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Lake House: Then and now

Typewriter: Mother of our Journalism

In the old Daily News the typewriter was the thing: it was the fountain of our thinking, our writing. All writing began with it and ended with it. Without the animated, intimate, very humane machine we were bereft, orphaned. Without it our journalism would have been lost or killed. Computers were unheard and unseen. Even if it were otherwise we would not have cared for them.

To hell with the modernity, the scuttling mouse. All this sophisticated hi-fi gadgetry nauseates me and threatens to kill my journalistic creativity. Give me the typewriter any day - I am like an orphan child re-united with his mother. To be true I detest the computer. Only the typewriter can instil in me the desire to write. Its touch the loving caress, inspires me. Maybe I am naive and old-fashioned but I am me and I am in love with the old mistress.

So I was sitting with Willie de Alwis - Willie rattling away at the typewriter. To date I believe Willie shared my sentiments about our dear old beloved machine. Recently at the Daily News, after Jaye (Jayatilleka de Silva my Editor) gave up his bid to persuade me to flirt with the monstrous computer, with much difficulty they acquired for me the only typewriter available at Lake House. I have no words to describe how thrilled I was with Jaye's magnanimity. I feel I am re-born. Back to Willie, me and the old typewriter in the old Daily News.

Willie, his pipe firmly clenched between his teeth even if it were unlit, inserts a copy paper in the typewriter. He begins to type, I am watching anxiously. After a few sentences he drags out the copy, inserts another. He types again, this time somewhat complacently. "This is only the first draft," he tells me, "We will have to write again until we reach perfection." Willie had always been a perfectionist - in Journalism, and in writing. I remember when he was News Editor. If a reporter presented to him a wonky, watery story he immediately shoved it in the waste bin without any qualms, cursing the reporter with all the four-letter words he could muster. He had done it to me million times but without rancour. I was not bitter. I wrote and re-wrote until Willie pulled out his pipe and grinned. He was my guru. I learnt a lot from him. He was and is my dear friend. Willie was also the best re-write man I had known at Lake House. He could clean up any atrociously written copy and restore it to a publishable one in true English form. Always he tutored me and taught me. He resented being confined to a desk job - "I love the beat," meaning he wanted to be a reporter. Reporting was his forte, his first love."

As a newspaperman he had his own philosophy and principles. He brooked no nonsense about any story written for the sake of publicity. In newspaper parlance it was called 'a puff'. Friendship was no criterion as far as Willie was concerned to get a story published.

He was an honest journalist. You could not get a story in offering him a drink though he was a man who loved his drink.

I remember the time his own family wanted a story published in the Daily News. Flatly and very angrily he refused. It was an innocuous story. Nevertheless Willie had his principles. He disliked family interference in his profession. But he liked sincerity in simple man who came to him to get some story in.

Once a retired art teacher came to the Daily News all the way from Galle. A very jovial, corpulent man wearing a permanent grin walked straight up to Willie and gave him a warm but rather hurting handshake. Willie really winced. In those days Daily News editorial was easily accessible. Anybody could walk in, it was open like an OPD in the General Hospital.

The visitor was not a well-known artiste. But he had immense self confidence - in the art he practised. "I am so-and-so," he proudly announced assuming news Editor Willie had heard about him. There was immense self-assurance in the man. Certainly he was not being, impudent. He was sincere and honest. He was not bragging. Willie, the taskmaster, was impressed. Willie called me and told me to write his story.

"This man deserves a story." I interviewed him and wrote the story. The old man would have been happy when the story appeared in the Daily News the next day. Willie had a perception that went beyond the eyes of the mundane newspaperman.

William de Alwis had an ingrained weakness for Bacchus. But at some cultured get-together he was the most disciplined moderate drinker. Of course at times he was belligerent for good reasons. Then he was the devil-may-care eccentric journalist. He was a jewel of a man and when I exceeded my limits of the alcoholic brew, like a father he cautioned me." Go easy son, take it easy. Life is not just one drink."

Most of the time he did a night stint. While we were pounding away at the typewriter in the night Willie would stroll away to the deserted Observer editorial, lean over the open window and keep staring beyond Lake House towards the Regal Cinema. All the time his pipe kept him warm company. It lolled in his mouth. He was just looking and looking at the spreading panorama. Was he meditating? I used to wonder.

Was it some kind of seame"? He stood in that fashion for hours until reality brought him back to terma firma. Willie, the night news Editor strolled back to the Daily News.

