This is an edited version composed by a very good friend of mine a couple of years ago who recalls fondly the wonderful 1950s -1960s which people from my generation treasure so much.
Remember
when the worst thing you could do at school was to smoke an Ardath cigarette in the bathroom, and the banquets were in
the tuck-shop where a glass of heavenly lime juice was just 15 cents and a
roll was 25 cents.
When
the ultimate car was a '62 Sunbeam Alpine or a ‘63 MG Magnette. Or even the Triumph Herald. Even new cars had to
be “broken in” by being driven carefully for specified lengths of time. No
bench driven, ready made engines then. No one ever asked where the car keys
were 'cause they were always in the ignition, where else could a car
key be? Car thieves? Unheard of. Anyway how many could really drive a car?
We danced to radiogram (Grundig), music
swinging to the rock beat of Bill
Haley and the Comets and the
glorious strains of Edmundo
Ros’s - Mélodie
D'Amour or the Wedding Samba. All the girls wore dresses (Not jeans then or dull unisex looks) and hemlines ending just above the knee.
People went steady and it was a
great weekend to go to the Galle Face Hotel's COCONUT
GROOVE with the JETLINERS. Visit Ceylinco Ball Room with the SPITFIRES or go to the LITTLE HUT for the sundown dances with AMAZING
GRACE. Or to the Akasa Kade
with SAM THE MAN or slipping into the BLUE LEOPORD, the GOLDEN EAGLE or the ATLANTA near the CLTA courts
Wow! the forbidden thrill of braving it, with adrenaline pumping.
Remember the Galle Face Green, (not
brown) lying on your back on the grass with your friends reflecting on life. People and kids milling about freely taking in
the Sunday Ozone, sans soldiers asking for IDs.
Playing tennis ball
cricket with no pesky adults to help make up the rules. When you
applied linseed oil on the face of a bat and hit a leather ball inside an old
sock hanging on a branch, to kingdom come to ‘season’ your bat. No pre seasoned
bats those days either. Back then, cricket was not a psychological learning
curve - it was just a game! Played for the sheer fun, and the love of it. “Ado, umpire hora” was a favourite expression.
Remember the Famous Five & Secret Seven book series? Roy Rodgers &
Dale Evans, Lone Ranger & Tonto, Gene Autry, Billy the kid and Tom
& Jerry and Little Lulu comics. ‘Giant
Comics’ and “Classics” on the Maradana railway bridge at Rs.2 something each. Piccadilly at Wellawatte,
'house-dances', Zellers at Bambalapitiya, the Maliban Cream House
at Kollupitiya,(opposite the infamous White Shop).
"Sunday Choice" on Radio Ceylon that even the Indians in Bombay
still talk about! Jimmy Bharucha, Chris Greet, and Vernon Corea. All giants and Connoisseurs
of a bygone art and era in broadcasting when Radio Ceylon
ruled the waves. Wikipedia notes
that the first gramophone music broadcast in Ceylon was from a tiny room in
Colombo's Central Telegraph Office with the aid of a transmitter built by
Telegraph Department engineers from radio equipment salvaged from a captured
German submarine. Late Donovan
Andree was responsible for organizing shows like "Holiday on Ice" and
the "Harlem Blackbirds" at the B.R.C. Grounds, Col. 7. This nation is starved of “quality”
entertainment. Today the cinema has deteriorated and most TV programmes have become monotonous and stale. Many of us can still remember how members of the
working class irrespective of ethnicity, caste or creed met at the Dominion,
the White Horse or Brown’s Bar in the Fort.
Recall
Bill Forbes, the Jay Brothers and the Jay
Cee Shows at Mount Lavinia Hotel ? The 'Bambalapitiya Flats’, eating Fish & Chips & Sundaes with that special chocolate sauce at the 'Fountain
Cafe.' with its booming juke box. Then there was
Buriyani at Pilawoos...! Mayfair....The list was endless.
When
being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited us at home. Our parents
and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we all survived....because their love was
greater than their threat. Didn't
that make you feel good? Just to go back and say, "Yeah,
I remember that!' ... And was it really that long ago?
