Shades of Beddegama in teeming Hong Kong-By GEORGE BRAINE Source:Island Even after being closely connected to Hong Kong for 26 years, I am still amazed by the contrasts there. Professionals earn the highest salaries in the world while destitute old women scavenge for cardboard boxes. Tycoons live in the world’s most expensive mansions while the poorest live in tiny subdivided flats. Perhaps the most striking contrast is the crowded urban areas of Central, Kowloon, and Mong Kok, and the deserted villages in the rural parts of the New Territories, where I lived. Hong Kong is barely 500 square miles, and only half of that is inhabited; the rest is given over to hillsides and country parks. They are seven million tightly packed people. Then, how does one explain deserted villages? Wong Chuk Yeung Leonard Woolf’s classic Village in the Jungle, set in colonial Ceylon, narrates the slow decline of a small, ...
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Shades of Beddegama in Teeming Hong Kong Even after being closely connected to Hong Kong for 26 years, I am still amazed by the contrasts there. Professionals earn the highest salaries in the world while destitute old women scavenge for cardboard boxes. Tycoons live in the world’s most expensive mansions while the poorest live in tiny subdivided flats. Perhaps the most striking contrast is the crowded urban areas of Central, Kowloon, and Mong Kok, and the deserted villages in the rural parts of the New Territories where I lived. Hong Kong is barely 500 square miles, and only half of that is inhabited; the rest is given over to hillsides and country parks. They are 7 million tightly packed people. Then, how does one explain deserted villages? Wong Chuk Yeung Leonard Woolf’s classic Village in the Jungle, set in colonial Ceylon, narrates the slow decline of a small, isolated village, ...
Shakespeare in a takarang shed By George Braine In a tribute to Prof. Ashley Halpe, his daughter recently wrote about the time he was “forced to give his lectures in a takarang shed”. That triggered my memories, of sitting in those takarang sheds, both as a teacher and a student. This is that story. But, let me begin at the beginning. In 1973, I was teaching English at a remote school in the Uva, when the Vidyalankara campus advertised for English instructors. I was called for a written test, and, to my amazement, nearly 200 applicants had turned-up. I thought my chances were nil. Surprisingly, after a follow-up interview, I was selected, one of only three appointees. Vidyalankara campus sat on a hill, at Kelaniya, not far from the Colombo – Kandy road. As one climbed the hill, back in the mid-1970s, the sports ground and the convocation hall would ...
May 26, 2021
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Articles, George Braine
Tagged George Braine, Shakespeare in a takarang, Vidyalankara campus
Charles Stanley Braine (1874-1944) – the Rajah of Mawatte By George Braine The e-mail, with the question “Are you a Ceylon Braine?”, arrived out of the blue when I lived in Hong Kong. The writer – I’ll call her Susan – had found me on the Internet. She went onto detail some family history, and claimed that, because she and I shared great, great grandparents, we were third cousins. Family history had been an interest since she was 10 years old. She had inherited a collection of family documents and a photo album, and also found family documents from research in the UK. She mentioned that both my great, great grandfather and great grandfather had been planters in Ceylon. This came as a huge surprise. Not having delved into family history, I was under the impression that my grandfather was the first Braine to arrive in Ceylon. Instead, from ...
Jan 24, 2021
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Articles, George Braine
Tagged Adeline Mary Becher, Ceylon, Ceylon Tea Plantations, Charles Frederick Braine, Charles Stanley Braine, East Holyrood Estate, George Braine, Stanlodge, Talawakelle, Yakwila Estate
Charles Frederick Braine (1850 – 1896), Adventurous, Accident Prone, Great grandfather-By George Braine I have previously written about my great, great grandfather Charles Joseph Braine (1814-1890), who became a coffee and tea planter in Ceylon. Charles Frederick was the fourth child Charles Joseph. He was born in Norton Fitzwarren, a village in Somerset, UK, where his parents resided upon their return from Hong Kong. Charles Frederick first came to Ceylon in 1869, at the age of 19, to work for Ceylon Company Ltd., where his father Charles Joseph was the manager. He returned to the UK to marry Adeline Mary Becher on 9 April 1874 at Kensington, London. Their first child, Charles Stanley (my grandfather) was born the same year, on 25 December, in Ceylon. ...
