APRIL 1996

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Editors Notes

I apologise for the delay in publishing the first issue of our bulletin for the year 1996. We are thankful to Mr. Vaithi Tissainayagam who had been our editor of our bulletin for the past two years. He is unable to continue to be the editor, as he has joined the Public Service in Canberra We wish him well in his new job.

In this issue we publish articles of Mr. Preman Rajadurai and Mrs. Van den Driesen. I have also included "Life's like that" featuring some of our Old Boys. I trust that the characters involved would take it in the correct spirit. Expect more of it in our next issue.

May I take this opportunity to thank Mr.W.S. Manokaran and Mr. Tulin Ratnam for helping me with the publication.

I will be happy to receive articles from our Old Boys towards this bulletin.

Thank you.

Editor

P. Devendran

From the Pen of President

We send our greetings and good wishes to all our members. As you are aware, for the first time in the proud one hundred and seventy-three year history of St John's, the classrooms have fallen silent due to evacuation of the population from the western section of the peninsula. We understand that efforts are being made to reopen the school in the unoccupied area so that some help may be given to the students in their studies. As may be expected funds will be required for this purpose and I trust that the old boys in Victoria will show their solidarity with their school by giving active support for every effort the school may make to serve the students. With the recent out break of the military operation turmoil is there once again. We hope and pray that peace will return to the land soon.

I have also to remind the members of the annual 'Red & Black Ball' which has been fixed for 21 September 1996. Associated with this event the annual souvenir will be published. In this connection we are looking forward to the co-operation of the members. They may help to bring in as many advertisements as possible to be published in the souvenir. The committee will also welcome articles from our readers for publication in our quarterly newsletter. In all these matters please contact the Editor Mr Indran Devendran on (03) 9562 2314 for further information.

The committee has met twice this year. Of the activities of the Association so far, a cricket match was arranged to be played against St Thomas College, Colombo OBA in Victoria on 11 February 1996, at the Princess East Ground, Clayton. Unfortunately the match had to be called off at the last minute on account of rain. The members will be informed of further activities that may be organised by the committee from time to time.

Karuna Ariaratnam

Secretary's Report

At the annual General Meeting of the OBA Victoria Branch held in November 1995 the following members were elected to the committee.

President: Mr Karuna Ariaratnam

Secretary: Mr R Jeganathan

Treasurer: Dr M. Sivakadacham

Committee Members

Mr P Devendran (Editor)

Mr W S Manokaran

Mr Sri Balaratnam

Mr K Alagaratnam

Mr Tulin Ratnam

Mr Bala Rajadurai

Mr J Vyravipillai (Sports Secretary)

Mr S. Sampanther

Dr Rajan Rasiah

Mr V. Thuraisingham

Mr A Thuraisingham

Mr C. Pushparajah will function as the Internal Auditor.

Recollections 1930- 1944

Mrs M.E. Van den Driesen

There were no fears in my mind when not yet eighteen years of age I went to teach at SJC, after all it was like a second home to me as I was a Chundikuli girl! When in Form 11 I had done Science in SJC Laboratory, I had been to all our Prize Giving's held in the SJC Hall and had also watched many a cricket match through holes in the famous Fence; besides, my eight brothers were Johnians.

During my early years of teaching, two teachers who befriended me were Miss Irene Leembruggen and Mr Jell. Miss Leembruggen was near the end of her teaching career and she did all she could to help me find my feet. She was a kind and gracious lady and a good teacher. Mr Jell was a genial old gentleman who did the same for me. I remember that almost every morning before school some young masters would come and chat with him. Once one of them asked his advice on marriage and he said, 'If you get married you will regret it, if you don't get married you will regret it, you must choose". Mr Jell was a philosopher, a kind and good teacher, the boys and the staff liked him and so did 1.

Most of the boys I taught came from the Tamil School nearby where they had been for three years. I was expected to teach them English in the 1st and 2nd year and send them to Form 1. There was no difficulty about discipline as they were intelligent and hard working and if the years have not made me view them through rose coloured spectacles quite delightful. I learnt something from them when I found out that one of them walked three miles to school and had watered fifty tobacco plants by hand before he left. Such was the love of learning of the Jaffna people.

After two years of teaching I went to Government Training College, Colombo and returned to SJC a 1st Class Trained Teacher to do much the same work. Miss Edith Kelk and I formed a Wolf Cub Pack and I have fond memories of the weekly meetings and picnics to places like Keerimalai, Mandatheevu and KKS. We were always accompanied by two masters in keeping with Jaffna customs and values. still have several snap shots of those happy events.

