Friendship is one of life’s rich gifts. Those that are made at school during our formative years remain strong in our hearts and minds throughout our lives. The great dispersal at the end of our school careers come as a shock to us all. We then embark on our journeys through life in the wider world stepping on the treadmill to carve ourselves careers and raise our families. It is not until these life’s obligations are fulfilled do we get the time to look back and trace our school friends who meant so much to us.

Good communications in the 21st century, internet and telephone services have made keeping in touch easier. But these still remain an alien culture to many of us who grew up in the fifties. This great dispersal and my own destiny has brought me to the UK where I have lived for the past 35 years. A distance of 5,000 miles from home is a hindrance to my efforts to trace friends. In my retirement, with time on my hands, this remains a frustration and a regret.

I joined Wesley College in 1950, in its heyday. Cedric Oorloff, a career Civil Servant, was its head and driving force. Mutual respect, good manners and courtesy that pervaded Ceylonese society in those days also filtered through to the schools. The discipline at Wesley College was exemplary. The academic standards improved tremendously and so did our sports.

This was the scene when I met Wimal (MW) Wickremaratne alias ‘Mynah’, a nickname that stuck to him like glue. We were boarders together in the harsh prison like environment of the fifties. It sounds oppressive by today's standards, but it was a magical childhood. The boarding was a place of great warmth and spontaneous humour. He was a small stocky lad from the outback of Horana. Wimal was a natural sportsman with a fantastic eye for the ball. In the early days he was at his best playing cricket in the small park, which was our amphitheatre behind the school. This dust bowl of grass and pebbles was a bowler’s dream and a batsman’s nightmare. It was there we found friendship which was to last a lifetime. Be it football or cricket, the games were played in the blazing sun and torrential rain until dusk when the victors and the vanquished returned to their homework. In all this, what struck me most was Wimal’s even temper despite his sportsman’s natural desire to win.

Living in the boarding away from parents, friendships meant much. We formed a remarkably close-knit, self-reliant and mutually supportive group. This strict environment prepared us for the vicissitudes of life in the wider world. There was a surprising sense of calm and order to our lives. Despite the regimentation we had time to put our arms round our friends and share in their joys and sorrows. We shared our secrets and exchanged stories about our families. There was a certain closeness which was rarely seen in friendships later on in life.

We talked about our dreams and aspirations and assumed we will always be friends. It fills my heart with sadness to think many of us will never meet again. It is a horrible reminder of our own mortality to read or hear of the death of boarders who played, laughed and fought with us all those years ago. For me they will always remain young, healthy and smiling. It is hard to believe they will not be playing those elegant cover drives ever again.

As we moved up the school ladder Wimal struggled with his exams but excelled in sports. He played 1st XI Soccer for Wesley and represented the school in the 4X100 meter relay at the Public Schools Meet held at the Oval. He achieved much in sports but was modest and kept his feet firmly on terra firma. Even during those challenging teenage years Wimal remained a kind and thoughtful person. The Public Examinations came and went and Wimal decided to leave school in 1960 and briefly started the A-Level course at Stafford College.

Academia never appealed to him and soon he joined the Ceylon Tourist Bureau which later became the Ceylon Tourist Board. Changing names was a fashionable pastime in the sixties. I continued my studies but never met him again for several years. Then once in Nugegoda in 1963 as I went into a shop on High Level Road I saw the familiar figure. He was a manager, temporarily, in a small store. We hugged and reminisced at length as the customers formed a long queue. I stepped out without paying as he refused to accept money. Then there was a long pause of 40 years when we were both busy building up our careers and raising our families. There was no contact of any kind.

I have always tended to follow a wandering star. I had made my home in a delightful suburb in rural England when in 2003 I heard a familiar voice on the phone. The emotions overwhelmed us. Wimal was a senior member of the Ceylon Tourist Board and was posted to London. He had been in the UK for 5 years but didn’t know I was here too. We decided to meet at Bond Street underground station at 3 pm. I was there on time and looked for that familiar face. I paced the busy Oxford Street by the station many times but Wimal was not to be seen. Then our eyes met.

