\nAlso known as the beautiful “Watered Valley” of Ceylon, as I knew “her”, was the place where, together with “my batch” of Royal Ceylon Navy “recruits”, we came, to be turned from “boys into men”, way back in the 1950’s. Diyatalawa & our “training camp” H.M.Cy.S.<\/span><\/p>\n
Rangala” is just another place in “My lovely Island Home” that I will never ever forget simply because it was here that, difficult, though it was, we were all taught to “adapt” to anything that life, in general, had to offer, & this is exactly what I have done for 81 years to date.<\/span><\/p>\n A much more comprehensive “account” of my “time” in the Navy follows in “Four-Score & Forward”, hopefully an interesting look at the life of this writer, once again, written especially for my family, friends & fans & presented by eLanka (another brand new Era of digital technology) ,wherein my friend Neil Jayasekera has seen fit to “publish” the “memories”this R.Cy.N Supply Assistant in the foremost “website” for Lankans & Lankan\/Aussies everywhere, and, in which, I am not only appreciative, but proud to be part of.<\/span><\/p>\n This particular “article” is a “must read” for anyone claiming to be Ceylonese or Sri Lankan. It is the most interesting “piece”(complete with pictures) , of this beautiful Valley and, together with eLanka & later on, hopefully “The Lanka Times”, This was sent to me by another good friend, Victor Melder, via Keith Bennett.<\/span><\/p>\n Thank you Victor & Keith for a most wonderful “look” at “Diyatalawa, the Watered Valley” Great “story” boys & wonderful memories. Desmond Kelly.<\/span><\/p>\n The garrison town of Diyatalawa is, as its name denotes, a \u2018watered valley,\u2019 nestled between Haputale and Bandarawela, in the central highlands of Sri Lanka. Less known than Nuwara Eliya and Kandy, this eucalyptus and pine encrusted hill station has been associated with the military for almost a century. It is perhaps for this reason that the average Sri Lankan (with no military background) has little to no knowledge of it. But we hope to change this, because it is a pity to leave such a quaint location unexplored, at least in our national imagination.<\/span><\/p>\n To many who have been there, Diyatalawa has proved itself to be an ideal off-the-beaten-track holiday destination. There is no record of there being any kings or queens or important battles won or lost in Diyatalawa. To some, this makes Diyatalawa seem uninteresting, and non-existent, from a historical point of view. But to others, this is precisely what makes the little town and the few tidbits of information there is on it all the more intriguing.<\/span><\/p>\n Diyatalawa, the watered valley.<\/span><\/p>\n Happy Valley<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Perhaps the oldest piece of writing on Diyatalawa is a book by the name of The Happy Valley: Our New \u2018Mission Garden\u2019 in UVA, Ceylon, by Rev. Samuel Langdon, a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, Ceylon. Rev. and Mrs. Langdon were two Wesleyan (Methodist) missionaries, with a story of their own, which we feel is worth touching on here.<\/span><\/p>\n Rev. Langdon first arrived in Ceylon in 1870. He began his mission as a teacher at Wesley College, Colombo, and was later entrusted with the responsibility of steering Richmond College, Galle, as its Principal, through its initial years of development. The Langdons were also instrumental in setting up Girls\u2019 High School, Kandy.<\/span><\/p>\n Rev. Langdon is said to have earned a reputation for establishing \u201cscience education\u201d across Ceylon. Articles in the Sathyalankaravaya newspaper, dated March 13, 1878, and March 26, 1879, indicate the high esteem in which he was held amongst education circles at the time. In fact, in 1976 a Richmond College science magazine by the name of Vidya Thilina described Rev. Langdon as a \u201cpioneer of science education in Sri Lanka.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It would seem that Rev. Langdon\u2019s passion for science grew alongside his calling as a missionary. Having a heart for serving people, upon retirement from the office of Principal of Richmond College in 1879, Rev. and Mrs. Langdon leased a piece of land from the Colonial Government and set up an orphanage and an industrial school. The location they picked to do this was none other than Diyatalawa, which became to them \u2018Happy Valley.\u2019 The Langdons\u2019 Happy Valley mission station included \u2013 apart from the orphanage and industrial school \u2013 a mission house, a hospital, and a chapel.<\/span><\/p>\n With the establishment of the Happy Valley mission, the rolling hills of Diyatalawa, which were largely uninhabited until then, began to slowly develop into a quaint settlement. In time, quiet tea plantations were established in the vicinity, and more plots of Colonial Government-held land surrounding it were given on lease to various parties wishing to set up holiday homes in the hills.