Out in the Midday Sun

by Margaret Shennan

  Polo, flying and rallying, though minority sports, also attracted a loyal and enthusiastic following. From 1934 the government gave subsidies to establish flying clubs, where qualified instructors taught ‘men and women of all races at the low cost of 28/ – [£1.40] per hour’; at Kuala Lumpur, for example, Sunday lessons were given in a Gypsy Moth. The Kuala Lumpur Car Club members were mostly bachelor planters who enjoyed hill climbs and motorbike racing. Among them, Guy Hutchinson recalled, was ‘an ingenious and original character called Puckridge. He had constructed from a Model-T Ford a car he called “Ustulina” (this is a root disease of the rubber tree).’ ‘Puck’ led a more charmed life than his four-wheeled creation with its erratic steering, but together they caused much hilarity in Selangor’s planting community.57 Horse racing also had its keen European following, and was massively popular with the Chinese (though most of the horses and jockeys came from Australia). Race week drew crowds to the racecourses at Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh, but it was the magnificent new course at Bukit Timah in Singapore which attracted the largest numbers, with its modern stand and tote. Some judged it the finest in the East, race meetings being regarded as social occasions and fashion parades almost as much as sporting events.

  For families, the most popular sport in the interwar years was swimming. The boom led to a noticeable expansion of swimming clubs and a growing number of private garden pools. ‘We used to go to the [Singapore] Swimming Club regularly and meet the other families there,’ the author Gordon Snell recalled.58 For young Norman Price and his brother, Penang Swimming Club was a second home, while ‘There was a very nice small swimming pool at North Labis Estate, made by damming a stream that flowed in from their Jungle Reserve’, which Guy Hutchinson and his planters’ circle frequented.59 Ray Soper remembered how pleased she was to be invited into her next-door neighbours’ private pool, less hazardous than sea-water swimming off the Butterworth shore. The coastal pool of Tanjong Kling, near Malacca, was a simple pagar. The Club had a ‘distinctive conical thatched roof. The pool was filled with sea water … Diving platforms, springboards and a wooden chute had been installed and fresh sea water was pumped in through a pipe covered with wire mesh to keep out fish, sea-snakes and flotsam and jetsam.’60

  The sporting hallmark of the British presence, however, was the golf course. Since pioneer days, golf had become Everyman’s game. Favoured by the growing class of rich Chinese and unathletic Europeans who played for social reasons, the sport still produced some fine low-handicap players. (In his long career out East, Gerald Mugliston, who won the Malayan Golf Championship in 1910, appeared to know most of them personally.) It was commonplace for European men to beat the twilight with a round after work, in addition to playing at weekends. In the 1930s Bill Price, Assistant Manager at Sungei Nyok Dockyard, played regularly on Butterworth Club’s little course, since by chance the first tee abutted his back garden. All the towns had their courses; most townships and even individual plantations possessed nine holes. Here again, Singapore led the way. In 1935 Bruce Lockhart noted, ‘The island has half-a-dozen golf-clubs, and in Bukit Timah a course, both in the quality of the turf and in its test of golf, which has no superior in the East.’61 Gordon Snell writes, ‘My father was a very good golfer and would play regularly at the Singapore Golf Club. When I returned to Singapore many years later and experienced the intense heat and humidity, I wondered how any golfer could survive more than a few holes!’62 However, Leslie Froggatt, also an enthusiastic golfer, confirmed how keenly vigorous sports were pursued: ‘this much-abused climate prevents no one from indulging daily in such strenuous games as rugger, hockey, tennis, badminton and squash’.63 In addition to most of these games, ‘Fred’ Watkins of the Post and Telegraph service enjoyed the solo sport of day-pigeon shooting, in preference to shooting snipe.

  Younger men concentrated on team games, which brought players together. October to January were the months for hockey and rugger; soccer and cricket filled the rest of the year. ‘Games in abundance provided one’s spare time activities and means of making friends with members of all races. I played mainly cricket and rugby football, but at other times also association, hockey, tennis and some golf … The grounds provided for playing games were all universally good and I enjoyed this feature of Malayan life to the full,’ wrote J. S. Potter.64 Work never prevented men from enjoying life and playing games regularly, Hugh Bryson confirmed, and the good sportsman commanded enormous respect among all races in Malaya. Occasionally, sporting skill could still land a man a job: in 1937, for instance, Norman Bewick, a cricketing rubber planter from Muar River Estate, left planting and, ‘largely thanks to his prowess at games’, became Private Secretary to the Sultan of Pahang.65

