Mr. W. V. Abeygoonewardene, one of Sri Lanka’s most senior journalists, celebrates his 85th birthday on June 11.

Popularly known as ‘Wavy’ (because of his initials) he has worked both at Lake House and the now defunct Independent Newspapers where he edited the flagship Rividina Sunday paper.

Abeygoonewardena entered full time journalism as a sub-editor of the old Peramuna newspaper. Prior to that he had been a prolific contributor to the national press having his verses and short stories published in the Silumina during his teen years.

During a visit to the US under the State Department’s International Visitor Program in the middle sixties, he held an American family whose guest he was enthralled with an anecdote of how he, as a small boy, had scrambled for five cents to buy a copy of the Silumina which had published some of his verses.

The tall, erect Abeygoonawardene, immaculate in his white national dress, was for many years a familiar sight at the Gampaha railway station from where he used to take train to Colombo every day. Asked once why he didn’t get himself a car – his children have done well in life – he laughingly said: "If I don’t walk and use public transport, I won’t be in this shape at my age."

Abeygoonewardena’s last appointment was as Secretary of the Mahawansa Compilation Board where he succeeded Prof. Nandadeva Wijesekera as the editor-in-chief.