The legendary Clarence Fernando stormed into the News Desk, hissing, always around noon, and always in an ugly mood (which of course was temporary for he was the most gregarious and jovial man with a puckish sense of humour - I have never seen a man who could laugh uproariously even at his own jokes and jokes he had aplenty in his repertoire).

We called him Clarry Bua or simply Bua: everybody in the entire establishment knew of the reference.

Clarry Bua was a perfectionist. His hunger for news, news stories or straight features was unquenchable. He thirsted for more and more. You could not get a fake story past him. He was a tough unerring newspaper scanner. If a story was bad, or written atrociously, plunging into a devilish fury, he flung the paper back at you, with the vituperation "take this to the toilet and flush it down. If you can't write, don't write. Join some Circus," Then he calmed down. His toothless mouth clamped up. He was now the regular guy - "Okay, you write the damn thing again," and Bua burst into uncontrollable laughter; if you were unlucky to be near him you had it. He had a habit of pummelling the man closest to him when he was enjoying his own laughter.

He called us, the bunch of news reporters 'Jolly Boy's Club'. At the end of the day he would shout, "Okay, Jolly Boys' Club! If you have the time, I have the money. Come on, step outside. This is a MUST JOB!" Laughing like a child full of mirth he led us outside the Lake House building, aggressively flagged down a taxi, we crept in and he took us to the Taprobane, the old GOH in he Fort. Seated inside Bua regaled us with stories some of which were unprintable. The waiter came around, Bua shouted - "Oui Lamaya, Genawa Okkoma." "Obviously the Lamaya has no inkling about what was Okkoma. So cautiously he brought a dozen of beers. Bua was happy slapping the one seated closest to him. "Okay, Jolly Boys, now drink up." Everybody obeyed his order. Jolly Aaron (not to be mixed up with Bua's Joly Boys Club) was a quiet, introvert, pint-sized reporter of the education round and the university campus, a non-drinker but an inveterate smoker. After a few glasses of bear he become garrulous - Bua broke into loud laughter. He was totally amused because Aaron was the reticent type. When the bill came some of us tried to pitch in. But Bua would have none of it. "Hey, you guys, cut it out. Today is my day."

Clarence Fernando at the time was the Bureau Chief of Reuters. He was not wealthy but he was not badly off financially. He was a large-hearted man.

It was 1970 Mrs. Bandaranaike had just been voted to power with a massive five-sixths majority. Congratulations were pouring in from all over the world. Up in the list was North Korea. Its leader Kim-il-Sung had apparently been elated. The North Korean embassy in Colombo quickly despatched two diplomats to Lake House to have Kim's special message to Mrs. Bandaranaike splashed on the front page of the Daily News next day as a top priority.

Clarence Fernando had just walked in hissing through a toothless mouth, not in the best of moods. Before Bua could take his seat, the two Koreans, unconventionally attired in bush shirt, accosted him and thrust the message on paper before him. Unconcernedly (Bua was not a great respecter of the diplomatic fraternity and kowtowed to nobody) clarry took the paper message and said curtly - "Okay we will carry the message. "There were hundred similar messages lying on his desk. The Koreans seemed unimpressed. They wanted their message given special treatment. They kept standing and knowing only little English, kept pointing to the message repeatedly. We were around and we knew Bua was losing his cool.

The two Koreans wouldn't leave and kept glaring at Bua and pointed again and again to the written message. Then Bua really lost his cool.

"Look, I told you once it will be done," he thundered, "now beat it."

The two Koreans got the message but they were not satisfied. They went in search of the Editor whom they chose to call "The Superintendent."

Editor, Daily News, veteran newspaperman ace my all journalist writer par excellence Mervyn de Silva was trolling around in his room dictating the Editorial to Vandebona. Dennis (Vandebona) one of the finest stenographers at Lake House was pounding away at the typewriter taking in every word Mervyn uttered.

Mervyn was fast in his speech but Vandebona was faster at the typewriter. After a while they take a break - Mervyn to use the phone or attend to some correspondence. Vandebona sneaks out for a hurried smoke Dennis always smoked cigarettes broken in half; it was not that Dennis was being thrifty or austere it was mere habit. I had never seen Vandebona finishing off a full cigarette. It was a characteristic he was an amiable man. Meanwhile the two Koreans were approaching the Editor's room. The quick-thinking Vandebona sensing some impending disaster quickly escorted his boss out of the room. The uncompromising Korean duo sat down at the Editor's table, fished out some paper and in Korean-English wrote a long complaint and them they were led away by some exceedingly courteous security men.

Watching the amusing drama, Clarry Bua rolled in laughter and got back to work.

To be continued