<\/span><\/p>\n Prisoners Of War<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Happy Valley soon became an attractive little settlement \u2013 so attractive that in April 1900, soon after the British went to war with the Boers (i.e. South Africans of Dutch, German, or Huguenot descent, now known as Afrikaners), Rev. Langdon and his mission were asked to move out so that the Colonial Government could set up a Prisoner of War (POW) camp on the mission site. This aspect of Diyatalawa\u2019s history is featured in R. L. Brohier\u2019s The Boers Prisoner of War, found in Volumes XXXVI of 1946 and XXXVII of 1947 of the Journal of the Dutch Burgher Union (JDBU). In Volume XXXVI of 1946 of the JDBU, R. L. Brohier confirms that the \u201c\u2026pioneer effort of Missionary enterprise was consequently the inspiration which invested Diyatalawa with a fame and prominence few could have anticipated for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n R.L. Brohier goes on to state that, \u201cBarely three weeks [after the Langdons were asked to vacate Happy Valley]\u2026 There followed the most remarkable exhibition of what organised local labour can accomplish\u2026\u201d The development that is recorded as having taken place was phenomenal. It is stated that \u201cAll day, and even into the night, the valley throbbed to the toil of builders and engineers. Labourers in gangs of hundreds, a large proportion of them being women, moved to and fro carrying earth to hand-carts that passed up and down a network of roadways.\u201d Arc and flare lamps are said to have been provided to light up the barriers at night, and electric lights had been provided to all the military and staff buildings. There was even an aerial tramway that was set up to run on \u201cEiffel Tower like structures\u201d for conveying stores. A road was also constructed from the railway station to the camp. Within as short a time as ten weeks, \u201c\u2026 as if by a miracle, what but a while ago was a bleak patana punctured by a few straggling buildings, materialised into a veritable town of silver sheen\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The first batch of Boer POWs landed in Colombo on August 9, 1900, from aboard the Mohawk, while further batches of POWs arrived on the island from time to time until June 1901. It is said that the POW camp in Diyatalawa, originally planned to accommodate 2,500 POWs and a guard of 1,000 men, ended up having to hold 4,735 POWs out of a total of 5,089 POWs who were brought and interned in Ceylon.<\/span><\/p>\n Boer POW camp.<\/span><\/p>\n R.L. Brohier speculates that despite Diyatalawa being a POW camp, the POWs impression (and, we hope, experience) of it may have been less than forlorn: \u201c\u2026who can venture to doubt that [when the POWs first stepped out of the train to Diyatalawa] it must have been with a shock of delight that they beheld in that vast panoramic landscape many of the characteristics of their own country. Here indeed were\u2026 mountains as rugged and as full of cover as their own\u2014South Africa all over again\u201d and that \u201cSurely\u2026 nothing was wanting in this choice of a locality to alleviate the lot of the Boer who had to be kept under restraint in Ceylon.\u201d Based on this speculation, perhaps we may imagine that the legacy of Happy Valley lingered even in the POW camp.<\/span><\/p>\n In any event, after the Boer War ended in 1902, the POWs were sent back to South Africa, and Diyatalawa became somewhat of a ghost town.<\/span> Bearing in mind the salubrious climate of Diyatalawa, the Governor at the time, Sir West Ridgeway, authorised the abandoned camp \u2012 which was by this time fitted out with a first class broad gauge railway, ideal for the movement of troops at short notice \u2012 to be used as a Rest and Recreation Camp for the military, an encampment for the Ceylon Volunteers (later Ceylon Defense Force), and for the Ceylon Survey Department. In the mid-1940s, \u2018Thistle Camp\u2019 was set up, and it is said that during World War II, Italian internees were accommodated at Diyatalawa. After Independence from the British, the Ceylon Army Recruit Training Depot (later called the Army Training Centre, now known as the Sri Lanka Military Academy) was established in Diyatalawa. The Air Force Cadet Training School was also moved to Diyatalawa in 1952. The establishment of a permanent military presence in Diyatalawa resulted in it being gradually transformed from a POW camp into the fully fledged garrison town it is today.<\/span><\/p>\n Despite the development, however, there is still plenty of \u2018old world charm\u2019 in Diyatalawa. For example, the hill on which today\u2019s Sri Lanka Military Academy stands is \u2018Thistle Hill,\u2019 which was part of the landscape of Thistle Camp. It is said that Thistle Hill got its name from the insignia it bore of HMS Thistle, a Royal Navy vessel. Although the camp is no longer called Thistle Camp, and the insignia is no more to be seen on the hill, a beautiful bungalow by the name of \u2018Thistle House\u2019 still stands there. It is surrounded by an impeccable English style garden, bearing witness to a bygone era. Thistle House was designed in the early 1950s by Mrs. Reid (wife of the then Commander of the Ceylon Army) who was an architect by profession. The house served, until quite recently, as the holiday bungalow for both past and present Army Commanders.