My father, Sam Wijesinha, who has died aged 93, was a former secretary general of Sri Lanka's parliament and subsequently national ombudsman. He had a distinguished record of public service in Sri Lanka and was considered an authority on parliamentary procedure in that country.
He was born into an old aristocratic family in southern Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), the youngest son of Don Aelias Wijesinha in Getamanne, a small town in Hambantota district. Having received his early education at the Getamanne rural school, he went on to Rahula College, Matara, at the age of nine and later to Ananda College, Colombo, and S Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia.
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