by Boris Hembry
Little did anyone realise, except perhaps Jean, how near the truth this was.
I booked Jean to travel home on the Oranje in late January and I would follow by air in February. In due course I drove her down to Singapore where I saw her off in the knowledge that this time the separation would only be a matter of weeks rather than months or years. Sir John was flying to Ceylon and would be joining the ship at Colombo. In the intervening weeks I handed over Bukit Asahan Estate to Ian Murray who had, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to postpone his retirement for one more tour, and attended two further meetings of the Federal War Council in KL. At the end of the second I handed in my resignation, having had the satisfaction of voting for the ‘Call up under the Manpower Regulations Bill Regulation’, which made the call-up of all able-bodied men law, something I had advocated years before. I also see from the minutes that I expressed myself rather forcibly on the following:
1. Self Government: Law and Order must be permanently restored before any move to granting self-government to Malaya.
2. Police Intelligence: This was still woefully inadequate, and no effort or expense must be spared to building this up. The best candidates for our own Min Yuen would be ‘turned’ CTs.
3. Special Constabulary: The Specials must be better equipped and led, to provide the general and normal security throughout the country, leaving the military free to operate deep in the jungles.
4. Operation Starvation – the Briggs Plan: This was still only half-hearted in far too many areas, and must be vigorously enforced everywhere.
5. Chinese: More efforts must be made to secure their full co-operation; to persuade them not to assist the bandits. This may require them to be made more frightened of retribution from the security forces than the CTs. [This latter suggestion caused some consternation, as several members of the Council thought that I was advocating we torture or shoot squatters, whereas I had in mind only severe restriction of their movements and generally making life inconvenient.] (See APPENDIX C)
I received a letter from the Secretary of the Federal War Council, on behalf of General Sir Gerald Templer, the new high commissioner, thanking me for my services, and wishing me a ‘pleasant leave and speedy return to good health’. It seemed that news of my ‘illness’ had spread even to the highest quarters.
My final official duty before departure for England was to attend the formal opening of the new Guthrie headquarters building in Singapore, as one of only two planters invited by Peter Taylor to represent the estates side of the business. My final unofficial duty was to cable Henleys in England to confirm my order for a new Mark VII Jaguar which I intended to collect soon after my arrival for use during my leave, and bring back to Malaya. This Jaguar now looks very cumbersome, almost bus-like, but at the time I thought it the epitome of grace and comfort.
I flew home to an England still very much in mourning for King George VI, who had died on 6 February, and full of hope and enchantment for our new young queen. Jean met me at Heathrow, then still little more than a collection of huts on the old Bath Road, and we spent a few nights at the Royal Commonwealth Society, going to the theatre most evenings before dining out, usually at the Savoy.
Whether as part of the cover story or not, I cannot recall, but early in my leave I went to see Dr Gregg, the company doctor. I must have mentioned my prolonged attacks of indigestion for he examined me for quite a long time and closely cross-questioned Jean, who had accompanied me, about the exact location of my pains, and their duration. I still suspected nothing very untoward when he telephoned Dr Evan Bedford and made an appointment for me to see him, there and then. We walked around to Dr Bedford’s Harley Street consulting rooms and, within a very short space of time, I was subjected to more rigorous examination, blood tests, X-rays, and close questioning as to my dietary and smoking habits. The two doctors then went into a huddle after which they said that I should return for a further examination in three months time. Even though by then I had realised that Evan Bedford was a heart specialist, one of the foremost in England, the penny still did not drop.
Shortly afterwards I received a hand-written letter from Sir John, imploring me, in the strongest terms, to give up smoking. Up till then it was nothing for me to smoke 100 cigarettes a day – or, at least, to light up that number; I usually threw them away only half smoked. My working days on the estate in Malaya, during the worst of the Emergency, lasted usually well over 18 hours, sometimes nearer 20, and I found smoking calmed the nerves, allowed me to think on my feet, and kept me going. I would light up the first one of the day with my early morning cuppa, and put the last one out at bedtime.
Early in June, a matter of only three weeks before we were due to fly back to Malaya, and following another merely, or so I thought, follow-up examination by Drs. Evan Bedford and Gregg, I made a routine visit to the Guthrie office in Gracechurch Street to discuss with the secretaries some changes to the senior staff on Ulu Remis that I wanted to make, when Sir John called me into his office, and dropped the bombshell. I had developed arteriosclerosis, which caused angina, in a reasonably serious way, and the last thing it was felt I needed was to have the stress and strain of the top management post, in one of the most dangerous areas of Malaya. Whilst being most sympathetic to my protests, Sir John said that he was not prepared to go against the medical advice and give me Ulu Remis. Gibby, whose office led into Sir John’s, gave me a much-needed and very stiff whisky from her desk drawer, whilst the enormity of the news I had just received sank in.
I paid another visit to Evan Bedford who explained exactly what the problem was. He said that there was nothing much that medical science could do about it, but with care and good sense, which included giving up smoking forthwith, there was no reason why I should not live for many years more. As this all happened over 30 years ago I have sometimes wondered whether the doctors did not in fact exaggerate my condition, and in doing so deprive me of what would have been the most remunerative years of my life. A pointless speculation, but one nevertheless which I found difficult to get out of my mind. Nowadays, I expect, I would have had a heart bypass operation and returned to work as fit as a fiddle within a few months.