He was enormous having filled out on all sides with a fat face, body and a huge tummy. Much of the black hair had turned grey. I must have changed too. Our lined faces and baggy eyes perhaps gave us a leonine nobility. Round the corner from the station was the famous Claridge’s Hotel in London, a refuge for the rich and famous. There, Ranjit Rosa, another past Wesley boarder was the Chief Engineer. We paid him a surprise visit and spent time in their plush lounge reminiscing.

Hours passed as we exchanged stories of our lives and our ups and downs. There was laughter mixed with tears and sadness of the lost years since school. The conversation seemed to return incessantly to where we first met at Wesley as the stories and anecdotes of our school lives flowed freely. It amazes me still how much of it we have retained for so long in the archives of our minds. We remembered mutual friends who are no more.

The life after leaving school brought its own pleasures and pain. Wimal had lost his wife, then in her forties, to the scourge of cancer. This has taken a lot out of him as he raised his family as a single parent. The ever present glint in his eyes spoke volumes of his loss. The daughters were now married and happily settled in the UK. The night wore on and it was time to leave. We bade a long goodbye and I watched Wimal disappear into the stillness of the night. I wondered, once more, if we would ever meet again.

We kept in touch, from time to time, until he moved to a house just 15 minutes away from me. I was ecstatic to have a friend so near to me. We met again in our houses and mostly spoke of mutual friends, of school and of the ravages of time. Somehow the spark had gone out of his life although he maintained a bold front. As always he was kind and understanding and never had an unkind word for anyone. Wimal enjoyed the company of his close family but for many of us who knew him in his youth, he had become withdrawn, and a recluse.

He, however, never lost his passion for sports. Wimal watched football and cricket on television all his waking hours. British TV is a sportsman’s dream. He refused to look after his health, eat sensibly and to take regular exercise. He had a sweet tooth and enjoyed his Sri Lankan cuisine enormously. Despite advice to the contrary he maintained his large frame. Wimal lead the life he wanted and never searched for the fountain of youth. Perhaps, he let destiny take its course after losing his soulmate and the light of his life.

In 2007 Wimal retired from work and fulfilled his dream of travelling to the West Indies for the Cricket World Cup. He had much to say on his return of this fantastic sporting spectacle. He embraced retirement and the new found freedom with both arms.

Wimal then spent a month in Australia visiting friends and relatives and stayed in Sri Lanka for further couple of months before returning to the UK. He then looked happier than ever but continued his reclusive existence. I wished we could have met more often but that was not to be. Time slipped by.

On my return from a holiday in March 2008 there was an email from his son-in-law that Wimal has been admitted to hospital and had cancer. I saw him many times in the same institution which was my place of work for a quarter of a century. He was in some discomfort. After he came to know the diagnosis he showed the courage I saw in his youth as a fine sportsman. His health deteriorated rapidly; he lost much weight but his mind remained clear. He was unable to fulfil his desire to see his 96-year old mother in Sri Lanka due to his rapidly failing health. The loss of her son must weigh heavily on her fragile self. Age 66 is too young to die but longevity and a protracted life has its own drawbacks - seeing the demise of one’s siblings, friends and children. In the 21st century our judgment of youth and age has slid away from its traditional moorings. Healthy diet, exercise and good healthcare can give us some extra years but we depend so much on having good genes of which we have so little control.

Wimal bore his final illness with the customary stoicism. Despite the rigours of chemotherapy and surgical interventions he remained courteous and thoughtful to the very end. Their were times he was at the end his tether and wished his life would end sooner. Then one day the dark clouds and the dismal weather echoed the loss of a good man. His serenity, dignity and sheer indomitable courage in his final illness made him an extraordinary man. When such tragedy strikes you are on your own. In this long and tortuous journey none of us will get out alive, but we continue to grieve for those who are gone.

Grief is a universal experience. Unlike in the old days there are no comforting rituals to sustain the bereaved. Anger, denial, relief and guilt are the emotions that swirl around in our psyche. Nowadays there is no wearing of mourning attire which would signal to others our fragile state and the need for time and space. Pressures on our time has robbed us of the necessary grieving period which would create a safety zone around us. Hence, after writing this note, which in itself is cathartic, I reached for the comfort and wisdom of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend

Before we too into the dust descend

Dust into dust, and under dust, to lie

Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and – sans end.