Why a Booktrail?
2000s: Multiculturalism in all its forms hits a family uprooted from Sri Lanka who arrive in immigrant London
Bone China
What you need to know before your trail
Grace de Silva has a crumbling marriage to Aloysius but her five children are her saving grace. Eldest son Jacob wants to go to England, Thornton wants to be a poet, and Alicia a pianist. Frieda simply just wants to stay at home whereas Christopher is the rebel of them all.
When civil unrest hits the country, their lives will never be the same again. A move to London seems to be the answer to avoid the ethnic tension but they find that London has its own problems and that immigrants have to find their own way here too
Travel Guide
Multiculturalism and the problems immigrants face on both sides of the world. Whether it be due to the displacement and horror inflicted during a civil war, or the problems they face when trying to adapt to a new home and culture, immigration affects so many people in so many different ways.
Sri Lankan-born artist-writer Roma Tearne, left her native country at the age of ten. To have revisited the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983 – 2009) is to go on a very personal journey.
Sri Lanka
“The car approaching from the south side, wound slowly up the tea covered hills…” sounds idyllic but the reality of the situation is far from ideal. With the escalating civil war the problems of the country are too vast to be understood and the stress and struggle of staying here becomes too great.
British colonial rule is coming to an end and a new regime is beginning in Sri Lanka so both those who stay and those who leave must adapt in different ways. Having had to move to Columbo, they now must flee their own country n leave it behind.
The War in Europe was official and because the island of Ceyon was still under British Crown Rule he knew it would affect them all.
When they leave, Grace gives Savitha her bone china collection and this becomes a symbol of the fragility of the human spirit and the precious cargo travelling miles for protection.
London
Life here is one long attempt at fitting in and adapting to the loss of your homeland. When Savitha returns from a garden party at Buckingham palace for example, she feels loss as her overriding emotions for this is a new world and her old one seems more far away than ever.
Streetview Maps
C) Sri Lanka - Colombo - Galle Face Green
E) England - Buckingham Palace
Where Next?
