Nineteen forty two was a momentous year for Sri Lanka. The war in the East was at it's height and was drawing perilously close to our shores.
On April 4th, the day before, a deputation from the military authorities inspected the buildings of S.T.C. Mt. Lavinia. On the 5th of April the warden was informed that the school was to be handed over within five days. On the ninth of April the Sub Warden, Dr. R.L. Hayman was sent to Gurutalawa to prepare a branch of the school.
A branch of the S. Thomas' College at Gurutalawa was made possible by a generous gift made to the college in February 1942 by Mr. & Mrs. Leslie de Saram. In this period of pessimism and gloom they offered to give Gurutalawa farm, complete with it's buildings, equipment, furniture and livestock. This magnificent offer was gratefully accepted and in less than two months the farm began to take an important place in the life of the college.
The rising bell at Gurutalawa went at 5.45 a.m. and lights-out was at 9.30 p.m. The school had two sessions with a lunch interval and a short break in the morning session. Games was compulsory except on farm club days, and if it rained Rev. Foster usually led the boys in a cross country run.
The war ended in 1945 and with its end there was speculation about the future of the Gurutalawa branch. Would it continue when Mt. Lavinia started functioning again ? In the event the fears were unfounded for the Gurutalawa branch continued to function uninterrupted.
THE ORIGINAL GROUP OF BOYS AT GURU (1942)
(An Extract from "The First Fifty Years" - A History of STCG 1942 - 1992)
The original group of boys at STC Guru in 1942 consisted of the following: Roy Abeysekera, S.W. Amaratunge, P.S. Arasakumar, Anzar Cader, Shafeek A. Cader, Suhaib A. Cader, A.K. Chapman, Michael de Saram, C.P. de Silva, O.E.J. de Soyza, Lalith and Amura de Soyza, F.J. de Vos, Sam Elapata, Eddie Elapata, L.W.A. Fernando, H.S. Fernando, H.M.A.B. Fernando, Eitel Goonewardena, L.G. Goonawardena, Nihal Illangakoon, N.K. Jayasinghe, W. Jayasinghe, D. Karunatilleke, U. Karunatilleke, M. Karthigesu, Upali Katugaha, Nelson Keerthirathne, M.D.T. Kulatilleke, R. Sri Pathmanathen , Marco Pereira, D.C. Raffel, N. Ramachandra, V. Ramchandra, Clifford Ratwatte, M. Sabapathy, A. Stonehewer, R. Subramaniam, S.A. Swami, S.J. Tambiah, B.R. Toussaint, P.A. Toussaint, T. Velupillai, M. waloopillai, R. Waloopillai, Ronnie Weerakoon, Bradman Weerakoon, C.L. Wickremasinghe, S.P. Wickremasinghe, S.K. Wickremasinghe, Lyn Wirasekera, G.E.M. Weeratunge, Leslie Wijesuriya, Jim Saravanamuttu, Godwin Selvadurai and J.E.M. Fernando. A good many of the senior boys left at the end of the year after sitting the London Matriculation and numbers settled down at between 42 and 44 for the next two years
BENEFACTORS
> Mr. & Mrs. Leslie De Saram
> Dr. R.L. Hayman
> Mr. J.L.D. Peiris
> Mr. P. Saravanamuttu