Staff Meetings were lively affairs and were preceded by afternoon tea. I was happy when the tuck-shop stopped giving us clumsy sandwiches and instead gave us delicious vaddais and bananas. The masters were very ready to state their views and many lively debates took place. They were on the whole a splendid body of men devoted to the boys and the school. I came to have a great respect for them men like S J Gunasekeram, S K Nesiah, V C Canagaratnam, and the Principal, Rev H Peto to name just four.

I remember once when I was teaching in a classroom alongside the cemetery I heard Mr P I Mathai taking an English class in the cemetery. He was declaiming Gray's Elegy in a country churchyard. That afternoon he was ragged unmercifully in the staff room. St John's was fortunate in the calibre of the men on her staff. There existed in my time an association of the staff to assist anyone who wished to go on study leave. We all contributed to this and it gave its members one year's full paid leave when they had completed ten years service. It was tacit agreement that the person so assisted would return to teach in SJC. When I left, they gave me the same assistance although it was well-known that I would not return to SJC.

The wives of the masters were quite involved in the life of the college and in my time had formed a club which the masters in fund called 'The Penjathi Club'. Athisayam Sathianathan later Mrs D C Arulanantham, on her return from the Colombo University had joined the staff and we both were honorary members. Besides monthly meetings, we organised afternoon teas for visitors at Sports Meets and Cricket matches etc. We made hundreds of sandwiches and since sliced bread was unknown then, that was quite a task. I write this to show what a tight knit community the College was.

Athisayam, my life long friend, was followed by other lady teachers among whom was Ranee Handy now Mrs Eliezer. She created history by taking part in a Checkov play with some of the masters, surely a brave action and a first in Jaffna.

I remember an amusing incident at one of the plays - in the scene from 'As You Like It' when the Duke's wrestler takes on Orlando. Well on the opening night the boy who played the Duke's wrestler refused to be beaten and brought down one of the side curtains during the bout to the amusement of the audience, the huge delight of the boys and the anger of the masters. On being taken to task by them he said he could not be disgraced by being beaten by that 'small fellow' in front of all his friends and relations!!

In my last two years at SJC, I taught Matriculation geography in both schools. The girls' school had no geography teacher, so I took my class of about ten or twelve boys over t the girls' school. It was war time and there were times of air-raid drill. Do any of you remember having to be down on the floor under a table with a stick or pencil between your teeth and cotton wool in your ears? Well that happened sometimes during the geography class and the students quite enjoyed these interruptions. I had little idea how much my popularity rose in both schools during those years!

My departure from SJC was tinged with great sadness, Mr Peto, that great Principal lost his life in the heroic act of saving mine in a drowning accident. So I left and went to Isabella Throbber College, Lucknow University.

Looking back after these many years, I realise how blessed were my 'Jaffna years' in Chundikuli and St John's College.

My Years at St John's College

I still can recall vividly my first day at St Johns.It was the year 1964 and I joined in year 1 i.e Form one.The first teacher I met was, my revered teacher and principal Mr C.E Anandarajan, my late father took me with him on my first day and left me in the hands of a caring and dedicated teacher. I was fortunate when I joined College my two older brothers Bala and Raju were already there and my eldest sister Chitra was only a stone throw away at our sister college at Chundikuli Girls College. Thus began my life at St Johns which was long and fruitful.

As I go down memory lane,I can remember we had forty two students in our class and we had a handsome geography teacher who was just out of the university, whom we admired and sometimes were terrified in Mr Tulin Ratnam. Some of my contemporaries who are with us in Melbourne are Albert Anandarajn, Dr Sivakadacham, Kingsbury Alagaretanam and all doing well in their chosen fields in life. St Johns not only - taught us how to play the game but also to play according to the rules. l believe the aim of education is churning out not only academics but men and women of character and quality. I think St Johns has produced men of such quality in every walk of life, be it education, politics or business.

While we were in the middle School we were watching with excitement and admiration of our senior students for their excellence in sports and in the academic field. The names of M. Theivendra P. Kanagadurai were household names in the Jaffna district, where ever they played there were crowds to watch them,it is important to note that they not only excelled in sports but they were truly great sportsmen in true sense. The latter part of the sixties was dominated by Johnians be it in the field of education; sports or community activities. The 1965 cricket team led by P.Kanagadurai was unbeaten and beat Royal College,Colombo and also inflicted an humiliating defeat by an innings and 238 runs on the Batticaloa school boys at the Batticaloa esplanade which I had the privilege to watch.In athletics ,football and basketball again Johnians proved their supremacy. My eldest brother Bala Rajadurai was given the opportunity to open for St Johns in that year and proved himself to be a solid opening batsmen and my other brother Raju Rajadurai proved himself to be a successful pace bowler in the second XI ,their instant success flowed into my sporting life at St Johns. The 1966 cricket team won all its matches beating Nalanda College Colombo captained by Lalith Kaluperuma but losing to St Sylvesters Kandy by one run.Once even St Johns dominated in athletics and in other sports notably

C.Ambihaipalan represented the Jaffna Schools in hockey and W.Guhanandan dominated the Table Tennis scene in Jaffna.In the administrative scene 1966 saw the sad parting of Mr A.W. Rajasekaram one of our finest principals,I can still remember how he brokedown during his farewell address.

