An Englishwoman’s search for a missing boy in Sri Lanka

In an exclusive story with the Daily Mirror, British author Paula Coston shares her personal story on what prompted her to write her book On the Far Side, There’s a Boy which comes out in April. It narrates a story of a London woman’s relationship through letters with a little boy in Sri Lanka and her journey to seek him out. Paula was inhibited from writing fiction until her forties by her memories of ‘full and frank’ though extremely generous mentoring by letter in her early teens from JRR Tolkien who was her grandparents’ neighbour. Paula has worked in publishing and freelance journalism, as a teacher and educational consultant and now works as a PA in a university in Gloucestershire.

What is the book about?

That's a simple question with a complicated answer!

On the surface, it's about a London career woman from the 1980s to now who, perhaps for too long, isn't sure that she wants a permanent partner or children. By the time she knows that she does want a family, she finds that it's too late, and she has no easy means of having one. In 2013, at the end of the book, she is 64. Like 1:5 women in the UK, North America and Australia over their mid-forties today, she has ended up childless not by choice.

Under the surface, it's about clinging on to romance and letting it damage you. In this case, her romance is about having a child - for her, a boy. A boy (not a girl) represents something exotic and different to her, and so the child she finds she especially wants is a little boy she used to write to in Sri Lanka, because that sounds wonderful and exotic too. She goes to try to find him, falls in love with the mountainous Kandyan region he lives in, but fails in her mission.

The book is therefore actually about two things: coming to terms with who you are,  and the damage you can do yourself if you need something too much.

What made you select a Sri Lankan child to help?

Because the book is partly autobiographical, you and your readers will have to read the book to get some clues as to the answer to that question! There is a reason, quite similar to Martine's reason (that's the name of the London woman)

For how long were you in touch with the child?

I'm not too sure now, as I don't have all the letters, photos and drawings any more - just some - but I think from about 1986, when he was 5, until about 1989 or 1990, when he was 8 or 9. In the book, the woman, Martine, and the boy, Mohan, write to each other for longer, starting in 1983.

What did you get to know about him and his family?

Not very much. I suspect that they were told to keep their remarks rather general, so as not to give away where they lived! But he had a father who was a farmer (I suspect a tenant farmer, who I think I remember helped to grow rice) and a mother, described as a housewife. He had a younger brother, too. They lived some kilometres from Kandy, in a village. I have no idea in which direction.

In my book, Mohan has an older brother and two older sisters, and aunts and uncles (fathers and mothers) living with his own parents and family, and they live in the Dumbara Kanduvetiya, in a remote village.

The money I gave the real family went towards a latrine project or a well project, I think. Aged 8, the real boy was going to school and also 'extra classes'. His name was spelt differently on different letters to me.

How and why did the communication between the two of you stop?

The charity wrote to me one day and said that the political situation (i.e. island politics, and/or the civil war) had made their ability to work in Sri Lanka untenable. They told me that I couldn't write to him again, not even to say goodbye. They had never revealed his address, the name of his school, of his brother, mother or father, so I had no way of contacting them for myself. This was in the days before the internet! 1989 or 1990.

How long did you spend looking for him?

At the time, I didn't. I was just very disappointed, refused to write to another child in another country, as the charity suggested, and got on with my life.

Then I got the chance to go to Sri Lanka on holiday with my mother at her suggestion. This was February 2004,  I was 49, past my childbearing years. I was now one of the childless statistics above. I contacted the charity, which had changed its name, and asked if they could use their connections to try to find him for me. They said they would, but despite several ever more frantic phone calls to them, they hadn't done so by the time I left for Sri Lanka. We were in Sri Lanka for two wonderful weeks. Everywhere I went, especially around the Kandyan area, I kept wondering if we had just passed the boy of my letters, now aged about 23. I asked the guide on the tour if he had any suggestions on how to find him, and he did ask a few people, but nothing came about.

When I got home to England, there was a message from the charity saying that they had found him, and he was excited and ready to meet me. Of course, it was too late. But the charity wouldn't let me write and explain and apologise, they said for reasons of privacy and data protection: they said they would do this for me. I was extremely upset.

I think that by this time, Denushka had come to represent all the children I have never had (I tried to adopt as a single adopter in the early 1990s, but the delays and bureaucracy got too much for me and I gave up, having nearly adopted about 5 children).

My hunt resumed when I went back in October 2012 to research a lot of final details, scene locations etc. for the book. This time, I had a personal guide, and the benefit of the internet, but we still failed to trace anyone with his name. I was again out there for 2 weeks.

Why did you decide to write this book?

I have always written, but only succeeded in having books for the educational market published, although I have tried with two or three novels before. In 2010, I was on a writing holiday on the Greek island of Skyros. Our tutor was a published novelist, and she kept encouraging the group of writers to brainstorm ideas connected with families and children. In the end, we pointed out to her that none of us had children! (She did.) After that, she and I talked quite a bit about our lives, and I told her some of the above. She was mesmerised, and said that that was the story I should have been writing as a novel all along. I realised she was right!

Has it been a cathartic experience in any way?

Very much so. It has shown me how much my lack of a partner and children has shaped my life, and I've wept quite a few tears working out how to turn real life into fiction, while confessing to the world it was fact. Having got a publisher has been a marvellous feeling. At last all the heartache of the last few decades seems to be worth something. I feel I am carrying the banner for all those women who wanted children but never had them.

How long did it take you to complete the book?

About three and a half years. After three years, I did a lot of reworking, as it was getting too long, and some of it wasn't right. It has a whole layer of dream and 'alternative reality' to it, which was hard to perfect, but worth it.

What are your expectations from publishing this book?

I'd love my story to resonate with non-parents, especially women, all over the world. I'd also love more readers to get to know a part of Sri Lanka - Kandy and the Kandyan mountains - that has never been featured in English language fiction before.

I'm 59 now; and it would be the most wonderful gift and bonus if, somehow, the publication of the book enabled me to find the boy, now all grown up and possibly a parent now himself, but to me still my little boy from long ago.

By Tina Edward Gunawardhana