{"id":130351,"date":"2024-02-14T17:11:40","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T17:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/?p=130351"},"modified":"2024-02-14T17:12:26","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T17:12:26","slug":"minette-de-silva-an-ornament-of-her-age-i-by-michael-roberts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/minette-de-silva-an-ornament-of-her-age-i-by-michael-roberts\/","title":{"rendered":"Minette de Silva: An Ornament of Her Age, I-by Michael Roberts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minette de Silva: An Ornament of Her Age, I-by Michael Roberts<\/span><\/h2>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Source:<\/span><\/strong>Thuppahis<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Jane Russell\u00a0\u2026 presenting A Memoir as one Step in a series and deploying the spelling of \u201cMinette\u201d which Minette favoured (not Minnette)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"elanka\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The whine of Minette\u2019s white Renault as it climbed the steep curves of the driveway to St George\u2019s [in Kandy] could be heard long before the car arrived under the arched porch. The car headlights would be switched off and I\u2019d catch a few words in Sinhala being exchanged between Minette and Punchi Rala, a tall, fair old man, whose thin grey hair was tied in a tiny knot behind his head, a dirty sarong half falling from his slack stomach. Punchi Rala was a semi-alcoholic (kassipu<\/em>\u00a0being his favoured beverage) who slept on a donkey bed in the recess of the porch. Under his bed he kept a pike that had surely been purloined from the last King of Kandy\u2019s armoury.<\/span><\/p>\n

My bedroom had originally been the drivers\u2019 room when Minette\u2019s famous lawyer-politician father, George E de Silva, had built the house. Through the slatted door that opened onto the porch, I\u2019d listen intently to their conversation. I was trying to improve my Sinhala. Finally, I\u2019d hear Minette open and close the wood and glass double veranda doors and enter the bungalow. Then all would fall silent except for trains shunting at Kandy station in the valley far below.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Minette drove her car only twice a week. \u00a0On a weekday evening, she\u2019d drive into Kandy to have dinner at \u2018Gunfire\u2019<\/strong>, the stunning house that sat atop a hill overlooking Kandy town, belonging to the small, twinkly eyed, \u2018merry widower\u2019 Willy Karunaratne, a famous society doctor.<\/span><\/p>\n

On a Saturday or Sunday evening, she\u2019d visit Willy\u2019s tall, austere brother, Algie Karunaratne, who\u2019d been her father\u2019s younger partner in their Kandy law firm. There she\u2019d dine with Algie and Letitia (Letty), his elegant, intellectual wife and whichever of their family happened to be visiting. They\u2019d sit at a long mahogany table, served by barefoot male domestics, in the dining room of the house Minette herself had designed 25 years before.\u00a0Known in\u00a0Architectural History Books and Magazines<\/em>\u00a0as\u00a0<\/strong>\u2018The Karunaratne House\u2019<\/strong>, Algie and Letty had given Minette\u2019s her first commission after she\u2019d got her diploma from RIBA. Then, in her early thirties, as Ceylon\u2019s first female architect, she\u2019d pioneered techniques she\u2019d learned in London and from Le Corbusier, her mentor and friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"elanka\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Now, in 1974, she was in her middle-fifties and like Miss Jean Brodie \u2018in her prime\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under the severe restrictions of the United Front socialist (Trotskyist) government, privately owned motor vehicles were scarce. There were some Peugeots and Mazdas, plus many ancient British models \u2013 Morris Minors and Morris Travellers (the \u2018wooded wagons\u2019 so loved by planters\u2019 wives to house shopping and dogs), and worthy Morris Oxfords and Austin Cambridges: these \u00a0together with a few Fiats, Citroens, Packard\u2019s, Volvos, Saabs and of course the ubiquitous Land-Rover, were the most conspicuous. British VSOs in outstation posts were given Honda 50 motorcycles to get around. \u00a0But there were almost no modern Renaults in Sri Lanka in 1974. Sturdy and efficient, the Renault 4 estate resembled a \u2018paan baagaya\u2019. It was well-suited to Kandy\u2019s switchback, narrow and imperfect roads, although it sounded like a vamped-up electric sewing machine as it climbed the hill to St Georges.<\/span><\/p>\n

Minette\u2019 s driving style, like her architectural practice, was entirely her own. She once drove me to Colombo. \u00a0We proceeded at 20 mph down the Peradeniya Road. \u201cI don\u2019t drive fast, and I give elephants and CTB buses a wide berth\u201d, she warned me\u00a0in the impeccable contralto drawl that was the result of the Received Pronunciation lessons she\u2019d been subjected to at the private school in Wimbledon where she\u2019d been put as a ten-year-old.\u00a0<\/strong>Minette spoke Sinhalese with this same drawl. In her deep and melodious voice, a voice which romantic lady-novelists like to describe as \u2018thrilling\u2019, Minette\u2019s instructions to Nancy, her lady\u2019s maid-cum-cook, sounded almost comic. \u201cNancy, maama Nuweretaa yaanaavaa, haariiyadaa?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

During this car journey, somewhere near the village of Iddhalmagoda, (since renamed Cadjugama), Minette suddenly laughed out loud.\u00a0She recalled how terrified (Sir) Laurence Olivier,<\/strong>\u00a0the famous Shakespearean actor,\u00a0had been of her driving.<\/strong>\u00a0Sir Laurence had apparently cadged a lift from her to get to the airport. He\u2019d been forced to leave his unstable actress wife\u00a0Vivien Leigh<\/strong>, then in the middle of an outrageously wild fling with her Aussie co-star\u00a0Peter Finch\u00a0on the failing film set of \u2018Elephant Walk\u2019,\u00a0<\/strong>to make it back to Britain in time to meet his commitments on the London stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, Vivien just threw me at Larry\u2019s head!\u201d Minette declared in a deadpan voice. She glanced at me sideways to see if I\u2019d taken in the full import of this revelation. I must\u2019ve looked suitably impressed as she then came out with a few more succulent titbits about the messy love lives of Pinewood royalty as we drove at a stately pace towards Colombo.<\/span><\/p>\n

I once spent a night at\u00a0the \u2018Karunaratne House\u2019.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0It was the last night of the Kandy Perahera in 1978. The next morning, I stood on the large lawn gazing at the remarkable back-to-front exterior of the house. It exuded sunlight, and familial intimacy and happiness. But inside,\u00a0the house seemed cluttered with too many novel and clashing ideas<\/strong>:a sunken dining room; a raised platform living room overly dominated by a George Keyt mural;\u00a0 glass bricks separating the downstair rooms from the circular staircase:\u00a0in short, the neophyte\u2019s enthusiasm to pack in everything she\u2019d learnt.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"elanka\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.. To Be Continued<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

************<\/span><\/p>\n

SOME REFERENCES added by Thuppahi Editor<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/architectuul.com\/architecture\/karunaratne-house<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0https:\/\/thuppahis.com\/2023\/12\/19\/a-revolutionary-architect-minnette-de-silva\/<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n