Features

The Lost Boy From Ceylon SWRD’s sister who vanished from Ceylon with her adopted son

Published

3 years ago

2022/12/4

by Hugh Karunanayake

Anna Florentina Dias Bandaranaike was the elder daughter of the wealthy Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranaike and was born at the turn of the 20th Century in June 1900, one and a half years after the birth of her elder brother S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, later to be Prime Minister of Ceylon. Anna’s mother Daisy Ezlynne was the daughter of Sir Christoffel Obeyesekera, and was herself an heiress.

The Bandaranaike children were to inherit extensive wealth in the form of coconut estates and house property in Colombo. Both SWRD and his sister Anna were born in Elie House, Mutwal, a stately home of which Sir Solomon’s family were the last occupants, before it was acquired by the Government for building a reservoir on its grounds.

Anna was surrounded by wealth, and her early years were spent being cared for and pampered by two British maids. In October 1919, Anna, together with her maid Miss Church, accompanied her father Sir Solomon on a voyage to England. Sir Solomon always travelled with his valet Sardiel who was a member of the visiting group.

On June 24,1920, Sir Solomon presented his daughter Anna at a Court held by King George and Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace, an event described by Sir Solomon as “a very brilliant function, the likes of which is not to be found anywhere else in the world”.

Two year later in June 1922, Anna married Abraham de Livera at a wedding solemnised at All Saints Church, Hulftsdorf, followed by a largely attended reception at Udugaha Walauwaa, Silvermith Street, which was the town residence of Sir Solomon.

Despite the opulent lifestyle of her family, Anna’s life as a young woman seemed troubled. Her marriage to Abraham produced a son Christoffel and a daughter May, but the marriage was unhappy and she had increasingly turned to the comfort of prayer. It was into this unstable situation that a boy by the name Augustine was adopted by her.

She was over 40 years of age and fond of the little boy but constantly feared that her relatives may take him away from her. She would have perceived the threats as real, so much so that when the boy was just 11 years of age she abandoned her family including her two young children and fled to Britain with her adopted son. For years the two would lead a strange transient life in Britain living on a small monthly allowance from Anna’s fortune which she collected regularly from a bank in London.

Six years after her departure from Ceylon her only brother SWRD was elected Prime Minister of Ceylon, and three years later to die by the hand of an assassin Neither of these events persuaded her to revisit the land of her birth. She had by then adopted the name Rita and swapped her married name of de Livera for her mother’s maiden name Obeyesekera, apparently in a bid to escape detection by members of her family in Ceylon who she feared would take the boy away.

Her daughter May would travel to England to wait outside the bank for hours in the desperate hope of seeing her mother. There were a few fleeting moments in the 1960s when mother and daughter met but Anna refused to reveal where she and Augustine were living. She had in fact bought a small caravan where mother and son had been living moving the caravan around to different locations until finally settling in a field at Cross-in-Hand near Heathfield where they lived for 12 years.

Augustine lived a claustrophobic life with his adopted mother who was worried about any contact with authorities and did not let him attend school, visit a doctor, or make a single friend. She had taught him to read a little and his only contact with the outside world apart from their monthly visits by train to London was listening to the BBC world service. It was possibly those train rides that sparked an interest in him for model trains of which he had a sparse assortment consisting of bits and pieces of a quality that a frugal life style would afford. Eight years before his mother died he was finding the situation unbearable and had told his mother ” I am only a child. If you die who will look after me?”

Augustine was 38 when he woke one morning in 1977 to find Anna dead in her bed. “I shook her but she did not wake up, I knew she was dead” Augustine told Charles Glass who had known him. Terrified, he went to a nearby petrol station to get help and suddenly found himself surrounded by police having to explain that he was not responsible for her death. That night a sympathetic social worker found him a bed in an old people’s home, his first night’s sleep in a bed for years.

Anna was buried at Willingdon Council Cemetery, her funeral attended by her adopted son and her natural son Christoffel who travelled from Sri Lanka. There would be no further contact between Anna’s family and Augustine who eventually moved into a caravan in the grounds of another old people’s home and from there he moved into a flat at Chatsworth Road, Brighton where he lived for many years.

