Out in the Midday Sun

by Margaret Shennan

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  16. Flags and bunting flew at the special party organised for the children at the Butterworth Club to celebrate the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on Empire Day, 1937.

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  17. Stengahs at sundown: before the darkness of the surrounding jungle closes in on their bungalow, two women in a remote part of Johore enjoy a drink on the verandah at sunset.

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  18. Guy Hutchinson started as a rubber planter in Selangor in 1928 before moving to Tenang, Johore in 1934. He survived the Thailand–Burma railway to continue planting after the war.

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  19. Leslie Froggat of the Straits Steamship Co. escaped from Singapore in 1942 but was captured at sea and imprisoned in Changi.

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  20. J.R.P. Soper arrived in Province Wellesley in 1936 and served in Kedah and Perak. He survived the Thailand–Burma railway and remained in Malaya until the Emergency.

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  21. Tom Kitching worked from 1913 with the Survey Dept in Seremban, KL, Trengganu, Kulim, Kedah and Malacca before becoming Chief Surveyor, Singapore, in 1938. He died a POW in Changi.

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  22. A prison cell in Changi camp. One of a series, this drawing of the inside of a POW cell in ‘D’ block was brought back to Scotland by a survivor, A. G. Donn, though the identity of the artist is uncertain.

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  23. Selerang Barracks, Changi. Part of the Changi complex, the barracks were the scene of a notorious incident in 1942 when over 15,000 POWs were herded into a space formerly occupied by 2,000 men, without adequate shelter, food of sanitation. This photograph, taken secretly, was smuggled out of the camp.

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  24. After his capture in Singapore, Captain Alex Cullen was sent to work on the Thai–Burma Railway, from where he sent these standard, censored cards to his family in Australia. Such cards were a great source of moral support to wives and families at home.

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  25. Left to right Claude Fenner, John Davis, Richard Broome and Basil Goodfellow of the Malaya Country Section, ISLD (a WWII Secret Intelligence Service outfit), following Operation ‘Gustavus I’ in July 1943. [Photo from “Our Man in Malaya” by Margaret Shennan.]

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  26. Sir Henry Gurney (left) visits a New Village in Jelebu, Negri Sembilan, 1950, with Charles Hows (second left), Dato Jelebu Shahahmudin and H. P. Bryson.

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  27. General Templer meets a Malay unit of the Home Guard, 1952.

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  28. British Malayans in the Emergency, c. 1953. Left to right Jimmy Hislop, WWII Force 136 hero and Gurkha commander of Ferret Force; John Edington, planter and ex-Royal Scots Fusiliers; Herbet MacDonald, planter on the Kulai Young Estate; Ian Campbell, subaltern in the Black Watch, who was killed fighting communist terrorists in Kuala Selangor; and Captain (later Colonel) Gordon MacDonald of the Gurkhas and Ferret Force.

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  29. Across a tea table of Tunkus and prominent Malays in Seremban, 1950, discussion flows between Hugh Bryson, British Adviser, Negri Sembilan (left) and H.H. Tunku Abdul Rahman (right), the future Prime Minister of Malaysia. At the head of the table is the Dato Bandar of Sungei Ujong.

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  30. The Baling Talks, 1955. Before the Peace Talks, Chin Peng, MCP Secretary-General, was met at Gunong Paku by his wartime ally, John Davis, serving as his Conducting Officer. They posed for this photograph, along with the Communist leader’s two associates: Chen Tien and Rashid Maidin. [Photo from “Our Man in Malaya” by Margaret Shennan.]

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  31. Planter Boris Hembry (centre), former Head of Malaya Country Section, ISLD (a WWII Secret Intelligence Service outfit), outlines his ideas on squatter control to High Commissioner Sir Henry Gurney (right), Changkat Kinding, October 1948. Hembry’s suggestions were later incorporated in the Briggs Plan. [Photo from “Malayan Spymaster” by Boris Hembry.]

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  32. Guy Madoc, Director of Intelligence, Malaya, receives the CBE for service to the Empire at King’s House, Kuala Lumpur, from Sir Donald MacGillivray, the last High Commissioner of the British era before Malaysian Independence.

  Postscript

  ‘When I first sailed for Malaya’, a former Guthrie’s Manager remarked, reflecting on life in 1934, ‘it was indeed a severance with Home for five years, with mails taking three weeks, no air mails and a long journey into the unknown. When I left in 1957 air mails arrived almost daily, London was thirty-six hours away by air and in touch by telephone, wireless receiving sets for local and overseas services were available … Quite a change in twenty-five years.’1 From the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, improvements in transport and communication had been crucial to the development of Malaya’s economy. Then, as the twentieth century progressed, the country was caught up in a momentum of accelerating general change. Finally, in the 1960s, the country was politically reshaped, despite internal criticism and external hostility. In 1963 a single democratic Federation of Great Malaysia was created in a merger of the Federation of Malaya, Singapore and the Borneo territories of Sarawak and Sabah. Two years later, however, the Chinese-dominated island of Singapore seceded from the Federation to become an independent, sovereign state. Once these political structures were in place, in 1965 Malaysia and Singapore were set for prosperity and evolution into two of the dynamic ‘Tiger economies’ of the Pacific during the 1980s.