<\/span><\/p>\n Another beautiful old bungalow, though not quite as grand, is one called \u2018Steps.\u2019 Built in 1905 by the Royal Navy, Steps has served for almost 50 years as home to the Commandants of the Army Training Centre\/Sri Lanka Military Academy, and has, as such, been a silent partner to the officers who have shaped the history of the Academy.<\/span><\/p>\n Other notable buildings in the military camp itself include the Gemunu Watch Officers\u2019 Mess (formerly \u2018Rangala Camp\u2019 of the Navy), the old Diyatalawa Army Station Officers Mess, and Elle Camp.<\/span><\/p>\n Must-See Sites<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Now that you have some background, if you ever do visit Diyatalawa, there are a number of must-see sites in and around it that you should not pass ignorantly by. We must warn you, however, that some of these are simple, almost easy to miss sites, which you would not be able to spot or appreciate without having understood their historic significance.<\/span><\/p>\n 1. The Boer Cemetery:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Of the sites in and around Diyatalawa, the Boer Cemetery is the most relevant to Diyatalawa\u2019s Boer War history. A total of 141 Boer POWs are said to have died in the POW Camp between 1900 and 1902, and they, along with the British servicemen who died during the same period, are said to be buried in the Boer Cemetery, on Boer Road, next to the present rifle range in Diyatalawa. Sadly, however, the Boer Cemetery is not maintained (unlike all the Commonwealth cemeteries) by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Therefore there is, unfortunately, very little left of the Boer Cemetery in Diyatalawa. In its day, each grave is said to have been marked with a wooden Celtic cross. Today all that stands is a (heavily run down) monument built in 1918 with the inscription, \u201cIn memory of the Prisoners of War who died at Diyatalawa Camp who were buried near this stone. Erected by the Government of United South Africa, 1918.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The Boer cemetery. Image credit: Rukshani Weerasooriya Wijemanne<\/span><\/p>\n 2. Fox Hill<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Fox Hill is possibly the only site in Diyatalawa known to Sri Lankans outside the military fraternity. It gets its name from the insignia of a fox and the letters and numbers \u2018HMS Fox 1913\u2019 made from white granite being placed against its sprawling green slopes. While it is commonly (albeit mistakenly) held that this insignia was put in place by the Boer POWs, it is more accurate to consider it possible that the insignia was the work of sailors who arrived in Ceylon in 1913 aboard the Royal Navy vessel HMS Fox, which captured two German merchant ships off Colombo in 1914.<\/span><\/p>\n Fox Hill. Image credit: Rukshani Weerasooriya Wijemanne<\/span><\/p>\n In any event, Fox Hill\u2019s present significance is that it is the central feature of the motor racing track that has been built adjacent to it, where the famous \u2018Fox Hill Supercross\u2019 races take place every April.<\/span><\/p>\n The Fox Hill Supercross is held in Diyatalawa every April. Image<\/span><\/p>\n 3. One Tree Hill<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n No, this has nothing to do with the TV series. One Tree Hill is a small mound of earth, crowned with a single tree of the Banyan family, located close to Fox Hill. This tree is estimated to have been planted around the turn of the last century, and the little hill, which is 4,298 feet above sea level, was referred to as \u201cOne-Tree Hill\u201d on a map of Ceylon printed in 1941, for which a survey had been carried out in 1917. The tree has been specially treated since the year 2000 in order to conserve it for its historic significance.<\/span><\/p>\n One Tree Hill. Image credit \u2013 Rukshani Weerasooriya Wijemanne<\/span><\/p>\n 4. Adisham Monastery<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Built in 1931, Adisham Hall (now Adisham Monastery) is just 11.8 kilometres from Diyatalawa. Adisham Monastery was a house which once belonged to the British aristocrat and tea planter, Sir Thomas Lester Villiers (former Chairman of George Steuart Co.). Sir Thomas was a grandson of Lord John Russell and a descendant of the Dukes of Bedford.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Diyatalawa.jpg\")
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\nFrom Ghost Town To Garrison Town<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n