Jean and I retired to the Savoy for several drinks and lunch to contemplate the devastating news that I had just received. We were staying the night at the Royal Commonwealth Society, and the following morning I returned to Guthrie’s for a further talk with Sir John to discuss my future. He was kind and sympathetic to a degree, but obdurate. As luck would have it, he said, Pennefather, the manager of Kong Moh Seng (KMS) Estate, in Kedah, was about to retire, and I was offered his position. KMS was a medium-sized estate, in a quiet part of the country, with a new bungalow, a couple of miles from Sungei Patani town, and less than 40 miles from Penang. Of course I knew it well from my early days, 20 years before.
I made one last effort to regain Kamuning, but this was vetoed because, even though the security situation had greatly improved, it was very hilly and the medicos had stipulated no hill climbing. And anyway, Sir John said, it would not be fair on Charles Ross to alter his appointment yet again, and at such short notice.
We set out to enjoy what remained of our leave, determined to hide the acute disappointment. I also traded on Sir John’s kindness and obtained permission to return to Malaya by sea, getting the office to book our passage by the P&O liner Carthage. Meanwhile, I attended the AGMs of both Oil Palms of Malaya (Ulu Remis) and Malacca Rubber Plantations (Bukit Asahan), and was able to answer several questions from shareholders. It was at the MRP luncheon afterwards that I sat next to Malcolm Muggeridge, who was evidently a shareholder.
I was also called to the Colonial Office to see Oliver Lyttelton. Having greeted me somewhat cursorily, he slammed down a copy of The Times on his desk, and almost shouted, ‘What the hell’s the meaning of this?’ his finger pointing to the offending paragraph. It read something like ‘WHITES BAR SULTAN FROM CLUB’. It went on to say that the Selangor St Andrews Society had omitted to invite the S
ultan of Selangor to the Society’s annual ball, and that the Malays were showing resentment. The Colonial Secretary appeared to blame me personally for this alleged incident.
I was somewhat taken aback, and all I could say was that I did not believe it as, so far as I knew, all the Sultans were ex-officio presidents or patrons of all the clubs, both European and others, in their respective states, and would have been the very first on the list to be sent an official, formal invitation to such an important function. I said I could not believe such a gaffe was possible. (Unfortunately, I was wrong. The committee of the Dog, the Selangor Club, had indeed taken leave of their senses. General Templer, the new high commissioner, forced the resignation of the entire committee on threat of closing down the club forthwith, under the emergency powers vested in him: he would have done so, too!)
The Secretary of State then asked whether I would like to attend another debate in the House of Commons, and when I said yes please I accompanied him in his official car. Unfortunately, this time all I witnessed was a rather boring debate, with Barbara Castle having plenty to say to only about six other rather somnolent members.
Our departure was scheduled for the day after John’s return to King’s. We caught the P&O boat train from Waterloo to Southampton and boarded in the late afternoon. The first people we met, at the top of the gangway, were Ronald and Doris Wilshaw, whom we had met occasionally at the Dog and the Selangor Golf Club, in KL, and with whom we were to establish a firm friendship during the voyage.
Having given the necessary instructions for unpacking to the cabin steward, we went back on deck to watch our departure. Ronald and I were leaning on the rail, talking, when the Needles came into view on the port side. ‘Good show,’ said Ronald, ‘the bar will be open in 10 minutes,’ as we would be outside the three-mile limit, and carried on talking. To our chagrin we saw the Needles again, this time slipping by on the starboard side, as the tannoy advised us that there was engine trouble and that we were putting back. Horrors. No bar. Fortunately, Ronald had a bottle of whisky in his cabin, to where we repaired with alacrity.
The engine trouble was soon rectified and we proceeded to have one of the most enjoyable of voyages. We were placed to dine at the Captain’s table, together with the Wilshaws, and celebrated my 42nd birthday in great style, courtesy of P&O. We called in at Port Said, Suez, Aden, Bombay and Colombo, and eventually disembarked in Penang. I stood on the quayside watching my new Jaguar being unloaded, all the time thinking of what might have been, and wondering how I would feel on a quiet rubber estate, seemingly far from the dangers we had lived with for the past six years, and on far less money than I was expecting only a few weeks previously. Above all, we were longing to be reunited with our beloved dogs Pedro and Greta.
Home (September 1952 – December 1955)
We stayed the first night ashore at the E&O, collected the car from the dockside the next morning and took the ferry across to Butterworth, arriving in time for a brandy ginger ale or two at Parry’s Bar. Afterwards, Jean loaded up the back seat with stores from Singapore Cold Storage and we set off for Sungei Patani and KMS Estate.
