so different from any in England that it is of interest. The tanks are really built in the melbournmagazine@gmail.com
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jungle with only a clearing for each tank and then the under growth and trees are allowed to grow again and form a natural camouflage. My husband has only one English assistant and forty native overseers and 1,000 native workmen. The entire office work is done by an educated staff of native clerks and the head book keeper and casher is a wonderful old man of 74 called Summugan who worked for Mr. Hagger during his previous time in Ceylon. He is a Hindu and therefore believes that no man can get to Heaven unless he has a son to light his funeral fire and he is very grieved because we have only two daughters. He is remarkably cleaver man and as such he speaks English fluently besides 5 other languages, he is a very valuable servant. I tried to go to Chennanwadi every Friday when the men were paid and as they filed through the office to receive their pay (taking 2 hours to do so) it gave me a chance to study the different types. It is impossible to deal with them in detail as there are so many and all different casts, some were young boys who heat the rivets and only wear a tiny little loin cloth, some older men who wore sarongs of all colours and descriptions and some very superior natives who had managed to buy khaki shorts. The thing they like best of all is a bath towel which they wrap around their head or neck to protect them from the fierce sun. An umbrella is a really treasured possession and they are clever enough to be able to fasten it around their necks and so hammer away on the tanks under its shade. The tanks are made of steel and become so hot in the sun that their poor feet get quite blistered. They carry little bowls for their curry and rice and they have to bring this and their umbrella into the office when they are paid or they would get stolen. There is a clean and well-appointed hospital with a certificated apothecary on the job for the men, but so strange is their religion that they hate to go to it, as they say it is the wrong shape and that their god’s don’t like it and instead they waste their money on a native doctor who has all manner of absurd cures. Every day someone is hurt on the job, as they are quite unskilled in the use of tools and every day there was some evidence of the queer native cures. The native doctor will paint huge black rings round the patient’s eyes to keep the devils away and so cure the patient, or he will prop a poor dying man at a hut door, while devil dancers painted and in vivid colours and wearing hideous masks dance for hours to frighten off the evil spirits. The men who work at Chennanwadi nearly all live at Trinco and they travel by train all cooped up in it like cattle. I learned to know quite a number of the men by name and such queer names they have too; Arnolda, Tellinayam, Nagameny, Nadarafa and Domenicus, and many more much more unpronounceable than these. I was very fortunate as I travelled nearly all over the island during my stay and at Easter we went to Newara Eliya for a week’s holiday. It is 7000ft above sea level and cool enough to be able to enjoy wearing a coat. It is called the Sanatorium of Ceylon and most people have to have a holiday there to
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escape from the high temperatures of the plains, for a little time. The scenery is so lovely that it is beyond my powers of description, the mist capped hills and sunlit valleys and dancing waterfalls make the visitor gasp in wonder at so much loveliness. It is here that the tea is grown on the hillsides and I was most interested to see over a tea estate and factory. The tea bush which grows like our gooseberry bush is plucked into huge baskets hung on the cooly’s back and carted by bullock carts to the factory, where the process of tea making is quite simple. The green leaves are spread on canvas dryers to shrivel and dry and then all piled on the cement floor to ferment. The quality of the tea depends on the time it is allowed to ferment, and that is the only skilled process in the manufacture of tea. It is then dried in huge ovens and rolled and sifted and is put into wood boxes ready for export. As we left the factory we were able to buy any quantity for 4D a lb. Before I finish I must tell you a little about John our personal boy. He was a Southern Indian about 19 years old and quite the happiest natured native I met during the 7 months I spent in Ceylon. He would do anything to please me and kept my rooms supplied with the most lovely flowers and when I remonstrated with him thinking he must have robbed someone’s garden for them he would say “not pinching lady, taking”. In his anxiety to please he often made funny mistakes. One day when Jacko was off duty John made a fresh fruit salad for us. When he served us at lunch time I saw at once that it was a most alarming and vivid shade of yellow. “What has happened to the fruit salad John” I asked. “I making it plenty pretty for lady” he said “I taking some of lady’s cake stuff from the bottle and putting a lot in the fruit salad very nice, very pretty”. John was very sad when I left and all the time he helped me to pack he shed many tears and often asked if I would not take him to England with me. I told him it would be much too cold in England for him in his white sarong and so he said “Take me Lady, I buying black trousers”. I then tried to explain that he would not get any curry and rice and to this he still replied “Take me lady I eating English food”. So finally I told him that my bungalow in England was much too small to have a native boy and so he smiled and said “Oh well, lady, one day one master will say to me ‘John come to England’ and then I walk all over England and find my Lady”. I found such devotion bringing a tear to my own eye. Cyril Hagger is part of a long established Melbourn Hagger family. James Hagger a saddler came to Melbourn around 1790. His son Joseph Ellis Hagger inherited the family business from his grandfather in 1824. J. E. Hagger and Son – described as Collar & Harness Maker, Dealer in Oil, Cutlery, Ironmongery, Rope, Hemp – continued trading until 1930. The shop was situated at what is now the Post Office in the High Street. Isa was born in Scotland and met Cyril when he was there on a business trip to Scotland. They married in 1919 and had two daughters, Morag and Sheina. In 1924 the family moved to The Maples, in Orchard Road in Melbourn.
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