Mr Dunstan Taylor

Kusum, Hapu, Mazher Fazleali, & Graham, have reported a Mr Dunstan Taylor who spent a short time at College teaching latin to the Fourth Formers. he is supposed to have been a fellow of the school by the beach in outer Colombo, in his days as a student.

I dont have any recollections of him at all. It is possible he may have spent time at Royal during the second half of 1963 when I was hospitalized for six months after suffering an eye accident at College and suffering a Retinal Detachment.

Any further info on Mr Taylor will be useful for the blog

Fazli Sameer
April 29 2006

An extract from my autobiography, "The way we were..." related to ROYAL is given below, having relevance to the story above.

quote
R*O*Y*A*L

Moving to College in 1959 was a tremendous change for everyone. Some of the Burgher boys were in the process of migrating to Australia with the Sinhala only policy coming into place.

Some didn’t make it having failed the entrance test. New guys joined us from various other schools. We had a batch of over 200 in the first year at Royal College in 1959 spread out into seven classes classified as Form 1A to Form 1F.

I was in 1E and my class teacher was Mr Justin de Silva, affectionately known as “Abraham Lincoln” for his tremendous love and respect for the former American President whom he used as a role model in every possible way. He even sported a beard and tried to look like old Abe in the best of his own inimitable style.

1A was taken by that wonderfully dynamic teacher Capt. MKJ Cantlay renowned for his activities and contributions with the Scout Troop and the Cadet Corps. I also remember Mr MM Alavi taking one of the classes in Form 1.

My Form 2 class master was Mr Sivalingam, Mr JH de Saram taking Form 3, Ms Samarasekera taking form 4 and then Mr Canegaratne also taking Form 4 as I had to spend another year in the same form in 1963 on account of an eye injury I suffered while playing “Elle” or Rounders (the local version of baseball) and had to spend six difficult months warded at the Colombo Eye Hospital from June to December 1963. The one whose bat hit me on the face was KC Fernando (Dr in OZ now), and it was the last “pitch”of the day before the bell rang to end the lunch interval. I was rushed to the Accident Service in an unconscious state after having been taken to the hostel for immediate attention to the cut above my left eye that subsequently had to have three stitches implanted to close the gaping wound.
unquote

Mail received from Palitha Manchanayake in OZ on May 8 2006

Guys,

I remember Mr. Taylor very well even though he has not taught me. He was there around our 4th Form or so.

A few years back I had a visitor from Sri Lanka and his wife was a former English Teacher in Sri Lanka who was attached to the Ministry of Higher Education. While they were at my place, she said that they have a family to visit in Sydney. When I asked for the address, she said that it is in Carlingford which is the same suburb that I live in. So I took them to that particular address and when we entered the house, I realized that it was that of Mr. Taylor's.

Apparently, Mrs. Taylor was also an English Teacher in Sri Lanka who has worked with this lady. Then we started a chat, and got to know that Mr. Taylor happens to be our Mr. EFC Pereira's nephew.

Regards
Mancha
p.manchanayake@bom.gov.au

EMail received from Eardley Lievers on May 11 2006

Just a bit of information. Dunstan Taylor died last year (2005) in Canberra of cancer (oesophagus). Some of you may not know it. Apparently he suffered a lot and towards the end lost his power of speech. His life was a sad one, losing his son and only child in a car accident in the sixties.

I was just browsing through the BLOG and came across a reference to him. Incidentally, the BLOG is very good.

Eardley L