Birth centenary of Capt. A.G. Samarasinghe, SLN

The 100th birth anniversary of Captain A.G. Samarasinghe, former Judge Advocate and Legal Advisor to the Sri Lanka Navy fell earlier this year and I am happy to write this memorial of my friend Sam who died prematurely at age 60 in February 1982.

Sam was a steadfast friend who was a keen outdoors-man and a fisherman. In his younger days, he accompanied like-minded friends, one of whom I knew was Ivan Samarawickrema (Malik S’s father), on shooting trips to the jungles of the time, now sadly depleted.

Sam and a few other close friends of Ms. Diana Captain who had a long career at the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, retiring as its longest serving local employee, were regulars at the gracious home of Mrs. Dhun Captain, Diana’s mother,joined with whom she lived. This was a large bungalow with a sprawling garden adjacent to the Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills which Diana’s father long headed. Although the mill belonged to the Maharajah of Gwalior, most workers there thought it was Mr. Captain’s.

Diana’s friends, and there was a multitude of them, as well as members of the now vastly reduced Parsi community in Colombo, were frequent visitors to ‘Rivington’ which originally belonged to the mill and was later purchased by Diana’s brother, Sohli, for his mother. These visitors and the warmth and camaraderie generated added vastly to the quality of the life of the widowed Mrs. Captain.

Among the regulars at this beautifully kept home with its manicured garden, were Sam and Bertha Samarasinghe, Lennie and Bridget Amarasekera who retired from a senior public service position and joined Ceylon Tobacco as its special projects manager, Basil and Lila Rodrigo, and Hope and Kaly Todd. Basil worked at the Customs and retired to take a senior position in the Oman Police (the Customs was part of the Police there) while Hope, originally in the Irrigation Dept., later served the Tourist Board and headed Borwood, the government’s Boron treated rubber wood project.

Their children loved visiting Aunty Diana and Aunty Captain. as they called Diana’s mother, in a home where the hospitality was legendary. They all regarded Diana as their own second mother.

Sam used to be often ribbed by Lennie who said that the former was a regular at the Attorney General’s department and no legal matter in the Navy was handled by its judge advocate without the AG’s advice!

I knew of Sam’s hunting interest of the past but in the years I closely associated with him, he was a keen angler who was a regular at the Colombo breakwater. Just as Lennie used to tease him about his visits to the AG’s department, the rest of us laughed at him saying he never caught a fish.

Ironically, on the day of his passing, when he drove home, slowly as usual in his old Peugeot 203, from the Colombo breakwater and lay on his bed feeling very ill, he told Bertha, “There’s a fish in the dickey. Give it to Diana. She always says I never catch anything.”

It was only after Sam died that I knew he as a schoolboy had been the Company Sergeant Major of the Ceylon Cadet Battalion in 1940. That together with his interest in rifle shooting, experience in the Ceylon Navy Volunteer Naval Reserve (CRNVR) probably attracted him to join the regular Navy after qualifying as a lawyer in 1951.

Sam went to three well known schools, STC, Mt. Lavinia (1927-36), St. Patrick’s Jaffna (1937) and St. Peter’s, Colombo (1937-41) where he was head prefect and won colours for rifle shooting, rugby football and athletics. He switched from medicine to law, having been at the Colombo Medical College for a spell and granted leave to enlist in the CRNVR. He overstayed the year’s leave allowed and was not readmitted.

Sam retired as a Captain, then the third most senior rank in the pre-war Navy when the Commander was the only flag rank officer, and was accorded a funeral with naval honours. He had told his son, Raminal, to give his unused cap when he reached the rank of Commander to Tisara Samarasinghe, later Commander of the SLN, who had topped his batch as a cadet at Dartmouth, when he reached the rank of Commander.

Manik de Silva