Locals in the Seven Dials area may remember his engaging and friendly smile, his eccentric habit of wearing his socks outside his trousers and his entire collection of badges which he wore on his jacket all at the same time.Twelve years ago the final chapter of an extraordinary life was written when Pandukhabaya Augustine Lankatilleke Obeyesekera known as Augustine died aged 71 years in his flat in Brighton, 33 years after the death of his mother.

Anna ‘s natural son Solomon Christoffel Obeysekera de Livera died a year later in July 2011, the daughter May having pre deceased him.

(Acknowledgments to Katy Rice and Charles Glass for their valuable contributions which form the basis of this article.) The article was first published in The Ceylankan, the Journal of the Ceylon Society of Australia, August 2012.

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Features

Maduro abduction marks dangerous aggravation of ‘world disorder’

Published

16 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Venezuelan President Maduro being taken to a court in New York

The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US special forces on January 3rd and his coercive conveying to the US to stand trial over a number of allegations leveled against him by the Trump administration marks a dangerous degeneration of prevailing ‘world disorder’. While some cardinal principles in International Law have been blatantly violated by the US in the course of the operation the fallout for the world from the exceptionally sensational VVIP abduction could be grave.

Although controversial US military interventions the world over are not ‘news’ any longer, the abduction and hustling away of a head of government, seen as an enemy of the US, to stand trial on the latter soil amounts to a heavy-handed and arrogant rejection of the foundational principles of international law and order. It would seem, for instance, that the concept of national sovereignty is no longer applicable to the way in which the world’s foremost powers relate to the rest of the international community. Might is indeed right for the likes of the US and the Trump administration in particular is adamant in driving this point home to the world.

Chief spokesmen for the Trump administration have been at pains to point out that the abduction is not at variance with national security related provisions of the US Constitution. These provisions apparently bestow on the US President wide powers to protect US security and stability through courses of action that are seen as essential to further these ends but the fact is that International Law has been brazenly violated in the process in the Venezuelan case.

To be sure, this is not the first occasion on which a head of government has been abducted by US special forces in post-World War Two times and made to stand trial in the US, since such a development occurred in Panama in 1989, but the consequences for the world could be doubly grave as a result of such actions, considering the mounting ‘disorder’ confronting the world community.

Those sections opposed to the Maduro abduction in the US would do well to from now on seek ways of reconciling national security-related provisions in the US Constitution with the country’s wider international commitment to uphold international peace and law and order. No ambiguities could be permitted on this score.

While the arbitrary military action undertaken by the US to further its narrow interests at whatever cost calls for criticism, it would be only fair to point out that the US is not the only big power which has thus dangerously eroded the authority of International Law in recent times. Russia, for example, did just that when it violated the sovereignty of Ukraine by invading it two or more years ago on some nebulous, unconvincing grounds. Consequently, the Ukraine crisis too poses a grave threat to international peace.

It is relevant to mention in this connection that authoritarian rulers who hope to rule their countries in perpetuity as it were, usually end up, sooner rather than later, being a blight on their people. This is on account of the fact that they prove a major obstacle to the implementation of the democratic process which alone holds out the promise of the progressive empowerment of the people, whereas authoritarian rulers prefer to rule with an iron fist with a fixation about self-empowerment.

Nevertheless, regime-change, wherever it may occur, is a matter for the public concerned. In a functional democracy, it is the people, and the people only, who ‘make or break’ governments. From this viewpoint, Russia and Venezuela are most lacking. But externally induced, militarily mediated change is a gross abnormality in the world of democracy, which deserves decrying.

By way of damage control, the US could take the initiative to ensure that the democratic process, read as the full empowerment of ordinary people, takes hold in Venezuela. In this manner the US could help in stemming some of the destructive fallout from its abduction operation. Any attempts by the US to take possession of the national wealth of Venezuela at this juncture are bound to earn for it the condemnation of democratic opinion the world over.

Likewise, the US needs to exert all its influence to ensure that the rights of ordinary Ukrainians are protected. It will need to ensure this while exploring ways of stopping further incursions into Ukrainian territory by Russia’s invading forces. It will need to do this in collaboration with the EU which is putting its best foot forward to end the Ukraine blood-letting.

