Entrance to the Methodist Girls' High School. |
Entrance to Hartley College, Point-Pedro. |
1.
Hartley celebrated
100 years of its founding in 1952 when I was a student there. It was claimed by
our teachers that it was founded by the Rev. Peter Percival 125 years earlier,
even though we celebrated 100 years of its founding.
2.
Prof. Eliezer, Professor of Mathematics at the University of
Ceylon and Mr. K.B. Ratnayake from
Anuradhapura, later a cabinet minister studied there. Mr. J. N. Arumugam
another Alumnus became a member of the Ceylon Civil Service. Mr. Navaratnam who became a
Superintendent of Police in the late 1960s and Mr. Anandaraja who became
Inspector General of Police studied at Hartley. Dr. Jeganathan my batch mate
at Hartley became the Director General of Health Services and I was Senior
Surgeon at the National Hospital of Sri Lanka in the late 1990s. Mr. Chinniah a
batch mate in the HSC joined the ‘Dufferin’ in India to train in the Merchant
marine. He rose up in his field and became the harbour-master in Colombo and
later took part in the education of youngsters in the Merchant Marine. There was
Kirupaharan from Thunnalai my hostel mate at Hartley who immigrated to Germany.
He became a Director of a large container firm in Bremen. He donated a school
bus to Hartley and gave funds to rebuild the Hartley Hostel. There were
numerous others in varied fields which I lose count of.
Philip G Veerasingam