  The Malays were natural sportsmen, Alan Morkill found – highly proficient at boat racing and their own form of football and boxing – and the Indians were skilled ball players too. Geoffrey Barnes remembered as a child that ‘Kebun [the family gardener] was a keen footballer. On Sunday evenings … he and some Tamil friends would sometimes play wild games of “kickball” with us in the garden then and I loved these games.’66 Events such as the Malaya Cup inter-state competitions raised interest to new levels. Cricket was also taken seriously. The leading Oil Palms company in Johore, employing a large staff of assistants, worked them very hard, even at weekends; but an exception was made if there was an important cricket match. Alan Morkill, as a District Officer in Negri Sembilan in the 1920s, ‘played cricket against other districts and our team included Eurasians, Indians, Ceylonese, a Sikh bowler and a Japanese wicket-keeper … it was best if you won the toss to bat first. After fielding for a morning in a sun temperature of 105 degrees F. the quantity of drink required for revival during the lunch interval proved a handicap.’ All the same, ‘These were pleasant occasions and all races took part.’67

  Sport, it was said, was the key to Malaya’s social stability. Instead of ethnic violence, there was at worst some rough tackling on the field. Bryson recalled:

  Games were undoubtedly useful in helping to break down any sort of racial or social barriers that might exist. In my early days in Perak, Johore and Selangor I played both soccer and hockey with and against mixed sides … when a suggestion was made about 1924 that the Malaya Cup soccer sides should be confined to non-Europeans … this was rejected by the Asian representatives on the selection committee, who held that merit and skill should continue to be the criterion … When serving in Kedah in 1936–38 I was appointed … one of the Vice-Presidents of the Kedah Football Association, the sole non-Malayan member … [Also] I played rugger and … visited Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Seremban, Malacca, Perak at various times … and as the Asians began to take an interest in this then almost entirely European pastime, I was known to them … I think only once in 30 odd years did anyone say to me, ‘I remember you as District Officer or whatever’; it was always ‘as scrumhalf’.68

  Like Bryson, Guy Hutchinson never forgot the sportsmen he encountered in Malaya: Jackie Horner, a government surveyor who had been an All Black rugger player, Parker from Malacca, formerly skipper of Glasgow University 2nd XV, ‘a very good three-quarter’, ‘a real star at Genuang, a young New Zealander called Mabin – he played full back for the Federated Malay States … he was very good indeed’ – and R. A. M. Stradling, an English minor-counties cricketer. Cricket, in fact, superseded rugby as Hutchinson’s passion when he felt he was a bit ‘long in the tooth’ for rugger in the Far East. North Johore had some keen cricketers, and

  we at Genuang were the headquarters of the Cricket XI. We had a fine level grass padang and Dunlops had provided some very good Matting Wickets like those used in Australia. Our Club House made an ideal grandstand … We had a really good side … We had regular fixtures with the Army, Singapore, Tampin and Malacca. These were our big fixtures … We could and did put out a side that could beat Singapore Colony and also the Army in Malaya – no mean feats – two day matches both and what fun! The Club would be packed.69

  Clu
b life, then, whether it was associated with sport, parties, dances or just a few stengahs and a game of billiards or mah-jong, filled a social need, and if you were a member of one club you became an honorary member of any other in Malaya and had temporary rights to sign chits for credit. There was a world of a difference, however, between the small country clubs and those in the capitals. The old Singapore Club, with its wooden verandah and comfortable tiffin rooms, had been replaced by ‘a magnificent building, stately and large enough to dominate Pall Mall’ in London’s clubland, in Bruce Lockhart’s view.7° In addition to its golf club, Kuala Lumpur sported two famous European institutions: the sprawling Selangor Club, curiously half-timbered and even more curiously called ‘the Spotted Dog’ or simply ‘the Dog’, and the exclusive Lake Club in the Lake Gardens. The Dog’s extensive membership had a choice of tennis, football, cricket, billiards, cards and dancing, while the Lake Club catered for tennis, bridge and dancing; both had dining facilities. Penang Club, the doyen of them all, founded in 1858, had a special charm, according to its members, and beyond its airy rooms and polished floors there were sneak glimpses of the harbour. Sungei Ujong, on the other hand, had a different claim to fame: its bar was reputedly the longest in the East. During the 1930s it ‘was crowded three tiers deep on Saturday nights; sports cars of the younger generation of planters, lawyers, doctors, chartered accountants and administrators jostled in the car park with the stately Daimlers of the “old and bold”, and you would hear the cheerful noise of laughing conversation half-a-mile off,’ Sjovald Cunyngham-Brown recalled.71 The typical upcountry club, however, resembled Genuang or Butterworth, not Sungei Ujong: ‘just a large estate bungalow, built on high pillars with a good changing room underneath, and upstairs a bar and billiard room facing the road, and overlooking the padang was a large, open-sided verandah which was the main lounge’ – an unpretentious focal point for a small community.72

