This book is about Rene who lived in Kalapaluwawa a village in Sri Lanka, the island country off the southern coast of India that was once known as Ceylon. Brian Wicklin is the author and the next youngest of Rene's 6 children. He lives in Sweden. The book spells out the emotionally compelling story about his mother and the troublesome life she endured living with her husband, how it all ended in the most unusual of ways, her departure for London not being able to say goodbye to her children and not knowing anyone who was out there to meet her. Against all odds in its favour she met her children one by one as grown-ups 15 to 20 years after her departure. The story that is told starts around the early years of the previous century and ends in the Isle of Wight in 1973.
About the Author: Brian Wicklin was born in Kalapaluwawa, a township close to Colombo the capitol city of Sri Lanka on 18th April 1939. He was the next youngest of a family of 6 children. His father was a building engineer in the government services and his mother was housewife. They were upper-middle class and held upper middle class values and had links to some of the most powerful families of the time. His parents had a stormy relationship. When Brian was 6 years old, the family broke up and a sense of unease entered the family held social position. After the separation RENE disappeared from the country of her birth. Brian grew up in Colombo with his father until 19 and then came to Sweden on a scholarship award to pursue studies at the University of Uppsala. After graduation in 1966 he was employed most of the time at Statistics Sweden (Office of National Statistics). On leaving this office in 1997 he continued to work as a consultant for providing technical assistance to developing economies funded by international organisations such as the EU, UNDP, ADB and USAID. He became a Swedish citizen 29th October 1969 and changed his surname WICKREMESINGHE to WICKLIN 30th July 1974. This is his first book. He had been contemplating in writing the story about his mother RENE and her disappearance from their family life. It remained a distant dream in those early years to think about meeting her once again. Despite the odds he met her again in 1960 in England. The idea in writing this book has been to find a part of his life that was missing and that was a problem he had to manage by himself throughout his adult life. Hopefully, this story will convey to others the need for sharing experiences about challenges and struggles as well as failures in overcoming adversity in family life.