PRISCILLA SENARATNE: My marvelous mother

Priscilla Senaratne with her two daughters 

She, a chef, turned out the most exotic dishes even during Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranayake’s time when we couldn’t even buy bread; she even made bread buns and cake for all the children down Joseph Lane who waited eagerly to see what Aunty Priscilla would turn out for them with one tin of sardine and one tin of ghastly condensed milk

August 6 was mummy’s birthday. If she were alive she would be a 100 today. She really was an amazing woman and so ahead of her time. A professional woman who wanted careers for her daughters, not husbands, and she did not mince her words on this!

She physically went to work till she was past 73. Nobody would let her retire. The corporates she worked for (Walkers, the Mahaweli Authority) kept begging her to come back to work until my sister and I put our foot down and said ‘enough’.  

She was a chef who turned out the most exotic dishes even during Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranayake’s time when we couldn’t even buy bread. She even made bread buns and cake for all the children down Joseph Lane who waited eagerly to see what Aunty Priscilla would turn out for them with one tin of sardine and one tin of ghastly condensed milk. 

She sewed all our clothes, there was no ‘Odel’ or ‘Little Smockers’, or any of the many, many of the choices kids have today; even our little panties were trimmed with lace. She sheltered a family of 4 during the 83 riots for 6 months until they went to Canada. She was absolutely fearless and felt it was her Christian duty to do so (Daddy was had passed away by then). Both my sister and I were not at home as we, being half Indian, had to leave or rather were told by the rioters that we had to leave, else our safety could not be guaranteed. Mummy being Sinhalese was safe. 

She was a champion ballroom dancer, loved amateur theatricals, was one of the first to wear trousers and spoke the Queen’s English unlike it’s spoken today, in fact she would correct everyone’s pronunciation, grammar etc., not just at home but at work too. The two books that never left her bedside table were The Bible and Roget’s Thesaurus, along with her pack of cigarettes of course.

If she didn’t like something or someone, she would tell it to the person’s face and would show her displeasure. She was a true ‘Iron Lady’. She used minimum make-up and had skin like a rose petal, went grey only past 70 and never dyed her hair. 

She would chastise my sister over her plumpness and me on the fact that I had no Bottom or Bosom. She had a legion of friends and 3 proposals of marriage even when she was in her 70s! 

She was truly an amazing woman. She was my confidante, she got me my first halter when I was 18 and my first black dress, packed them both in a bag and said “dress at Nitu’s house, don’t let your father see you.”

I miss her to this day and thank God for the values she instilled in us “tell the truth and shame the devil “, “a stitch in time saves 9”, “count your blessings not your losses”, “cleanliness is next to godliness”, “manners maketh a man”, “don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today”, “a woman has only 1 thing - her reputation “,  and so many many other sayings that I try to live by to this day.

As Daddy worked out of Colombo all his life, mummy was both mother and father to us most of the time and had the onus of bringing up her daughter’s by herself, though Daddy would always come to Colombo in times of need. 
As she always said, Daddy spoiled us, she was the disciplinarian in the family and there was never any nonsense with her, but she gave us tremendous love and care, so much so that every day when she returned home from work I would greet her with a bunch of flowers plucked from our garden. In fact, I was her little tail and the highlight of the school holidays was accompanying her to office and tapping away at her typewriter. 

The list of what she did for us is unending, which included little dresses hand embroidered and smocked – Noah’s Ark and almost all the Nursery Rhymes adorned my clothes, an edible Christmas tree made of marzipan and decorated with marzipan baubles was unfailingly placed on my bedside table and nibbled on at night every Christmas was when I was all tucked up in bed (not the best thing for my teeth but they are more or less still intact); and so very much more. 

When I was due to get married, my one thought was ‘ how on earth can I give my children what my parents gave me.’ I had such big shoes to fill and it literally scared me to death as I was convinced I couldn’t do a hundredth of what my parents did. It was another time, another era when people had time for each other, talked to each other, bonded with each other and life didn’t revolve around technology or gadgets.  But no matter how fast paced and technology driven life had become, some things don’t change such as values and good manners and I thank my parents for that. Not money and property - those are ephemeral, but what Mummy and Daddy instilled in us lives on forever.

-  Anusha David