LIFE IN PRIMARY SCHOOL IN THE 1970'S

Do you still have your primary school photos?

What do you remember most about school in the 70's. 

A look back at Gombak 2

If you went to primary school in Kuala Lumpur in the late 60's and early 70's, you don't need a history book. You just need to smell chalk dust,floor polish and rain on hot cement. That was our world.

I found these four class photos again, Standard 2, Standard 3, Standard 4 and Standard 5, sad because no photo of us in Standard 1 and standard 6. 

Suddenly I'm back there. 

As you can see in the photo, the uniform in standard 2 and standard 3 look different. By 1970, while in standard 3c, all schools in Malaysia had standardized - boys in blue shorts and white shirt, girl in blue pinafores over white shirts. It means we were the first to use this style of school uniforms. 

Teachers in those days, were everything. One teahcer, one class, all subjects. They taught English, Arithmetic, History or Tawarikh we used to call it in those day, but still they had time to discipline the whole row with just a look. 

There was no Google or Meta AI, if the Cikgu said it, it was true. The cane lived in the corner, but more often it was shame that kept us in line.

When I look at the photos, what I love most about it was the Malay, Chinese and Indian, the SRJK (Inggeris) was truly Inggeris in spirit. This was a mixed class in the truest sense. Malay, Chinese and Indian sitting shoulder to shoulder,We shared pencils, we shared kuih during recess, and even sharing punishment, we learned pantun and sang "Negara Ku" every Monday morning on that gravel assembly ground. 

13 May 1969

Looking at the photo of Standard 2 in 1969, I remember that the photo was taken in the year of 13 May incident, the period of violent racial conflict that erupted in Kuala Lumpur on 13 May 1969 following that year's General Election. It started in KL and spread to several parts of the Klang Valley. 

My family live in Jalan Sekolah, Gombak, near the Taman Ibu Kota, not far from what is now Pasaraya Ong Tai Kim in Danau Kota, which used to be Lee Rubber building. My house was only 300 meter from school.

For those of us in Gombak, Setapak, Kg.Puah, Jinjang - we weren't far from the centre. The school we were in, the SRJK (Inggeris) Gombak, was right in that corridor between the city and the edge of KL. Many families in our area talk about the curfew (the first time we heard this word), Army truck, not being allowed out and neighbours protecting neighbours. 

When you look at our 1969 class photo - a Malay, Chinese, Indian kids in school uniform, shoulder to shoulder - that is exactly what makes it so powerful. A few months before or after May 13, you were all still just Standard 2 together under that same open corridor. 

That year, we were 8-years-old. The adults around Gombak and Setapak were tense after he election in May. We heard the word 'Curfew' for the first time. Our parents kept us close. School closed for a while, then reopened, and we went back to the same benches, same friends. That photo from 1969 was taken in that same year. When I look at it now, I don't see race. I see my classmates.

You can read about this incidents this in my blog > Down Memory Lane: 13 May 1969. 

"We didn't have much, be we had everything that mattered."

This is not a history of a school. It is a memory of what it felt like to be nine years old in Kuala Lumpur when the country was still young and we were younger. 

We learned without gadgets. No projectors, no worksheets printed in colour. Just chalk dust, a textbook and need to copy everything from the blackboard correctly. It made us listen harder. It made us remember longer. Resilience wasn't a lesson; it was the timetable. 

Our batch was among the last English-medium cohorts. After 1975, SRJKs were converted SK (Sekolah Kebangsaan). 

We were also the first generation to recite "Rukun Negara" in assembly in Standar 3 in 1970, introduced after the riots to foster unity. 

When we left for secondary school, we scattered — to Setapak, to Sentul, to Batu. Some stayed in touch, most didn't, but these photos kept us together. Fifty years later, I look at these faces and I can still hear the yard. I can still smell the rain on hot concrete. We didn't have much, but we had each other, and at that age, that is everything.

To all my classmates of Std 2 (1969), 3C (1970), 4A1 (1971), 5A1 (1972) —

If you see your face in these four photos, please leave a comment. Tell us where you are now. Some of us we haven't seen since we were 11 years old in short pants and pinafores.

The school has changed. Blok A is no longer the same. Grand Seasons Hotel where we reunited in 2017 is now closed. But our story at Km 8, Jalan Gombak remains.

Let's not wait another 10 years. Once a Gombakian, always a Gombakian.

Compiled by Hj. Zulheimy Maamor, Lembah Keramat, KL.

Hj Zulheimy Maamor

Lembah Keramat, K.L

1 September 2026: 9.00 p.m