  The British in Malaya had a capacity to enjoy whatever was on offer. The changing colours of the tropical landscape and the profusion of plant and animal life appealed to country-lovers, but even man-made settings were greatly admired. Penang’s Botanical Gardens, ‘laid out in a hollow of the hill, with winding walks and waterfalls, and every kind of tropical flower’, were a natural paradise where Mabel Price remembered wild monkeys coming from the jungle to be fed by visitors.73 Guy Hutchinson had always been keen on natural history and was

  delighted to see the very beautiful types of Moth and Butterfly that were to be found everywhere, especially along the jungle boundaries of the [Sepang] estate. I saw regularly the pug marks of Panther, Tiger, Deer, and even Tapir … and the estate swamps were full of wild pig. There was a breed of Black Monkeys … I have never seen anywhere else; and some very large, black and chestnut squirrels. I also saw Wild Dogs (the ‘Red Dog’ of Kipling’s Jungle Books).74

  Alan Morkill, another with a deep interest in natural history, was delighted to be posted in 1920 to the unspoilt district of Kuala Pilah in Negri Sembilan. In a garden of sweet-smelling shrubs, he and his wife kept a pet hornbill and a Sambhur hind. ‘These were golden days’: tame animals and birds … contributed so much to the pleasures of life.’75

  The coastal scenery offered other fascinations. At Kuala Krau, on the Perak coast, ‘We saw a large family of sea otters playing in the mangrove roots in the estuary, and elegant white egrets pecked fastidiously on the mud beaches … After the rain the Tiauk birds or rain-birds were calling in their strange cry, a throaty “Talk! Talk! Talk!” … Huge sea hawks and occasionally hornbills as big as turkeys perched on the paroquet tree.’76 On the night drive from Taiping there were nightjars or tocs-tocs with flashing red eyes; on Penang Hill coloured moths fluttered ‘like miniscule [sic] Pompadour’s fans’, and even Tanglin’s suburban gardens were flight paths for golden orioles, kingfishers and Singapore robins.77

  Pleasure, relaxation, sport, all contributed to good health and helped to counter the sapping effect of the changeless heat and humidity. Next to the cost of living, physical symptoms induced by the climate were a frequent topic of conversation. Happily there was no shortage of counsel. ‘The key was plenty of exercise with natural perspiration,’ an army officer advised, ‘alcohol in moderation, a sensible diet and to be sensible about drink – plenty of light beverages – with some salt occasionally – keep bowels open.’78 In their instruction on health and nutrition, the Girl Guides of Malaya were taught, ‘Green salads and vegetables should take a prominent place in our daily diet.’79 A spot of local leave with a change of climate was also advocated. A few small hill resorts, such as Penang Hill, Maxwell’s Hill above Taiping, and Treacher’s Hill near Kuala Kubu, already catered for government administrators, but after the Great War it was clear that these were quite inadequate to meet the growing needs of the European population. After persistent pressure, a new hill station was built in the early 1920s at Fraser’s Hill, on the Selangor–Pahang border.

  Bukit Fraser, 4,100 feet above sea level, was approached by hairpin bends from the Gap where the road crossed Malaya’s central mountain range. With magnificent scenery rising from a sea of grey mist, Fraser’s Hill also possessed the only pub in Malaya, the Maxwell Arms, which served as the clubhouse for the nine-hole golf course. Scattered bungalows, their gardens bright with Bowers, perched on jungle-clad slopes a round the course, and in the 1930s a school for European children opened. Golfing and walking were the chief attractions, but out on the trail everything gave way to the close unending din of the jungle:

  even the monkeys high up in the trees above us went on with their squabbles as we passed. Sometimes we met an iguana in our path staring fixedly with those strange cold eyes in that great unwieldy head, and I couldn’t count the lizards and little snakes that waited only half concealed as we passed. And all the time the cicadas filled the air with their never-ending song. From Pine Tree Hill, you can look down on miles and miles of thick jungle country, hills wrapped to their very peaks in cloaks of everlasting green, the home of the Saki tribes, and the big game of the forest.80

  Travellers could take a welcome break at The Gap Rest House: here in 1929 the Hutchinson brothers sat before a huge wood fire and were served a grand high tea of fried ham. Fraser’s Hill became the leading resort for government officials, and for some executives of private companies which leased land there. A generation of newlyweds chose it for their honeymoon. However, the limited scale of the development made it somewhat claustrophobic. ‘Some preferred a trip to Brastagi in Sumatra where they could not only enjoy a change of climate but also escape the government atmosphere which prevailed at Fraser’s Hill as it did in Kuala Lumpur, Taiping, and other towns.’81 Brastagi was situated at 5,250 feet, close to spectacular sights such as Lake Toba and the volcano Sibajak. It was both drier and different in scale from any of Malaya’s resorts, and was popular for horse riding as well as walking and climbing. Some British firms, including Alfred Holt and Harrison & Crosfield, invested in properties there where their European employees could take local leave.

