Main menu
Here are some more unedited extracts from my diaries covering my first few days at RAF Gangodawila in Ceylon at the beginning of 1955. Some of the language, for example my use of the word 'native', is not how I would write these days. However, that was how the language was used in 1955 and I knew no better then. I have left my words as I originally wrote them but there was then, and is now, absolutely no racist connotation.
Saturday 1st January 1955. As the first day of the New Year draws to its close I find myself still at Gangodawila instead of Negombo as I had expected. On Monday the 3rd I was to have flown from Negombo to China Bay for a week's GCT (Ground Combat Training) course but when I arrived at Negombo this morning I was told that the course had been cancelled. And so I came back again in the van driven by our only driver at Gango – Mr DeLile. On the way back to camp we called at his house, which is about a mile from camp by road, to deliver some meat he had bought. As we were about to leave, a friend of his stopped him and insisted on his having a drink to celebrate the New Year. So Mr DeLile went off to his friend's house while Mrs DeLile invited me inside and gave me a cool fruit drink which, I might add, was very welcome. Mr DeLile returned about ten minutes later and we arrived at camp a few minutes after that. I reported to our CO, Flight Sergeant Owen, who had by that time received the order cancelling the GCT course. It was then about 1215hrs so instead of going into the section I came into the billet where I found, to my joy, a nice fat letter from home. This was the first letter I had received since the one at Innsworth nearly a month ago. The rest of the day was more or less spent on my bed. A bad headache had developed so I tried to get some sleep but I only dropped off for a few minutes at a time. I went for dinner at 5pm but regretted it afterwards as I felt sick. However, it is now 7pm and I feel much better.
It was very hot this morning but during the afternoon clouds gathered and it started to rain very hard. There was some thunder and lightning but nothing to compare with last night's short-
There look like being quite a few changes in the section in the near future. Tomorrow, Senior Technician Ken Riley is going to Australia for a month to see how their equivalent of Gango is run there. But when he gets back here, he is due to go back to UK as his tour expires sometime in February. Tom Fotheringham, the senior of three Junior Technicians and the only one of us who knows much about the equipment, has only about six weeks to do. Then there are two or three of the mechanics who haven't long to do.
One amusement in the section at present is the Third Test Match. Radio Australia broadcasts ball-
Sunday 2nd January 1955. Breakfast at 8 am was practically the same as usual. Every breakfast I have had on this camp so far has consisted of Corn Flakes or Weetabix followed by either egg and beans or egg and bacon, with toast. Why we have to have egg each time I don't know. Having finished my meal I went into the Quiet Room and read the Sunday papers (Sunday Times of Ceylon and the Ceylon Observer). At the same time I was listening to the very varied programmes which the 'National Service of Radio Ceylon' provided. They were all record programmes and it seems a waste of time to me to bother having separate programmes – they might just as well play two or three hours of gramophone records and give a time check every now and then. As it is we heard 'Music Bright and Gay', 'Favourites of Today', La Scala Memories', and 'Sunday Prom'. However, they played some very good music but it annoyed me to have to wait for them to turn the record over in the middle of an overture, etc.
Next