The scenery between Butterworth and Sungei Patani did not appear to have altered much since I had taken the same road with Tuke, back in December 1931. The beauty of the padi fields, with Bukit Metajam in the foreground and Kedah Peak in the distance, was still enchanting. There was noticeably far less military traffic on the road than I had been used to over the previous four years, which I thought was a good omen. But we were aware that the inside of the car was becoming increasingly hot, and I was beginning to doubt my choice of car. Scanning the fascia I noticed that the heating was set full on, and even when I turned the knob to ‘off’ the heaters continued at full blast – the ambient temperature outside would have been in the mid-90s Farenheit, and the humidity at nearly 100 per cent. We drove as quickly as we could into Sungei Patani with all windows open, but the Chinese garage mechanic who lifted the bonnet took one look at the massive Jaguar engine and slammed it shut, saying that he would not know where to begin. We drove to the Sungei Patani Club and telephoned the Borneo Company garage in Penang to book the car in for the following week to have the heater disconnected. Unfortunately, in those days only American cars and Rolls Royces seemed to have air conditioning, and even then, by today’s standards, it was primitive.
We arrived on KMS in time for tiffin. The house seemed just as uninviting as we remembered from our last visit, when Guthrie’s had suggested that we might like to build a bungalow of similar design on Kamuning, and, having seen it, I had said not bloody likely. The irony was not lost on me. Even the garden seemed unattractive, but it did have a magnificent and uninterrupted view over padi fields towards Kedah Peak; the classic Malay scene, which was to give us much joy over the next three years.
The takeover was simplicity itself. Pennefather was a senior and respected manager and I was happy to take his word for the condition of the estate. All I did was to go through the books and check the rubber stocks, and that was that. The one assistant was Menon John, a most efficient and personable Asian, who had been the office clerk before the war, and had gained most deserved promotion.
Shortly before they left, the Pennefathers threw a farewell party, and the Malay labour force gave a ronggeng (dance), at which there was much dancing to gamelans (gongs), which I have always found most romantic, and another sound which I will take with me to the grave. We knew a number of the guests, some, like Walter and Betty Northcote-Green, and Jumbo Downes, for over 20 years. However, we did meet Bepi and Elena Reginato, a young Italian couple, for the first time. Bepi was the nephew of Baptista – ‘Regi’ – Reginato, the inventor of the sheeting battery, whom I had first met at a demonstration in Johore in 1934. Beppi and Elena were our nearest neighbours – we had to drive past their bungalow whenever we left the estate – and we soon were the best of friends and, like everyone else, became captivated by Elena’s beauty and sparkling personality. Elena had arrived out in Malaya without a word of English, let alone Malay. She was to be fluent in both in a matter of months, although not totally with English sayings as she reported that Uncle Reggi, now long retired back to Italy, remained a man of many interests, with ‘a finger in many tarts’.
Uppermost in our minds was the reunion with Pedro and Greta. We had left them with Matheson on Asahan when we went home on leave, and had arranged for them to be transferred to quarantine kennels in KL for their inoculations against rabies. Having read the Jaguar’s owner’s manual I discovered that the heater could be isolated merely be removing the appropriate fuse, so there was no need to make a special journey into Penang after all. So, the next weekend we drove the 300 or so miles down to KL, and stayed the night with Jack and Joyce Brown. As soon as we got to their bungalow I telephoned the vet to ask whether we could call in that night to see the dogs, before collecting them the first thing the following morning, and was rather disconcerted to be advised not to, as they were, in his words, in a sorry state, and that it would be better, for our own peace of mind, to wait until tomorrow and then take them away with us. Thank goodness we accepted his advice.
When we arrived at the kennels first thing the next morning Pedro spotted me and threw himself into my arms, crying with joy. Greta could hardly manage more than a tail wag in recognition. They were emaciated, filthy and stinking. Our hearts were nearly broken, and both Jean and I wept at the realisation that we had put our two trusting friends through so much neglect and indignity. They must have often wondered what they had done to us to deserve such treatment.
The stench in the car on the journey back to KMS was quite awful, and took several weeks to dissipate. As soon as we reached home Jean bathed them several times before giving them each a good meal. Mindful of the problems that the POWs had experienced when first released from the Japs, when they had been made sicker and several had even died, from over-eating good wholesome food after such a long interval, we fed them little and often. I swear that there was even a
sparkle in Pedro’s eye when we bedded them down for their very first night home. In only a few weeks they were back to their old selves, although it was most noticeable that Pedro was extremely loath to let me out of his sight for a moment, even following me and sitting outside the door when I went to the lavatory.
We immediately set about improving the bungalow. Starting with the chicks (bamboo slatted blinds), which were lowered to follow the sun around the house, we built a fine, airy and comfortable bungalow. The bathrooms and kitchen were completely refurbished, a new generator, which started automatically whenever power was required, was installed, and the staff quarters at the back rebuilt. At the same time, Jean was redesigning the garden so that it was to become one of the most beautiful that I have seen in all my time in Malaya. The lawn in front fell away down to the padi fields, which stretched as far as the eye could see towards Kedah Peak in the distance.
After the horticultural, labour and, above all, the terrorist problems I had experienced in the post-war years, KMS was a revelation. I was unused to an estate untouched by war, a settled and contented Indian and Malay labour force, less then 15 minutes from a well found little town with all the amenities, a good club and the usual government offices, not to mention the Gurkhas’ training depot, and even a good vet, but frankly I was bored, professionally.