  By 1925 the government was persuaded of the need for a larger hill station in Malaya, and a site was selected on a high plateau ringed by peaks on the Pahang–Perak border. An access road from Tapah to the Cameron Highlands was completed by 1931. Development continued throughout the 1930s, and a prominent part was played by the Executive Engineer for Pahang, J. B. W. Fairchild. A secondary road linked the settlements of Ringlet, Tanah Rata and Brinchang, a nine-hole golf course and an official Rest House and Experimental Agricultural Station were built, and by 1935 private enterprise was responsible for three hotels, a dozen residences, two private schools, a dairy, market gardens and tea estates.82 The long-term goal to establish the Cameron Highlands as an alternative seat of government on the lines of Simla in India was overtaken by events. However, some retired planters put down their roots there, becoming smallholders and growing vegetables and soft fruit for the Malayan market. At the same time, the entrepreneurial Russell family, having ascertaine
d that there was a safe market for high-ground, good-quality tea, had acquired in 1927 a vast saucer of some 800 acres of land and set about developing it rapidly under an experienced Manager, Bill Fairlie. The Boh Tea Estate became a self-contained community on Cameron Highlands, with a temple, mosque, workers’ housing lines and dispensary, and became a profitable concern.

  By the mid-1930s the resort was proving very popular for local leave. The Green Cow Tavern at the entrance to the Tellom valley held the accolade of being the highest hotel in the peninsula. The Cameron Highlands Hotel, overlooking the recreation area in Tanah Rata, was praised for its comfortable, modern facilities, while the Eastern Hotel offered cheaper accommodation – $7 compared with $15 a day. Soon after came the Smoke House Inn, a typical 1930s mock-Tudor mansion, famous for its log fires and strawberry and cream teas. Like all the hill stations, Cameron Highlands offered the luxury of cool nights, hot-water baths, and the chance to dispense with mosquito nets and enjoy the surrounding flora. Visitors remarked on the improvement in their energy. Returning to Johore, a Yorkshire woman wrote enthusiastically home to her mother:

  I was able to do plenty of walking and climbing. The climate up there is very healthy … You seem to be in another world … much nearer to England. The houses [are] mostly like English homes, with lawns and English flowers, roses, gladioli, violets, asters, antirrhinums, carnations, and many more … Several times we had strawberries … a great treat and the cream was fresh. Rhubarb was another treat and of course salads, and these were superior to ours.83

  Nostalgia was a powerful sentiment. The hill stations left some visitors ‘feeling caught between two worlds, snatched up out of the tropics into a kind of No-Man’s Land’, as Katharine Sim put it.84 For many, however, the reminders of England were good for morale, and the sight of familiar features in the Asian landscape filled emotional needs. They warmed to English gardens, pseudo-Tudor ‘magpie’ façades, English-looking churches. By cosily calling their houses ‘The Cottage’ or ‘The Nest’ or after a familiar place, Lomond, Dulverton or Claughton, the British felt themselves nearer home. A few, however, rejected this sentimental attachment to their origins and took Malaya totally to their hearts, adopting a Malay name and Malay faith and culture. While not going that far, Victor Purcell certainly regarded Malaya as a happy escape from London’s soot and fog and from strap-hanging in the Underground. In the case of many newcomers in the interwar years, his attitude struck a chord. For this post-war group of British Malayans, colonial life was a novel experience – sometimes frustrating, but definitely rewarding in material and social terms. Twenty-three years in Malaya taught J. S. Potter that pre-war colonial life was unique, the best of both worlds, a symbiotic mix of British suburban life embellished by the tropics. Gordon Snell, reflecting on his family’s experiences, broadly concurred. ‘I suppose we were cocooned in a European style of life, the way that British colonists tended to import a lifestyle to wherever they went.’85 ‘It was a halcyon period’, mused the veteran Purcell. ‘All golden ages are legendary and some are entirely mythical, but all the same I feel that Malaya’s “golden age” of between the wars had a firm foundation in fact.’86