Stories about great men and others

W. A. Silva’s genius deprived him of sleep

It was a Sunday evening, when an elderly member of the club, recalled the life and times of the illustrious principal of Mahinda, F. L. Woodward. Frank Lee Woodward was born on 14 April 1871 at Saham in Norfolk. His father was Rev. W. Woodward, an Anglican clergyman.

Young F. L. Woodward, a man who lived plainly and dressed plainly, passed out of Cambridge University with a BA Second Class. “I thought I would get a First Class”, he would quip to his students at Mahinda years later, “but I consoled myself with the thought that all the first-class men I knew, got a Second Class! He later received his Master’s degree from the same University.On the very first day (1st August 1903) he arrived in Galle, he umpired at a cricket match, illustrating his love of sport.

Like his Sinhala contemporary Anagarika Dharmapala, he decried the use of foreign names by the Ceylonese, asking the doting parents why they could not give their sons and daughters beautiful Sinhala names like Somasiri, Amarapala, Punyasoma, Anulawathie, Piyaseeli, Punyawathie and so on. Unofficially, he used to call himself by the Sinhala version of his name “Vanapala”.

Sir Robert Chalmers, the Governor of Ceylon, was a close friend of his, the bond between them being that they were both Pali scholars of no mean ability. Another dear friend of Woodward was Sir Ponnambalam, Arunachalam, and quite often he would spend school holidays at Sir Ponnambalam’s estate at Waga. The famous philanthropist Henry Woodward Amarasuriya was given his middle name by Amarasuriya pere, an ardent admirer of F. L. Woodward.

Woodward spent his last years in retirement at Tasmania. He named his house there as “Bathkewa”. He also had an impish sense of humour. One day when a young lady from the Salvation Army walked into his office and declared “Sir! I have brought you God’s message”. Then Woodward gravely replied “If you have any message for Him, my dear, you couldn’t do better than give it to me to deliver, for the chances are that I shall be seeing him before you!”

Once he was seriously ill and had to be rushed to hospital. “Name please” inquired the lady admitting officer.” Frank Lee Woodward – male” answered the patient.Sometimes he dabbled in amateur astrology for relaxation and would take great delight in casting and reading the horoscopes of his friends and their children.

 He spent his last years, living (and dying) in abject poverty: a poverty he was very careful to conceal from his friends and very especially from his pupils here, for he knew they would rush to his rescue.

Owing to the high cost of labour, he had to walk two miles to buy anything he needed. He never ate meat, saying that he couldn’t see how people could bring themselves to eating carcasses. His poverty had assumed such formidable proportions that he was reduced to wearing paper shirts and shorts stitched out of old pillow-cases, with a cloth turban as headgear.

When the tobacco went beyond his reach, he gave up smoking. And when the sugar prices went up, he began to use bees’ honey. He had only a kerosene lamp to read and write at night.Such were the sacrifices he made, a man with his Cambridge degrees, could have lived a life of ease and luxury. He made these sacrifices to come here to our country and mould the minds and characters of our young, and to further the cause of Buddhist education.

***

When her late husband’s last will became known, a widow learned that he had left the bulk of his fortune to another woman. Enraged, she demanded that the inscription on his tombstone be changed.

“Sorry madam” said the stonemason. “I inscribed “Rest in Peace”. I cannot change it now”.

“Very well” the widow said grimly” just add “Until we meet again”.

***

A five-year-old son jumped on to his father’s lap and cried in a very excited manner.

“Thaththi! Thaththi! We saw a huge gerandiya (rat snake) creeping out of our garden just now and I was frightened. Are you frightened of geradiyas, thaththi?”

“No putha, I am not frightened of geradiyas” replied the father, ruffling the little one’s hair affectionately.

“Then are you frightened when there is thunder and lightning? And also going out in the dark?”

“No putha, I am not frightened of any of those things either”, The little one was then lost in thought for a while and said “Thaaththi! Aren’t you frightened of anything in the world other than amma?”

****

A club member was once invited to lunch at a friend’s house and they were made to wait seated at the table by his young servant boy. As the meal proceeded, our club member noticed that his friend and the members of his family called the boy “Conqueror”. Intrigued, the member asked his friend the reason, and his friend replied with a grin. “Simple, his real name is William”.

****

Another day a member related this story. At this Yorkshire Country and the Cambridge University cricket match, Len Hutton captained Yorkshire.

While our own Gamini Goonasena captained Cambridge University. Yorkshire was soundly beaten. That night at the dinner hosted by Cambridge, the two rival captains were seated together, when Len Hutton asked Gamini, “Don’t you have a university in Ceylon? And why did you have to come all the way to Cambridge?”

Gamini replied, “You know Len, the Ceylon’s academic standards are so high, that I could not get into the Ceylon University. And that is why I had to come to Cambridge!”

****

 W. A. Silva, the celebrated author, showed that he was an original thinker even as a child.

One day, when his class was asked to write a composition on ‘The Coconut Tree, little W. A. Silva wrote: “The coconut tree is a wonderful tree (puduma gahak) because from that tree we get another gaha – the molgaha!” (rice-pounder)

Another day, the famous author was going upcountry by train, travelling in a sleeping berth. To his annoyance, the passenger in the other berth was reading late into the night, and the compartment light was making it impossible for W. A. Silva to get any sleep.

Unable to stand it any longer he told his fellow passenger to put out the light so he could get some sleep.

The other passenger did not recognise W. A. Silva, and told him rather angrily: “I say, I am reading “Kela Handha” the well-known novel by one of our leading writers, W. A. Silva and simply because you do not know the value of a good book,  don’t annoy those who do. Furthermore, this book is so good that I just cannot put it down now.”

Suppressing a chuckle W. A. Silva reconciled himself to a restless night.