Meanwhile, the repercussions that the Maduro abduction could have on the global South would need to be watched with some concern by the international community. Here too the EU could prove a positive influence since it is doubtful whether the UN would be enabled by the big powers to carry out the responsibilities that devolve on it with the required effectiveness.

What needs to be specifically watched is the ‘copycat effect’ that could manifest among those less democratically inclined Southern rulers who would be inspired by the Trump administration to take the law into their hands, so to speak, and act with callous disregard for the sovereign rights of their smaller and more vulnerable neighbours.

Democratic opinion the world over would need to think of systems of checks and balances that could contain such power abuse by Southern autocratic rulers in particular. The UN and democracy-supportive organizations, such as the EU, could prove suitable partners in these efforts.

All in all it is international lawlessness that needs managing effectively from now on. If President Trump carries out his threat to over-run other countries as well in the manner in which he ran rough-shod over Venezuela, there is unlikely to remain even a semblance of international order, considering that anarchy would be receiving a strong fillip from the US, ‘The World’s Mightiest Democracy’.

What is also of note is that identity politics in particularly the South would be unprecedentedly energized. The narrative that ‘the Great Satan’ is running amok would win considerable validity among the theocracies of the Middle East and set the stage for a resurgence of religious fanaticism and invigorated armed resistance to the US. The Trump administration needs to stop in its tracks and weigh the pros and cons of its current foreign policy initiatives.

Features

Pure Christmas magic and joy at British School

Published

16 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Students of The British High School in Colombo in action at the fashion show

The British School in Colombo (BSC) hosted its Annual Christmas Carnival 2025, ‘Gingerbread Wonderland’, which was a huge success, with the students themseles in the spotlight, managing stalls and volunteering.

The event, organised by the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), featured a variety of activities, including: Games and rides for all ages, Food stalls offering delicious treats, Drinks and refreshments, Trade booths showcasing local products, and Live music and entertainment.

The carnival was held at the school premises, providing a fun and festive atmosphere for students, parents, and the community to enjoy.

The halls of the BSC were filled with pure Christmas magic and joy with the students and the staff putting on a tremendous display.

Among the highlights was the dazzling fashion show with the students doing the needful, and they were very impressive.

The students themselves were eagerly looking forward to displaying their modelling technique and, I’m told, they enjoyed the moment they had to step on the ramp.

The event supported communities affected by the recent floods, with surplus proceeds going to flood-relief efforts.

Features

Glowing younger looking skin

Published

16 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Hi! This week I’m giving you some beauty tips so that you could look forward to enjoying 2026 with a glowing younger looking skin.

Face wash for natural beauty

* Avocado:

Take the pulp, make a paste of it and apply on your face. Leave it on for five minutes and then wash it with normal water.

* Cucumber:

Just rub some cucumber slices on your face for 02-03 minutes to cleanse the oil naturally. Wash off with plain water.

* Buttermilk:

Apply all over your face and leave it to dry, then wash it with normal water (works for mixed to oily skin).

Face scrub for natural beauty

Take 01-02 strawberries, 02 pieces of kiwis or 02 cubes of watermelons. Mash any single fruit and apply on your face. Then massage or scrub it slowly for at least 3-5 minutes in circular motions. Then wash it thoroughly with normal or cold water. You can make use of different fruits during different seasons, and see what suits you best! Follow with a natural face mask.

Face Masks

* Papaya and Honey:

Take two pieces of papaya (peeled) and mash them to make a paste. Apply evenly on your face and leave it for 30 minutes and then wash it with cold water.

Papaya is just not a fruit but one of the best natural remedies for good health and glowing younger looking skin. It also helps in reducing pimples and scars. You can also add honey (optional) to the mixture which helps massage and makes your skin glow.

* Banana:

Put a few slices of banana, 01 teaspoon of honey (optional), in a bowl, and mash them nicely. Apply on your face, and massage it gently all over the face for at least 05 minutes. Then wash it off with normal water. For an instant glow on your face, this facemask is a great idea to try!

* Carrot:

Make a paste using 01 carrot (steamed) by mixing it with milk or honey and apply on your face and neck evenly. Let it dry for 15-20 minutes and then wash it with cold water. Carrots work really well for your skin as they have many vitamins and minerals, which give instant shine and younger-looking skin.