1967 was a year of transition for St Johns, the legendary Mr K.Pooranampillai a former teacher and Principal from Hartley College Pt Pedro took over the reins of the college.This change at college was welcome for us at home ,since the language of discipline was the same at school and at home, as my Late father was an old boy of Hartley college and subsequently he and my mother both taught under Mr Pooranampillai.The cricket team of 1967 was again in a record breaking season

C.Sooriakumar the captain was one of the finest batsmen produced by St Johns. He finally went on to play in the Sara Trophy Tournament for the Tamil Union with great success. St Johns again dominated in other fields of sports ,the football team led by S.M. Mootatamby was unbeaten winning all its seven matches and breaking the myth that St Patricks are unbeatable at football. When thinking of Mootatamby the memories of the 1968 St Johns / St Patricks Cricket match comes rushing back.That was my first year in the college Second XI,the pride of playing and winning for St Johns was uppermost in our young minds.When St Johns had just twenty seven runs on the board six wickets down was most humiliating but Mootatamby and young D.S. Mills came on to the field and proved that Johnians never die. l think that was one of the finest moments for St Johns.That day will also be remembered by me as that was my first meeting with the distinguished, Sri Lanka /Bloomfield Cricketer and All varsity Tennis Captain Dr C.Balakrishnan.

1968 was the first year I played for St Johns in the Second XI captained by C.Sivakumar. I was fortunate my Brother was the coach ,though I was trained by them to be a opening batsman, he was very nervous of my performance.My first opportunity came in the first match of the season against Jaffna College at BicknellMemorial Ground, my cricketing career for St Johns took of to a flying start with a personal score of fifty two runs and an opening partnership of ninety runs with T.Balajothy. The team included R.J Selavanayagam better known as "dokker",he was a player of tremendous ability ,he went on to play for the Browns Group of Companies in the Mercantile tournaments. However Selvanayagam went further and Captained BRC with great success in the P.Saravanamuthu tournaments and in that year BRC were runner up in the tournament. In l960 the First XI cricket team registered its historic loss against Hartley College Point Pedro under the captaincy of M.Surendra, that year was a bad year for St Johns at cricket. How ever the second XI under the able guidance of spin ace Alfred Ratnam brother of Tulin Ratnam had an unbeaten record ,in which again I opened batting along with T Balajothy. One of the highlights of the second XI season ,was again an opening partnership between me and Balajothy which reaped one hundred and twenty three runs in which my contribution was eighty eight. During third year Jaffna Central discovered Curtley Ambrose of Jaffna, Central speedster K.W. Premachandran. He was a thorn in, the Johnian batting line in the years to come.In 1968 however Johnians dominated the soccer, basketball and athletics scene. During the latter part of 1969 we lost one of our best loved and revered Principal, Mr A.W. Rajasekaram who guided the school during the most difficult period of modern St Johns.

The face of Jaffna and St Johns began somewhat to change in the beginning of the seventies. By this time I had become a prefect and began to participate in the life of St Johns, even after the school bells had gone. The achievements of old boys in the many spheres of Sri Lankan life was an inspiration to me and also there was a change of government in Colombo. The United Front government had come to power with one of our old boys Mr Maithripala Senanayake as Minister of Irrigation Power and Highways and Leader of the House of Representatives and other Johnians who made their mark were Mr Paul Lewis was appointed Chairman and Managing Director of Singer International Ltd Ceylon, he was a senior Chartered Accountant and his success was a great source of inspiration to me when I decided on my own career options and Mr H.L.D. Selvaretnam was appointed a Deputy Governor of The Central Bank the same year.

