Baurs’ coconut properties, early married life and Ceylon in the 40’s and 50’s

Excerpted from the authorized biography of Thilo Hoffmann by Douglas. B. Ranasinghe

(Continued from last week)

Mr Jobin (the Swiss superintendent) devoted most of his working life to Palugaswewa Estate and the people of the area. He established a fibre mill, produced large quantities of coconut shell charcoal, grew rice and introduced sheep rearing. The estate’s large herd of Mura water buffaloes yielded milk, curd and other products. Many thousands of selected coconut seedlings were raised and sold. Palugaswewa was the model of a modern and profitable coconut property, with much of the profits being ploughed back, until the takeover by the government.

Thilo and Mae often spent weekends here with the Jobins. ‘The property was then on the edge of the vast extent of dry zone jungle which stretched away northward and inland. He recalls the hot evenings when the hosts and guests would sit on the screened-in veranda of the Superintendent’s bungalow. Seasonally in the nearby large mara trees thousands of cicadas would fill the air with their peculiar ‘music’, coming in waves so loud that one could not hear oneself and conversation was almost impossible. A myriad fireflies illuminated the dark night. Packs of jackals would roam the area, and at night their wild howling was heard far and near. There were crocodiles in the surrounding tanks. Of course, there were mosquitoes.

Herds of elephants would move through the estate regularly, and often cause heavy damage especially to young palms and in new or replanted sections of it. The famous Deduru Oya herd, with its mystical connection to the Munesswaram temple, had its home range in the vicinity. This was until the herd was decimated in an attempt to trans-locate it to the Wilpattu National Park in the late 1960s, combined with the first immobilization experiments in Sri Lanka.

Thilo believes that the project was ill-conceived, and that the Wildlife Department organized it at the suggestion of a foreign wildlife movie-maker, who obtained dramatic footage. Sometime later several of the translocated animals returned to their home range, a distance of nearly 100 km.

In 1953 Baurs bought the mostly undeveloped Polontalawa Estate, at Kadigawa on the Deduru Oya some miles inland. This provided both Xavier and Thilo with many opportunities for wilderness adventures. It was here that Thilo’s friend Geoffrey Bawa with Ulrik Plesner later built a unique bungalow complex, its various units fitting among a group of large rocks and boulders with jungle trees between.

One Saturday evening in the 1950s Shirley Corea, the MP for Chilaw threw a party at the Sports Club grounds in the town. The Jobins and Thilo were invited. There was a large crowd, which included Bernard Soysa and Colvin R. de Silva.

Thilo was introduced to Colvin, and soon a friendly discussion took place between them about the merits of State ownership. Colvin asked him why he would not join and manage for the State a fertilizer business like Baurs, on terms and conditions equal to or better than those prevailing in the private sector. Thilo replied: “Because I would not be allowed to run it according to my best knowledge and ability; there would always be people to interfere.”

De Silva was apparently not convinced as, decades later, he used the same reasoning in connection with the State take-over of all agricultural lands of over 50 acres in extent (Land Reform), as the Minister in charge. Thilo recalls that a proprietary planter who thought he would play an important role in the scheme greeted the suggestion with enthusiasm only to find himself disillusioned in no time.

In later years Thilo tried to establish some new crop plants in Sri Lanka. Most successful was the macadamia nut. With difficulty he obtained a few dozen seeds from abroad and had them raised at the four up-country estates owned by Baurs. Then nationalisation intervened. Some years later the new Superintendent of Clarendon Estate sent him sample nuts from the first few harvests, and they were of good quality.

A fairly large trial was carried out with Hibiscus sabdariffa, the dried calyx of which is extensively used in herbal tea mixtures. Several hundredweights of it were exported. Thilo also experimented with soil-less culture and with minor element deficiencies.

