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by P. Rajaratnam in Nuwara Eliya

Peter White, one time General Manager of the famous Anglo Ceylon and General Tea Companies Limited, who visited Sri Lanka after forty years, foresees a good future for the country, with the ongoing peace initiatives, also a great future for the Sri Lanka Tea plantations and the 'Ceylon Tea'. He made these comments to the Daily News, as a person interested in this country, where he started his life as a young man and rose up to top positions in his life.

Before his visit here, he had a stint in Rhodesia, Mauritius and several other African countries holding key positions including in the world famous London Rhodesian Sugar plantations.

Peter White made use of his visit here to see some of the Tea plantations managed by his former Ango-Ceylon and General Tea Company, including Delmar Group in Ragala and he was so happy to see the Tea Plantations which had made tremendous progress, despite its ups and downs.

But on the whole he noticed vast strides of development, both in the production and welfare measures of the workforce. He confessed the fact that the foreign companies, which managed the plantations here were for profit oriented and did not pay much attention on the workers. But today things have changed where more attention has to be paid to the up and coming youth in every enterprise to retain them from seeking new pastures particularly in the urban section and elsewhere.

He said his old plantation of Delmar Group, still possessed its old glory other than some of the beautiful trees which surrounded the manager's bungalow being cut down. He had also noticed a New Breakfast wing coming up within the outskirts of the bungalow.

White was so happy to have met some of his old friends, here, particularly a senior planter Clive Tissera, who belonged to the old school among the British planters.

He says although he had visited Sri Lanka after a long lapse of time, yet he as an interested person, has close contacts and discussions with several persons in UK, although he is an Australian, and settled down in London. During his working in Sri Lanka, he was a regular contributor to the Press and was a broadcaster.

In most of the African Tea plantations, the manufacturing process have been so designed by Architects to move the various machines by itself rather than by sophisticated mechanism.

He says with all the Teas produced around the world, no other country could beat the Ceylon Tea, with its quality and flavour, provided the tea is not blended or bulked with other teas from other countries. He says in Mauritius where he was long involved with Sugar cultivation for major part of his life, said his Bungalow was designed by no less a person than the Architect Bewis Bawa.

Peter White looking at the names of the Golfers at the Nuwara Eliya Golf Club which comes from 1889, could recall the names of the British planters and a number of them live in London. He said the Ceylon Association in London was in the forefront, and they meet and have a chat once a month and end up with a Rice and Curry meal. Many of them have passed their eighties, but some of their children who had attended the Hill School, Nuwara Eliya which Institution, where some of the children and the Expatriates, was studied here still recall their past memories.

Peter White who had served in the 2nd World War, came to Sri Lanka in the 1946, and was employed by the British Firm Bois Brothers, and had to travel by Push Bicycles until they were provided with small Cars. He recalled how he enjoyed his life in Ceylon and the night he spent with a friend at the Sigiriya summit.

He paid glowing tributes to his old friend and veteran planter Clive Tissera, the present Secretary of the Nuwara Eliya Golf Club, although the colonial Britishers never gave a chance for the then natives to go up the ladder. The ancient British Hill Club at Nuwara Eliya, where he stayed during his short stay in Nuwara Eliya continues to have the old glory under its Manager Secretary Stanley Gunaratne.

Peter White finally paid a tribute to the Manager of Delmar Group, the young and energetic man Tuan Osmund, for the excellent manner in which he maintains his old Estate, in Ragala.

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