The newly formed government opted for mediawise and archaic based standardisation of raw marks obtained at the GCE advanced level. This put lot of pressure on us as students and we had to spend more effort on our books this seriously affected our participation in sports and other activities of the school. The 1970 cricket team led by M.Theivendran had to bear the brunt of this brutal social change and despondency in Jaffna, the members of the cricket team had to fiercely compete in the academic and sporting life of the college.This was my first year of First Xl cricket, though we didn't fare well during the season, St Johns discovered great cricketers of the future like T.Thevapalan who was a brilliant wicket keeper he went on to captain St Johns, N.S Alexander a brilliant allrounder and N.Naveenan a versatile sportsman. Our Class of 1972 had eight members of the college cricket team and eight members of the college prefect body. The big match in l970 was again a pointer to the Johninan fighting spirit. The first seven wickets fell for a mere thirty odd runs then, the indomitable Thevapalan and W.Raveendran batted brilliantly to save the match. During the early seventies in addition to S.K Mahalingam we had among us a very dedicated lovable cricket coach on the horizon in Mr KS.E Xavier. He was a brilliant fast bowler having played for Badulla C.C in the Daily News Cricket Tournament. If one us were late for cricket practice, we had to face Mr Xavier at practice. More or less I was the victim of this unwritten rule as I had to come for cricket practice from Nallur, however it developed my batting skills. 1971 /1972 were years of building up the future Johnian cricketers ,after the stars of the sixties.

In 1971 a new award known as the Johnian Eagle was introduced to honour the performances of Johnians who represented the national team in any sport and this singular honour went to S. Antonipillai who represented the Sri Lankan Youth Soccer Team in Bangkok.

S Antonipillai was a brilliant Centre Half who Played for St Anthony's in the Jaffna District football Tournarnents, and he was also made the Senior Prefect of the College in 1971. National honours also went to my dear friend the Late Chandi Veerasingham. He won six titles in the Jaffna district Badminton tournament and also represented Sri Lanka against the visiting Chinese badminton team.In the class rooms in the advanced level classes Mr Pooranampillai introduced a new subject known as Current affairs during which he discusses the many happenings in the world scene,this stimulated me and most of my class mates and led us into reading magazines like Newsweek,Time and Bulletin. He always exhorts to us that education should make us aware of of the world and the enviroment we live,Mr Pooranampillai well equipped us to face the real world

After the arrival of Mr K. Pooranampilla we also saw the introduction of serious third XI cricket into the sports curriculum of the college. Mr J.R Gnanapiragasm who was brilliant cricketer of the 1930's and Mr Manuelpillai a former teacher of Hartley College of Point Pedro , took over the task of building the future cricketers of St Johns. On the academic side the unfairness of the university selection process had an impact on our university entrance results. Many of our classmates left for the United Kingdom to continue their studies, and many more took up new opportunities and ultimately rose to the highest in their profession. ln this regard I would like to mention S.M Jebanathan who joined the Sri Lankan Merchant Navy and rose to the position of Captain and passed out as a naval engineer.In the true johnian spirit obstacles were mere opportunities and most of my classmates made it ,through the turbulent seventies in Jaffna.

The 1972 cricket team had an unbeaten season and I was fortunate to be a member of that side ,which had a dedicated band of cricketers, who even now in their forty's are still playing cricket and at competitive level. Thevapalan, Sri Ramaretnam, N. Naveenan,N.S Alexander and T.Manoharan just to mention a few of them. 1972/73 was my last year at college and by the grace of god I was made the Senior Prefect of the College.During the year St Johns lost a true blue Johnian ,who kept St Johns, a Non Fee levying private school, in Mr J.C Handy manager of the welfare board. ln the GCE advanced level exam of 1972 only fifteen students entered the University, the impact of standardisation began to have an effect on our results. Many of my friends left the country to pursue higher studies in England and India and many went into the Chartered accounting profession,which by then had become very popular with the maths students.

In February 1973 I left the portals of a great Anglican school St Johns , which built in me a set of values which I carried through in the real world. I am grateful to god and my parents for having given me the privilege to study in one of the great school of our times. - Preman RAJADURAI

"Life's like that"

Jega felt he was over weight, had gone to a Doctor to find out how he could reduce his weight. The Doctor advised him to take two slices of bread in the night. Jega asked the Doctor "Sir am I to take it before dinner or after dinner?

Ambi was working in his office room at home, and saw a snake under his table. Immediately he got up on the chair and on to the table. He called his wife Nima to chase the snake away.Nima laughed at him and said " you must be ashamed, being a famous lawyer to get scared of a small snake." Ambi with much anger told Nima, " how foolish you are, how does this snake know that I am a famous lawyer."

Our President Karuna was doing some relief teaching at St.John's, and one day he found that many students haven't done their home work. He said to the class that there are many idiots in this class ,and I would like to see them standing. None of them got up, inspite of many request. Finally one student got up. Karuna was so happy that one student has confirmed that he is an idiot. Karuna thanked him for being honest. That student in return said " Sir I had to stand up, just because you are standing alone"

Dr.Siva treated a patient for stomach ache, and on his ward round he asked the patient how he was. The patient said " Doctor I am okay, but I am finding it difficult to breath" Siva said "do not worry, I shall stop it"