Dec 22, 2020
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Articles, George Braine
Tagged Charles Joseph Braine, George Braine
That Icelandic Air Crash – 1978 By George Braine In 1978, I was commissioned in the Sri Lanka Air Force as a volunteer officer. After a month of rigorous training at the Diyatalawa combat training unit, I was assigned to the Regiment of the Air Force Base at Katunayake, Sri Lanka’s largest air base. The Regiment is the ground combat unit of the Air Force. In addition to flying squadrons, the base also had administrative, engineering, logistical, supply, and other units, along with a hospital. The base is on a large coconut plantation, and sits next to Sri Lanka’s international airport, which was built long after the base was established. The two runways – of the air force and the international airport’s – ran parallel. The sound of jetliners landing and taking off was noisy and was a nuisance at night. I was given a room at the ...
Dec 14, 2020
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Articles, George Braine
Tagged George Braine, Icelandic Air Crash
Charles Joseph Braine (1814-1890) – Patriarch of the Braines in Ceylon By George Braine C.J. Braine was born in Middlesex, England, in 1814. He began working for Dent & Co. in China and moved to Hong Kong in 1941, when the island was occupied by the British. In Hong Kong, he was listed as a partner of Dent & Co., a Justice of the Peace and a member of the Asiatic Society. Hong Kong In Hong Kong, Braine was best known as the owner of Green Bank, a large, luxuriant garden. A vivid description of the garden can be found in A Journey to the Tea Countries of China by Robert Fortune (1852). Fortune wrote that rugged mountains were seen to one side of Green Bank, contrasting with the lush vegetation of the garden. He lists the shrubs and fruit trees, such as Chinese banyan, India rubber, Indian neem, ...
Dec 4, 2020
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Articles, George Braine
Tagged Abbotsleigh bungalow, Abbotsleigh tea factory, Britain, C.J. Braine, Ceylon, Eudora Marriot Braine, George Braine
A Planter’s Dream or Folly By George Braine In tracing our family tree in Ceylon, my sister and I visited Yakwila Estate, near Pannala in the NWP, where my English grandfather Charles Stanley Braine served as manager in the early 1900s. There, we were told about a fascinating bungalow at nearby Andigama Estate. The Yakwila managers did not have the vocabulary (in Sinhala) to describe the bungalow, nor did they have any photos to show us, even on a website. But they insisted it was a “must see”. We did not know what to expect. At Andigama, up a winding drive, we came upon a sight that blew us away. Here, in all its splendor, was an English manor house, in a mix of Georgian and half-timber style, the latter seen all over Europe. The year of completion, carved over the front entrance, was 1922. Upon entering, we were amazed ...
Nov 24, 2020
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Tagged Andigama Estate, Charles Stanley Braine, George Braine
“THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI” – By Des Kelly Yet another personalized version of a very famous Movie made in Ceylon. George Braine has written this version of the story very well indeed, and I am pleased to present it to all eLanka readers with a bit of additional information, that perhaps George himself was not aware of. My brother Ian, a famous Swimmer in Ceylon of the fifties, was chosen to be the “stand-in” for William Holden, who starred in”The Bridge”, when David Lean & Co., decided that the “swimming scenes” (where several swimmers take the plunge to get to the section of bridge where the explosives are placed in order to blow it up), were too much of a risk for William H. to take, and perhaps he wasn’t a swimmer, anyway. Ian Kelly was not only strong enough, but he was an expert swimmer, even ...
Mar 2, 2020
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Articles, DESMOND KELLY
Tagged George Braine, Malay peninsula
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