Category Archives: travelogue

Incarceration Camps in the Pacific Theatre of World War II Deciphered

Anoma Pieris presents her work on “Pacific War Incarceration Camps” . to the world 

While there have been many excellent studies on colonial penal environments in the Asia Pacific region, mainly prisons, very few scholars have approached the wartime internment and prisoner of war camps associated with the Pacific War as comparable carceral spaces that might offer deeper insights into imperial and national forms of political sovereignty and border conflict. There are few comparative studies across geographical areas or imperial regimes. Sarah Kovner’s book Prisoners of Empire: Inside Japanese POW Camps (Harvard University Press 2020), though focused on Japanese military imperialism, is important for that focus, and increasingly, several anthologies have offered us a similar analytical breadth by juxtaposing numerous national perspectives. The Architecture of Confinement: Incarceration Camps of the Pacific War (Cambridge University Press, 2022) is similarly ambitious in its scope. It uses the arc of the Pacific Basin to frame a comparative study including Australia, Singapore, North America and Japan as important nodal points in the wartime incarceration camp geography. Its aim is to investigate the impact of the war on settler societies, more so than on the imperial contestants dominating both theatres of World War II.

Anoma Pieris and Lynne Horiuchi at former Cowra POW Camp site in 2016 … photo: Anoma Pieris.

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TW Roberts R.I.P. ……. July 1976

A Vale in[1] Appreciation, From Miss Norah Roberts                                                                                                            Fort, Galle,  10th July 1976

Letter to: The Editor, “Sunday Observer”, Colombo

  T.W.ROBERTS ……………………………. An Appreciation[2]

At the age of 17 my father, Thomas Webb Roberts won the Barbados Scholarship from Queens College, Barbados, and entered the Oxford University where he passed both the Classical Mods and Grates in the first class before he was 21. He topped the list in the open competition for the Colonial Civil Service. He also found time to get married when he was only 18, to my mother[3] who was also 18. When he came out to the C.C.S. at 21 he had 3 children, Isabella, T.F.C and G. C. Roberts.[4]

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Contrasting Cricketing Tours Abroad: UK in 1975 vs Australia in 2022

IN Response to the News Item by Callistus Davy on the Profligate Tamasha enjoyed by SL’s cricketing officials during the recent World Cup in Australia ………… EMAIL NOTE: Mevan Pieris of [S. Thomas’ College] to Prabodh Kariyawasam [Richmond College], 19 January 2023

Dear Kari,

I read your mail and thought of the past when cricketers were amateurs. We went to the Oval in our own vehicles at our own cost and remember getting Rs 15/= per day during a 4 day test match, which was probably enough to clean the boots. I also remember how we went to England to play in the first World Cup in 1975, carrying with us just 3 pounds of foreign exchange, and how we had to  lodge in the Student Centre in difficult conditions. Yet for all no one grumbled and derived happiness from our love for the game which exceeded love for money. It was nice reading the long list of VIPs who seem to have made merry down under [in 2022]. Socrates is said to have told Hercules that God helps those who help themselves. We certainly have a damn good lot of believers in Socrates.
Good night Kari, ……………….. Mevan

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Louis F. Obeyesekere: An Empire Loyalist who went down when the “Ciotat” was sunk by an U-Boat

This article was originally written and published by Louis Frederick Obeyesekere’s great grandnephew, Sheannal Anthony Obeyesekere at: https://medium.com/@serendibrising/  …..  Item taken from SerendibRising, 3 March 2023, entitled  “Louis Frederick Obeyesekere: Lost out at sea on Christmas Eve” … sent to Thuppahi by Quintus Andradi

Louis Frederick (Freddy) J. Wijeratne Obeyesekere was born in the early 1890s. He was the forth and youngest child of Mudaliyar Henry Ferdinandus Wijeratne Obeyesekere and Henrietta Isabel (Ellen) Perera Wijesinha Goonetillaka¹ who had married in 1881 at All Saints ChurchGalle.

                                                            F Obeyesekere’s name is engraved on the Cenotaph War Memorial at Viharamahadevi Park, Colombo. Photo credits: Mithila Gunathilake and Quintus Andradi

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Don Bradman at Cricket in Ceylon in 1930 …. Yes, 1930

Rex Clementine in The Island, 5 March 2023, where the title reads  “New book says Bradman played at CCC in 1930”

All of us cricket nerds have heard stories of Sir Don Bradman’s visit to P. Sara Oval. There are a couple of images too; one where he strides out to bat and another where he walks alongside Ceylon skipper Mahadevan Sathasivam for the toss.

 

There are other famous stories as well about how the greatest batsman the game has seen appreciating the scoreboard at The Oval and him finding out the inadequacies of the pitch. Some even believed that P. Sara Oval was the only ground in Asia where Bradman had played.

