The following article appeared in the 'Maple Ball' souvenir (TCK OBA Toronto, Canada chapter. Date unknown) Our sincere thanks to Babu Dharmaratnam for making it available.
My Years at Trinity 1933-1937By Nalliah Narendra (Read it later)
Reminiscing about my youthful years has always been a very pleasant pastime, especially the few years I spent at Trinity College. I received my primary education in Malaysia but was uprooted from my birthplace due to the great depression, and at age 14 joined Trinity.
The Principals during my time were the Reverends J McLeod Campbell and R.W. Stopford. The former was a bachelor with a sister who looked after him. They lived in a bungalow which was demolished for building the college chapel. If my memory serves me well, the chapel was built in two stages. First the area of the altar section which contains the famous David Paynter murals, and later the rest which adopted beautiful Kandyan architecture and design. A solid building of stone and teak, it is a fitting monument, uniting generations of Trinitians from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds. The chapel is in keeping with the Trinity ideal: "The brotherhood of man transcends the boundaries of nations", which finds existence of the TCK OBA in various countries. One of the highlights of my life was that I was present at the consecration of the chapel, while I was a boarder at Napier house.
Most of the masters at Trinity were good and kind. Not only did they teach us their respective subjects but also how to conduct ourselves. They were especially useful to most boarders, who were separated from their parents for long periods of time. Our teachers were real gurus. The teacher who really impressed me was R.R. Breckenridge. He was not only a natty dresser, but also as our English teacher was super. The Pocket Oxford Dictionary was our second bible. Whenever the occasion arose, he would also give us fatherly advise. I remember one that I still follow. This is what he said in form V1 - "Some of you will soon be going out into the world; remember this: if you have an opinion, get up, speak up, sit down; otherwise shut up!".
We had "Dad" Devendra - in full national dress who gave me zero marks for scripture in Form V1; H.W. Mediwake for Geography, my pet subject which in turn stimulated a lifelong interest in travel; G.Y. Sahayam, a gentleman, was always prepared to give a helping hand to students like me, who were weak in mathematics, unlike "Karoliya" Karalakulasingham who trashed me once in form V; "Jontha" David, Weerasinghe, Sundaramani, Miss Wells, Miss Reiman, Henry Kuruppu, Hardy, Oswin Wright all contributed to a general education. At the time Latin or Greek was compulsory; so, not much emphasis was placed on Sinhala or Tamil, which were taught only to provide a working knowledge.
We also had three masters on contract from England, to ensure consistency with a British public school type education. King taught us book binding was house master of Napier, besides assisting Phillip Buultjens in coaching rugby. He was a pipe smoker and mostly wore shorts. Little taught English literature and was house master of Alison; he would sign two exercise books at the same time using both hands. Young taught Latin and was at Ryde house. It was amusing working with him because he was flamboyant and expected us to greet him in Latin - "vale te magister"! Unfortunately he was a casualty during the second world war.
Turning to sports, college cricket was a comparatively tame show except for the "big match". (However we were a disciplined lot, trained not to show any emotion, both on and off the field, except in the privacy of the pavilion.) During the 1937 season, we won three of the inter college matches and drew two. I was able to play as wicket keeper for the first two but missed the others due to a thumb injury, thus missing the Anthonian match. Marthelis, the grounds man, was my only consolation. In later years I realized he was my real coach and friend. He was an institution within an institution. He will always remain a gentleman in my book. It should be mentioned that the Thomians, led by Jayathilake were all out for 26 in the second innings and the match was over by lunch time on Saturday. This was much to the disappointment of our old boys from Colombo were looking forward to some entertainment after lunch!
In 1936 we did very well in athletics by winning both the Jeferson and Tarbat trophies at the Public Schools Meet. If my memory serves, I think the team consisted of Duncan White (later of Olympic fame), Grenier, Rahim, Mollegoda, Sammy David, Tennekoon, Aserappa and Ratnasothy, in addition to the others whose names I cannot remember.
College rugby was not exciting in those days as we always beat Royal, Zahira and St Peters. There was no Brady Shield nor any of the present day interest in inter school rugby. However we loved to watch the inter district rugger on the Bogambara grounds where the up country (consisting of mainly expatriate tea plantation managers) played the Colombo teams (consisting mainly of expatriate merchants and brokers). Our hero was Trinity's own Philip Buultjens who played at full back. With his booming kick to touch, solid tackling and penetrating runs, he was a joy to watch. I can think of no other played with comparable skills. He is an all time great. Oswin Wright, our cricket coach, was also a great guy. He was an old Josephian and a good sportsman. I remember a cricket match when Kandy played a team from South India. Bannerjee, an Indian test fast bowler was bowling to Wright. One bal, a bumper was despatched for a six into the cabbage palms. The bowler tried a faster one, and this went over the wall of the Bogambara jail, much to the amusement of the spectators on the hill.
Finally an observation must be made of my generation of Trinitians. Almost all of us have made our mark in many professions, believe me, even as taxi drivers when times were hard, and we know the meaning of dignity of labour. We are now scattered all over the face of the earth; still, wherever we are, we shall always remain loyal to the college we know as "the best school of all".