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by Dr. Quintus de Zylva

Eddie Gray was aged 85 and died on the 21st of September 2004. His funeral was held at the Anglican Parish of St. Stephen and St. Mary High Street Road Mt. Waverley on the 27th of September 2004. A large gathering was present to pay their last respects to this Sri Lankan icon and support his wife Yvonne and their three sons Errol, Brian and Jeremy.

Major General Janaka Perera, Sri Lanka High Commissioner to Australia spoke of Eddie's life long commitment to his beloved country. Vernon Abeysekera, a schoolboy contemporary of Eddie, spoke of his dedication and love of his beloved Royal College where he was Senior Prefect and Captain of the school Athletics team, Boxing Team and Rugger Team.

I was priviledged to acknowledge Eddie's contribution to the Sri Lankan Cricket Foundation of Victoria since it's inauguration in 1985. Eddie was a founder member and trustee and he attended the unveiling of a plaque by the cricket foundation in Galle this year.

Four years ago when we were in Colombo for the Champions Trophy Cricket, Eddie was invited to address an assembly of his school especially convened to honour him. As he spoke to a spellbound school boy audience of about 2000 he used a few handwritten notes to remind himself of the values and principles that guided him and his school so many years ago.

Perhaps he remembered running on to the rugger grounds to represent his school and noticing that his mother was there on the side lines to watch him - not alone but with an attractive sixteen year old school girl named Yvonne Smith who was taken along just to keep his mother company! Thus was kindled a love affair that later took in sixty five years of marriage and to think that horoscopes were not checked for compatibility!

This perhaps was the first ever arranged match made in heaven. As we left Royal College that day he told me that when he was at school there were about 600 boys and now there were more than 6000. How times have changed since he gave his all for Royal College.

He was an honoured guest at the 125th Royal-Thomian anniversary celebrations in March this year. How proud he was to have been given a seat at the main table beside the Prime Minister of the country. As we sat at the airport waiting to board a flight back to Melbourne he said "Quintus , there is nothing more I desire to do in life - I have done it all now".

His beloved school also featured in his final illness. About a month after we returned from Colombo he rang me early one morning to say that he had a funny dream that excited him very much. And before I could ask him whether she was a blonde or a brunette he said that he dreamt that his school principal had got in touch with him and said that his school had a problem and he was asked whether he could help. He had responded in this dream by saying that if it was for Royal College he would do anything.

The school principal had said that they were one boy short for a rugger match. He told the principal that he was in his 85th year but if they got him the school rugger outfit, he would play for the school. He was duly measured and fitted and he ran out on to the rugger field in a proud Royal College outfit- much to the cheers of a huge gathering of on-lookers who were amazed to see that an 85 year old man could play for his school - something he had done 70 years previously. Edward woke up at that stage in a cold sweat and with his heart racing. I later spoke to his life-long friend and doctor Ryan Andereisz and we agreed that further investigations were necessary.

Ceylon Police Force

The Ceylon Police Force dominated the next twenty years of his life. He once asked me where I was when he took up his first appointment as a sub-inspector of Police in Kandy. I told him that I too was in Kandy that year, but that he perhaps didn't know me, as I was born in Kandy that same year. He said yes that he had forgotten that there was a slight difference in age between ourselves! He gave oh his best to the Ceylon Police Force.

He was officer-in-charge of the Koggala Police Station when the second world war started. He was present when the Catalina Flying Boats flew non-stop from the Swan River in Perth to the Koggala Lake in 1942 - maintaining the only line of communication between Australia and England after Singapore fell to the Japanese.

The Sri Lanka Cricket Foundation of Victoria unveiled a plaque at the Lighthouse Hotel in Galle on the 7th of March this year to commemorate those heroic flights and our Edward Gray stood proudly with David Binns the Australian High Commissioner in Colombo and the Australian cricket team - as the only continuous thread between those two events that were separated by over 50 years.

It is no coincidence that Squadron Leader Leonard Birchall, who piloted those Catalina Flying Boats and who was hailed as "The saviour of Ceylon" died in Canada at the age of 89 just four days before Eddie passed away. Edward Gray's work in the Ceylon Police Force later put him in charge of the mounted division in Colombo and his love of horses and filly's in particular made him feature in notable events in the annals of the history of Ceylon.