MARRIAGE

After his early sojourn in the hill country, young Thilo Hoffmann returned to Colombo and lived in a bungalow belonging to Baurs named ‘Suramma’ at No. 14 Bagatelle Road. It had a large garden with a swimming pool, and in front stood a balsa tree, the ultra-light timber of which had been in great demand during the recent war for the construction of fighter planes. It was run as a chummery by young bachelors employed by Baurs. For one month in rotation each resident would be responsible for the household, supervise the servants and the kitchen, and do the marketing, as well as watch over the expenditure and income. This was a useful exercise for most of them.

At this time Thilo bought his first car, an MG TC, a brand new sports two-seater with a folding hood, bearing registration number CY 1406. He describes it as “hot and sticky” during rain but otherwise a joy to drive.

In late 1947 his fiancee, Mae Klauenbosch, came over from Switzerland. In England she boarded the Empire Brent, a converted passenger ship. She was in an inner cabin with 14 wives of European residents in India who came out to rejoin their husbands after the war. On the return trip to the UK these ships repatriated British soldiers. They were packed with people in both directions. Still, she enjoyed the voyage. Thilo recounts:

“At that time executives were not allowed to marry during the first contract of four years. I somehow managed to break this rule, which did not further endear me to the CEO. In the presence of a small crowd of friends and colleagues we were married by a registrar at the Grand Oriental Hotel.

“The ‘GOH’ then had a Swiss manager and a Swiss chef, and was much larger than today, comprising the entire building, now owned by the Bank of Ceylon. It was known all over the world because the Colombo port was a transit point for thousands of passengers travelling to and from Australia and ports in South East and East Asia. The ships had to stop here for bunkering, and they sailed on strict schedules. Almost all passengers came ashore and frequented the hotel.

“As was then the custom Mae stayed for about ten days, between arrival and wedding, with the family of the CEO of Baurs, who thus acted as substitute for her parents. She was introduced to the basic matters of life in Ceylon such as shopping and handling of servants.

“The newlyweds’ home was a small flat in Baurs building, which stood by the seashore in the Colombo Fort area, at Upper Chatham Street.”

Thilo was given one week off for the honeymoon. Their first stop was Kandy. In the evening they visited the Temple of the Tooth Relic and watched the puja. The next day they drove to Nuwara Eliya via Padiyapelella and Maturata. He recalls the railway line which connected Ragala via Nuwara Eliya to Nanu Oya, as they had to criss-cross its bumpy track between Brookside and Nuwara Eliya a number of times in their hard-sprung MG, an annoying experience. This railway, which today would have been a major tourist attraction, was removed a few years later.

They spent a day or two at Welimada, and then drove home via Bandarawela – Haputale – Koslanda – Wellawaya, with one night at the resthouse in Hambantota. This was then a small, romantic fishing town on the jungle-clad blue bay, with a population of mainly Malays and Burghers. The large ‘forest’ of palmyra palms on the dunes to the west was a special attraction of the place and a protection for it. It is now replaced by Casuarina trees, “alien and ugly” as Thilo says, planted by the Forest Department.

The couple returned home from their brief honeymoon to a room which had only a few pieces of furniture, by a then leading designer Terry Jonklaas. They had to unpack a new mattress and bed linen from Mae’s trunk before they were able to lie down for the night.

LIFE IN CEYLON

Colombo was then a beautiful and clean town, with numerous large gardens and trees. For instance, the Galle Road was entirely residential. Colombo was called the “Garden City” and Ceylon the “Switzerland of the East”. Since then, great changes have not only affected the rural areas of Sri Lanka, as noted often in this book, but, of course, the ever-growing towns, particularly the capital city.

The air was clean, and a myriad stars were visible in the night sky above the city.

Today a permanent haze blots out all but the most prominent of them. Vision throughout the country has become very restricted, with strong haze a normal feature. No longer is it possible to regularly see the southern sea coast from the Haputale area or Adam’s Peak from Colombo city. During his time in Sri Lanka Thilo could observe in the best viewing conditions three “fabulous” comets, namely Ikeya-Seki, Bennett and Kohoutek, a total eclipse of the sun and several of the moon.

