Sir Christopher Ondaatje: The Last Colonial
Philanthropist, author, businessman, adventurer and Olympic medal winner Sir Christopher Ondaatje on his incredible life
Is The Last Colonial the autobiography you have when you’re not having an autobiography?
There are 27 stories in the book. They are not necessarily autobiographical, but taken all together reveal part of my life that you will never get anywhere else. Some of them are from when I was a young boy. We were wealthy and then we were destitute. Others are about how you survive and what you do to survive. Or going to a new country with no money. It’s about taking the risks and having the adventures.
I got the feeling that re-establishing your family’s position was very important to you.
I tried hard to get my family back on its feet. Being the eldest child, you have a kind of responsibility. I had a responsibility to my parents, to my sisters and my brother. You don’t talk about it, you just do what you can. But really, it’s a case of whether you have ambition and when that ambition is instilled in you. I was always hungry – hungry! – to put my family back on the map. As I’ve said, I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor and rich is better.
You were born in Sri Lanka. You went to school in the UK. You emigrated to Canada. Did this upbringing instill in you a sense of adventure?
I led a wild, carefree life in Sri Lanka. And then I was sent to a public school in England. I was this thin, sallow person with a shock of thick black hair and I had to toughen up. In many ways I built a cocoon around myself, to protect myself. The same thing happened in London. And the same thing happened in Canada.
By the time I was 22, when I went to Canada, I had this worldly education that most people didn’t have. Where are you going to get that from unless you experience it? It’s not that I was brought up that way, it’s just who I became.
In 1988 you went on safari in Tanzania. That seems to have had a huge impact on you and on your life.
Basically I was fed up with the financial business. I remember doing a financing in Europe and travelling around for eight days and going back to Canada and looking at myself, at my face, in the mirror the next morning and there was this grey, almost green, tired exhausted face and I remember saying to myself, ‘You’re not that damned smart you know.’ So I just got off the train. I went with my wife on safari in Tanzania.