However a new book ‘An Island’s Eleven’ by British writer Nicholas Brookes reveals that Bradman had played at Maitland Place in 1930 en route to England for the first time. Brookes’ book is a well researched document on Sri Lankan cricket and gives a vivid description of cricket in the island in the pre- Test era. The writer has spoken to many stalwarts of Sri Lankan cricket from S. Skandakumar to Kumar Sangakkara and elaborates how the game evolved.

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Hot Hot Cricket News from Sri Lanka

Victor Melder’s COMPILATION, end of February 2023

The Department of Sports Development (DSD) has decided to call for nominations through a newspaper advertisement for the 2023 Sri Lanka Cricket Selection Committee. This followed a high-level discussion led by Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe with the participation of officials of the National Sports Council and the National Sports Selection Committee (NSSC) on Monday.  The newspaper notice inviting nominations to the Cricket Selection Committee will be published in the next few days, Amal Edirisooriya, Director General of DSD told the ‘Daily Mirror’.

Since there are issues with regard to cricket selections, NSSC Chairman General Shavendra Silva and NSSC member Sanath Jayasuriya said that henceforth there should be transparency in the appointment of the Cricket Selection Committee.  Under the previous system, the executive committee nominated 10 names to the Sports Minister out of which five or seven members were appointed to the selection committee. In future, anyone who has played cricket can apply to be a member of the Cricket Selection Committee.  Under the existing system, since members to selection committee were appointed on the basis of being friends with executive committee members, it has been brought to the notice of the Sports Ministry that there was no transparency when it came to national team selections.  Although the DSD has called for nominations, the interviews will be conducted by a special committee chaired by the Chairman of the NSSC, DSD Director General Amal Edirisuriya added. Starting with cricket, the Ministry of Sports hopes to implement this system for other sports as well. (Daily Mirror. 1.2.2023).

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Merton College & Its Meaningful Academic ‘Surrounds’

VICE-CHANCELLOR’S ADMISSION CEREMONY LUNCH AT MERTON

Former Warden Professor Irene Tracey CBE FMedSci became Vice-Chancellor of the University in January 2023.The admission ceremony was held in the Sheldonian Theatre on 10 January and was followed by a procession to Merton College, where the post-ceremony lunch was held.  Upon arrival at College, the Vice-Chancellor looked delighted to see Mertonian staff welcoming her outside the College, and took a moment to greet Head Porter Huw James on her way in to College for lunch with fellows and guests.

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Australia’s Policy towards Sri Lankan Refugee Migrants after the Civil War

Judith Betts & Claire Higgins: The Sri Lankan Civil War and Australia’s Migration Policy Response: A Historical Case Study with Contemporary Implications”  …. an article pubd on 16th May 2017 …. see https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.181 **

Abstract: Sri Lanka’s civil war lasted almost 26 years and cost tens of thousands of lives. Since the end of the war in 2009, several thousand asylum seekers from Sri Lanka have sought protection in Australia, but both Labor and Liberal/National Coalition governments have taken a restrictive approach to their arrival and have expressed support for the Sri Lankan government. This article explores Australia’s response to the protection needs of Sri Lankans during an earlier era, at the outbreak of the war in 1983, when a Labor government processed Tamils ‘in-country’ under Australia’s Special Humanitarian Program.

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The Minutiae of Historical Endeavour: Searching for Details of the Interaction between Virginia and Leonard Woolf

 A = Temma Berg’s Initial Query via Email, early December 2022

I write in response to your blog about Leonard Woolf. I am working on Leonard and Virginia and exploring how much they might owe to one another. I have read her novels, diaries, letters, and short stories and his autobiographies and novels and many articles (including yours) and have become fascinated with how much husband and wife influenced one another.

I write to you to ask if you have ever wondered where Virginia’s emphasis on 500 pounds a year came from? I have been trying to find out how much Leonard might have earned while in Ceylon and have been unable to come up with any figures. Do you have any idea how much he might have earned per year?

Temma Berg

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Old World Charm: The New Oriental Hotel in The Fort of Galle

Joe Simpson, in https://www.worldgenweb.org/lkawgw/noh.htmlwith highlighting added by Thuppahi and pictorial embellishments from Joe on request or from his past articles plus other cameramen

“Preserving the spirit of a forgotten world”  ––  anecdotal glimpses of the New Oriental Hotel, Galle Fort, by Joe Simpson. otesaga@shaw.ca

Not long ago while reading a Canadian newspaper article about the restoration of Penang’s Eastern & Oriental Hotel, founded in 1885 by the Sarkie brothers, the same Armenian-born Malay Peninsula hoteliers who built Singapore’s legendary Raffles Hotel, I felt stirred to begin delving into the history of an even more venerable South Asian hostelry of my past acquaintance – Sri Lanka’s New Oriental Hotel.

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