Locked Deep in our hearts - Memories of Old

By

Professor Earnest A Champion

Whenever one is called to travel back in time to an age and place that is dear to one's heart, there is always the temptation to romanticize people and places but that is not bad thing. After all even the sad and bitter moments take on a character so different to what it really was.

Therefore I undertake .this walk through memory lane with no apologies because I know I will see time through glasses tinted by emotion and nostalgia.

When I walked into St. John's in 1937 from neighboring Chundikuli Girls' College St. John's was presided over by the Rev. Henry Peto who had already finished 17 years as Principal.

Even before I had taken my seat in my first class. I sensed the, air of discipline. D.H.Chinniah, A.G. Charles and Lorna Vandendrizen were our first teachers and they made it very clear that we were at their mercy. Even our fingernails were examined daily for any dirt we may have carried into class. The cane came down heavily and often and there was no superior court of appeal. But what they did to our minds is what endures forever. They opened windows into the world and taught us a reverence for books. which has endured all the days of our lives.

Mr. A. G. Charles in particular had this great ability to conjure up people and places as if he had known and touched them all. He exaggerated stories about his own prowess in the cricket field which only made us marvel at all the wonderful feats this man had accomplished, only to learn in later years that they came out of a fertile imagination. But he taught us a great lesson that life without a vivid and lively imagination is a life devoid of color and feeling. He was only encouraging us to soar on our own to fanciful worlds of our own making. It is said of the great E. F. C. Ludowyck Professor of English at the University of Ceylon, that when he was a little boy in kindergarten he told his teacher that he had seen a lion on his way to school in Galle. The lion was real to this little boy who was to become one of the great masters of English literature.

I was at St- John's from 1937 - 1943 and during that period if there was one individual who bestrode those years like a Colossus it had to be R. R. Scott, perhaps that greatest sportsman St .John's has ever seen. His greatness lay in that he excelled equally in cricket, athletics and soccer, finally representing all Ceylon in athletics and soccer. It was as a cricketer that R. R.Scott blazed into prominence when he scored 1O6 runs as a 15 year old against Jaffba Central College at the Jaffna Central grounds. For us little boys at that time he was a living legend. Many years later when I was a post-graduate student at the University of London I watched India playing England in a test match at the Oval. After the match I stopped at a pub for a beer and ran into my dear friend Reggie Hunt who was also studying in London at that time.

I will never forget what Reggie said to me that day. He said, "Ernest, Today we have seen world class cricketers bat, but we did not see the grace and power of R. R. Scott in his prime." I had to agree with him because I carried the same bias he carried as hero worshippers of the great R. R. Scott

I joined St. John's as a teacher in 1951 and was almost immediately made Prefect of Games and master in charge of Fleming House. These two positions gave me a perspective, which has enriched me over the years. As Prefect of Games I came to know the other side of life of students, a life outside the classroom. The playing field was an extension of the classroom making the students experience more meaningful and whole. Some of our great sportsmen were also some of our best students.

Fleming House is very dear to me because the students and I became a brotherhood. We realized we had to make that old shed of a building our second home. My first Senior Prefect at Fleming House was none other than C.E. Anandarajan who was to become Principal in later years. He was followed by R. K. Pillai, Pathman Ratnesar, V. Yogaratnam and C.Sathiamoorthy.

The beauty of Fleming House was the coming together of characters with different strengths and weaknesses, but all with a delightful sense of humor. K. Sivapragasam (Gamit) was perhaps the most lovable of them all.

The strength of St. John's lies in its unswerving dedication to excellence in the classroom and in the playing field. Character building was given prime priority. I remember the. time when the Rev. Henry Peto gave a public caning.to three students who had stolen tomatoes from the college garden. It was not the loss of tomatoes that concerned Rev. Peto, it was the potential loss of character.

St. John's has been at the receiving end of the fury of the racial conflict. The human spirit has been crushed and lives made desolate. But St. John's will rise again from the ashes and "rear its head on high". One hundred and seventy five years of history cannot be in vain, may be it is from St. John's there may come men who will bind the wounds of a bruised and battered people, bring peace and harmony to a land lapped by the oceans and kissed by gentle breezes, that may yet be the crowning glory of the men of St. John's.

"Lux in Tenebris Lucet"