John De Silva: Aloysian, Sri Lankan, Australian-by Michael Roberts
Source:Thuppahis
John was one of my class generation at St. Aloysius College, Galle and we represented the College in cricket, soccer, athletics and swimming. …. yes swimming ….. and were recipients of training in life-saving at the little harbour of Galle. He was “Johnny” not a “John” in our minds then.
Alas, on one occasion a bad call for a run by me resulted in Johnny being run-out when he was batting well — in a match under my captaincy that we eventually lost. But in a previous year St. Aloysius had won all its matches under Mohammed Anwer’s astute captaincy and the quiet guidance of coach Marcus Jayasinghe.
As John was a science student our ways parted after year 12 when I pursued an Arts degree at Peradeniya University and John took to Science in Colombo. But we met in a fashion even then: in opposite camps as swimmers in an Uni-battle held at St. Josephs College on one occasion. I was no match for Johnny in the breast stroke.
However, we lost touch for a while but, as it happens, landed in Australia in the same year 1977, albeit in different cities. The Aloysian links were particularly strong in the huge metropolis of Melbourne where John was .…. with older cohorts marshalled by Pat Williams on the one hand and younger personnel such as Noel Edema and Darrell Walles serving ….. as “arrowheads” for school loyalties with island-Lanka implications.
One ‘offspring’ was a sturdy tree known as THE OLD ALOYSIAN magazine, a magazine published thrice every year — one linked indelibly in many memories with the late Pat Williams.
Pat was such a sturdy Aloysian-Lankan-Australian that the greatest compliment that I can extend to John De Silva is to tell the world that he has been another Pat ….. an exemplary and sturdy Aloysian-Lankan-Australian.
