A trip down memory lane playing an old gramophone record in GampahaBy Dr Nihal D AmerasekeraI was in my early teens in 1952 when my father was transferred to Gampaha. Formerly called Henarathgoda, it is a town made up by the merging of five villages. When Sir Edward Barnes, a British Governor, paid a visit to the area in 1825, it was a dense forest.
He decided to construct a railway through the area and to have a station at Henarathgoda. This effectively ignited great interest in the area.In the 1950’s Gampaha was still a small town and amazingly peaceful.
It could not boast of lush green mountains or a deep blue sea, but the air was clean and the people were friendly. It was a place of beauty, loveliness and enchantment. Its claim to fame was the Botanical Gardens where Ceylon’s first rubber tree was planted.
As the British left us in 1948 we were free to rule ourselves. I was then far too young to appreciate the vast political and social changes taking place around me. I was happily oblivious to these enormous changes but as I grew up, learnt to accept them like the rest of my countrymen.
The crucial goal of uniting Sri Lanka’s people was overshadowed by the melee of parliamentary politics. It is easier to be scornful of the past than of the present. With the introduction of free education and healthcare, lives changed for the better for the many.
We then lived in a splendid old house on Colombo Road, Gampaha opposite the Government Hospital. It was the ancestral home o.
