Evergreen memories of Malaya

RESOURCE: HISTORY INSIGHT - MALAYSIA

24 November 2024

FIVE or six decades after leaving the hot, humid tropical jungles and shores of Malaya, British veterans, who used to work and serve there, still remember their days either fighting the communists, helping to ease the independence of the former British colony or just being there to witness the transition to an independent nation.

Many still have black-and-white photographs of their days in the peninsula, relaxing outside their tents or camps, some dressed up in baju Melayu and a few remember their days from the letters that they wrote home to their parents.

Now, in their late 70s and 80s, many still have fond memories of the colourful years spent in the country.

During the (2015) annual Malaysian Merdeka Carnival at the Tun Abdul Razak Rubber Research Centre in Brickendonbury, London, British veterans who served in Malaya walked down memory lane, remembering the good times they had there in between fighting the communist terrorists.

Alan Steel, 80, who served with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and was based in Ipoh, Cameron Highlands, Segamat and other places in Malaya from 1955 to 1957, still speaks Malay.

He picked up the language after he served a stint with soldiers from the Royal Malay Regiment.

“Saya tinggal dan bekerja dengan askar-askar Melayu yang tak cakap bahasa Inggeris. Saya mesti cakap Melayu,” (I lived and worked with Malay soldiers who did not speak English. So I had to speak Malay) he said, recalling his days in Malaya’s army barracks and jungles.

Steel and some of his friends who had served in Malaya had been regular visitors to the carnival where they put on display their old black and white photographs and explained to the young ones there about their battles to bring about peace in Malaya.

However, this was the first time Steel was invited to play his accordion and sing songs that he sang with his mates while resting after dinner and after a long labourious patrol in the jungle.

“I bought the accordion in Ipoh, and we used to have many sing-alongs. I even played in a band in Singapore. We had a lovely time,” added Steel, who admitted that as time goes by, only fond memories remain.

He, unlike some other veterans, had not made the journey back to the country where he still has many friends. Veterans and Malaysian revellers alike were foot-tapping to his rendition of It’s a Long Way to Tipperary and Good Night, Irene.

Unfortunately, Steel was posted to Nepal three months before the independence of Malaya. This denied him the Pingat Jasa Malaysia (PJM), which was bestowed by the Malaysian government to those who fought the communists in Malaya.

A recipient of the PJM, Col Mike Allen, 78, who served with the Gurkha Regiment in Malaya, attended the Merdeka Carnival for the first time last weekend and said that the event brought back wonderful memories of Malaya.

Allen was in Malaya from 1958 to 1960 to fight the communists and during the country’s confrontation with Indonesia from 1962 to 1965.

Wearing his medal proudly, he said that he hoped that their efforts had, in some way, contributed to the building of a successful nation.

A love for Malay pantun probably saved the sanity of one former Malayan Civil Service officer while he was interned in Changi Prison in Singapore during World War 2.

William Sydenham Ebden served in Malaya twice — first during World War 1, during which he was captured and became a prisoner of war, and later, he went back as Resident of Malacca and a member of the Legislative Council.

When Malaya fell into the hands of the Japanese, Ebden was working as a Controller of the Rubber Board. He was to spend three years as a prisoner of war in Changi where, miraculously, he remembered and jotted down the pantun he had learnt.

He jotted them in a notebook in prison. The notebook was found by his son after he died in 1951.

“I believe that by writing the pantun and other jottings in his notebook, he (father) managed to keep his sanity while he was interned.

“The pantun were written in a notebook with well-worn covers and it must have been written while he was in internment in Singapore,” said the younger Ebden, who wanted the pantun translated into English and made into a book for family members.

One pantun that the elder Ebden jotted down was:

Kalau Tuwan mudek kahulu,

Charikan sahaya bunga kemboja,

Kalau Tuwan mati dahulu,

nantikan sehaya dipintu shurga.

(If you paddle upstream,

Find me a ‘kemboja’ flower,

If you were to die first,

Wait for me at the doors of

heaven.)

Memories of Malaya and the newly-emerging nation kept popping up from basements and lofts of veterans and expatriates or their children and grandchildren who only knew about the former British colony from black and white pictures and letters left behind.

Many letters became the basis of books, but sadly many memories were either destroyed or taken to the grave.

Those memories that survived served to give us glimpses of our past history, some not available even in history books.

Source and image credit: NST Online - Alan Steel showing off his old black and white photographs of the time he served in Malaya in the 1950s to visitors at the annual Malaysian Merdeka Carnival at the Tun Abdul Razak Rubber Research Centre in Brickendonbury, London in 2015.

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6/12/2024 : 3.56 p.m