He was one morning riding a few paces behind Ceylon's famous Prime Minister The Hon. D.S. Senanayake on Galle Face Green when D.S. as he was affectionately called, fell off and died some 36 hours later. Eddie's sense of fair-play extended to his defence of the filly "Chitra" - who mind you had Australian bloodlines -and who the press said might have stumbled and caused the fall. Eddie maintained that "Chitra" had not stumbled and that D.S. had fallen off quite suddenly.

Professor Juma, the eminent neurosurgeon from Pakistan who flew in to treat D.S. agreed with Eddie and said that D.S. had had a stroke and there had been no trauma. Eddie later went on to describe his other famous riding companions.

He was very proud and honoured when he was asked to take Vivien Leigh for a horse ride on Galle Face Green when she was in Ceylon filming, I think, "Bridge on the River Kwai" - but he showed disappointment that she had not fallen off as he would have liked to have picked her up and cradled her in his arms as he did D.S. Senanayake!

With NOC

Edward's association with the Olympic movement spanned more than fifty years. Boxing was his forte' and he proudly represented his country in the light weight division. He was the only known person who was present when Duncan White won a silver medal in London in 1948 and when Susanthika Jayasinghe won a bronze medal in Sydney in the year 2000.

He was appointed as a juror to the Boxing Federation by his life long friend Anwar Chowdary when he retired from competitive boxing. But Eddie's most famous bout was not when he won. He was boxing Gene Raymond one day when Raymond's mouth guard was dislodged and fell to the ground.

Raymond bent down to pick it up whilst Eddie stood over him, knowing that he could have finished him off at that moment. But Eddie took a step back, allowed Raymond to pick his mouth guard up and continue fighting. Eddie went on to lose the fight, but the loudest cheer from the packed audience was for the loser of that bout who showed sportsmanship of the highest calibre. That was our beloved Eddie.

Cricket Foundation

He was at some stage in his life a member of almost every Sri Lankan club in Melbourne. Eighteen years ago when I asked him to help me with the cricket foundation, his immediate reaction was that he was not much of a cricketer but if it was for Sri Lanka, he would be in it.

The Minister of Sport Jeewan Kumaratunga, the longest serving member of Sri Lanka Cricket Thilanga Sumathipala and the CEO of Sri Lanka Cricket Duleep Mendis have acknowledged the tremendous contribution that Edward made towards the development of cricket in Sri Lanka from a time long before Sri Lanka gained test match status.

Eddie recently arranged a dinner to host the Sri Lankan swimmer Conrad Francis who was selected to swim at Athens and Eddie proudly wore his Olympic blazer to that function. Eddie would always defend his beloved country Sri Lanka. He once agreed to assist a club in a fund raising activity.

Eddie was in charge of a stall which had a huge cake and he charged people a dollar to guess the weight of the cake. He arrived early and hung up the Sri Lankan flag at the back of the stall. Someone objected to the flag being there - Eddie like a spoilt school boy, took the flag down, packed up his bag and left.

Needless to say he did not renew his membership of that club! I rang Yvonne one morning and asked to speak to "the boy". Yvonne said "Quintus do you realise that he is old enough to be your father and you should ask for Dad rather than the boy"! Yvonne said that he was not at home and I said that I rang to find out the location of a funeral service. She then went on to ask me where this person had died and I said in suburban Melbourne. Her reply was that Edward wouldn't know because he read only the Sri Lankan newspapers and had no time to read any Melbourne newspapers!.

So much for a man who lived here for more than a quarter of a century.

Great talent

Edward had a great talent for relating jokes. How often have we heard Yvonne say " Edward let's go home now because I am tired". He would then relate one more joke for the road! One of his well loved jokes was about a man who turned up at the Fort Railway station to go for a ride on the new diesel train that had just arrived in Colombo. He bought his ticket and was told to rush and get on the train as it was about to leave.

As he entered platform one the diesel engine driver blew his whistle one last time - someone yelled out asking the man to jump on the train quickly as it was leaving - he replied "Ooo pimbata kamak naha - magay athay nay ticket eka". In colloquial language that meant that he could blow his foghorn as loud as he liked but he couldn't leave because he had his ticket in his hand!

Yvonne as you held your beloved Edward's hand and watched him take his two last breaths, you cried out in anguish "Putha don't leave me alone".

I want you to be assured that you will never be alone. I want you also to be assured that Edward would have been greeted with open arms and the words "well done thou good and faithful servant". And Yvonne be assured that you were holding the hand of one of Sri Lanka's most famous sons. He was surely a man in a million.

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