There was no air conditioning in those days. Office papers on the desk got stuck to sweaty forearms. During the greatest heat in April and May the Hoffmanns used to drag their large double bed onto the open veranda and sleep in relative coolness under the stars or the moonlit sky. Thilo recalls:

“Our flat was on the fifth floor of Baur’s building. Lying on our stomachs looking over the edge of the veranda 50 feet above Flagstaff Street we used to watch in fascination the seasonal mass migration of butterflies, said to end at Sri Pada. From the ground up to our level millions of butterflies would flutter and fly northward for hours and days, rather like a cloud of large snowflakes. This happened at regular intervals for years, but later the migrations became fewer and the number of butterflies decreased greatly. I have not seen a real migration here for many years now.”

The crows of the whole area roosted at night in Crow Island off Mattakkuliya and their numbers were thus limited. This site is now no more. Today, as Thilo remarks, the population of crows in Colombo has increased out of all proportion, nesting and roosting all over the town, an unfailing indication of unsanitary conditions. They are now a pest and a menace to all other birds.

The Colombo Fort was the business and administrative centre of the country. All the big shops were there, too. There were impressive government buildings, many of which have, in the meantime, been demolished after falling into disrepair and decay. Only a few have been restored. From Baurs building, which stands at a prime location in the Fort, one had a fine view along the west coast as far as Mount Lavinia; this was blocked when the Hotel Intercontinental was built in the 1970s.

There was a wide space at Echelon Square, where now the country’s tallest buildings stand. Gordon Gardens was a public park, the breakwater a recreation area. All roads and buildings were well maintained. Thilo also notes:

“For a long time the tallest structure on the island was the Ceylinco Building at Queen’s Street (now Janadhipathi Mawatha). It was initiated by Senator Justin Kotelawala, who added a helicopter pad to set the height record. The plans for the building were purchased in the USA. But the local builders misread them and it stands with its back to the front. In 1996 it was severely damaged by the devastating LTTE bomb attack on the nearby Central Bank (which I witnessed and which also damaged Baur’s building). Some years later it was reconstructed and the original error corrected to some extent.

The Pettah was an attractive place with hundreds of shops, clean and well-organized roads, the old buildings pretty and colourful with country tiles on the roofs. Now, says Thilo, it is a mixture of mostly tasteless new buildings, and stalls on the pavements.

The city was also run differently, as he observes:

“Unlike today Colombo was subdivided politically and administratively into wards each of which had an elected member in the Municipal Council. The ward member was known to his voters and held personally responsible for the proper functioning of all amenities. Complaints were promptly looked into and rectified in a system far superior to the present anonymity.”

“There were no traffic jams anywhere in the country. Most people found driving a pleasure, even during the hottest season, as it was customary to have trees on both sides of all main roads. Driving on a trunk road in any direction from Colombo was like passing through a tunnel of massive rain trees (pare mara). Today, continues Thilo, only parts of Bauddhaloka Mawata (then Buller’s Road) and a few others in Colombo give an impression of how it was then throughout the country.”

There were tramways. One ran from the Fort through Pettah and Grandpas to Totalanga (just south of the Victoria Bridge) and another to Borella. Mae Hoffmann regularly used the first for shopping at the Pettah market, the fare being five cents one way.

The rupee, of course, had much greater value then. It was worth 1.30 Swiss francs; today one Swiss franc is worth well over 100 rupees. Thilo recalls:

“I had my haircut for one rupee plus a ten cent tip at the Lord Nelson Saloon on Chatham Street, which is still there. The cheapest local cigarette (‘Driving Girl’) cost 40 cents for a tin of 50, and an egg one cent.During the war as metals of all kinds were used to make arms none could be spared for coins, which were replaced by paper money, and even years after the war there were still small banknotes of 25 and 50 cent denominations.”

(To be continued)