  Life for Malaya’s British residents changed only gradually. There were still many familiar faces around in the 1960s. On a return trip in 1967 Guy Madoc was pleased to find ‘one of my Special Branch officers still working happily away in Special Branch in an extremely important post in the complete confidence of Malays who had been his juniors, but who were now his seniors, and the whole thing still working very much on the same lines that we had laid down’.2 In view of Britain’s continuing role in defence and security, until 1971 British and Commonwealth servicemen and their families were a permanent part of the social scene, just as British managers, traders, planters and professional experts remained while Malaysians prepared themselves to take over the country’s economy. ‘Such things as the carriage of identity cards and the requirement to obtain re-entry permits on passports were minor irritations,’ a planter-turned-shipping-agent recalled.3 A Dunlop’s planter felt he was among friends when ‘locally you were well known by police and government officials’; or as another put it, ‘We swam with the tide and were not adversely affected.’4 Well-connected managers with a good track record had no apparent difficulty in remaining in post into the 1980s, and even achieved promotion.5

  Outside the plantation industry, too, there were opportunities in Malaya for forward-looking British companies and enterprising young men with business acumen. It was after Merdeka that a young executive sent out by J. & P. Coats, a Glasgow company, set up a marketing and sales operation covering the whole of Malaya, taking over from Boustead’s in Kuala Lumpur and Harper Gilfillan in Singapore. ‘I suppose I was looked upon as a young “whippersnapper” who had arrived to take away the agency, by the then Senior Management of the Trading Houses, many of whom were of an age with my father,’ he remarked. However, he saw the new political situation as a challenge:

  By 1959 we were very conscious that the ‘new’ commercial/industrial expats needed a forum which would be recognized by the Authorities and supported by the High Commission, hence the forerunner to the British Trade Association. The members met once a month taking it in turns to host the meeting where the agenda was a combination of business and socialising, which somehow led to my election as Chairman of this august body of males, many of whom I can still clearly visualise as the representatives from Ben Line, BOAC, Blue Funnel, Commercial Union, Liptons, Wiggins Teape, Dunlop, to name but a few.6

  In the years of economic transition the Trade Association gave British firms a much needed line of communication to the Department of Trade in London, but technical know-how and political skills were crucial for a successful career in a post-colonial wo
rld. After his colonial service had ended with Merdeka, Brian Stewart found his way back in 1965 through the Diplomatic Service. ‘I was lucky’, he admitted, ‘that my Chinese languages attracted the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] to offer me a job – where, of course, one started again at the bottom (though Second Secretary was a far cry from a Grade II post in Penang!).’ As Counsellor in the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur at the time of the Confrontation with Indonesia (1963-6), he came into contact with officials of the Malay Foreign Office, and with police and service officers. Later he became involved in rubber-plantation interests, succeeding Sir Claude Fenner as the planters’ representative, which again brought him in touch with relevant Malaysian government bodies.7 Mark Gent was another who forged a successful career in post-independence Malaysia – as Chairman of Guthrie’s Malaysian Group from 1969 to 1977, before succeeding Eric Griffiths-Jones as Chairman in London.

  In the course of the 1960s, however, the policy of Malayanization began increasingly to affect business ownership and personnel, as the Malaysian government set up state ventures and bought out European’ owned companies. Tin was the first industry to change to Malayan ownership. Already in the 1950s retiring British shareholders in the Straits Trading Company sold large quantities of stock in Straits Tin to Malayan Chinese, and, to reflect the new Asian interest, Chinese and Malay Directors were appointed to the board between 1954 and 1962.8 The year 1961 was to prove a record one for the company, with profits of over $5 million. The land-rich plantation industry was next to be taken over. ‘As the years went on employment came under greater and ever greater scrutiny and to be employed as an expatriate it was necessary to show that you had something special to offer,’ John Anderson observed.9 ‘We knew we would all have to go,’ said John Edington; meanwhile, ‘freedom of action was much reduced’.10 ‘There were no real prospects for Europeans after Merdeka,’ was the sad conclusion of another Manager, of thirty years’ standing.11

  I think that had it not been for the Brunei rebellion and Confrontation … during the 1960s, Malayanization in commerce and industry would have been further accelerated. Elements from within the cabinet, headed by Tun Abdul Razak, the Deputy Prime Minister, who also chaired the cabinet committee on Malayanization, seemed keen to see the last of us. It was generally known that, unlike the Prime Minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, Tun Abdul Razak was a bit anti-British.12

  As Chairman of the Incorporated Society of Planters in 1964, 1965 and 1967, Edington, who made that observation, knew a number of ministers personally, and he held on to his position in planting until 1971, by which time, he judged, ‘almost 90% of British planters had already left the country. This coincided with the date set earlier for Britain’s pull-out from South-East Asia’. He himself

  was Malayanised some 19 months after the sale of Tebrau Estate to the Johore Government [1969]. Dato Abdullah bin Mohamed, the Cambridge-educated State Secretary, whom I had known for many years and who had conducted the sale on behalf of his Government, invited me to remain on as manager on a permanent basis. He was keen on continuity of management and wanted no disruption. I was glad to accept, especially as we were involved in replanting old rubber with oil palms and also in the throes of installing a new factory unit for the manufacture of crumb rubber. After some months questions were asked in the locally-owned plantation company. This proved to be something of an embarrassment to Dato Abdullah’s successor as the new State Secretary and I was duly given the required six month notice which give me time to consider my future in another country.13

  Ironically, Malayanization in the planting industry went ahead so fast that by 1972 the Malaysian government had become concerned:

  so many expatriate planters had left the country and there was a lack of experience among the newcomers, so that the rules on Malayanization were immediately relaxed. Natural wastage then became the criterion which enabled the remaining British planters to complete their careers. In effect a number were permitted a further extension of two years allowing them to retire at 57 instead of 55.14

  Some experienced expatriates moved on to other parts of Malaysia, such as Borneo, where change moved more slowly, or to former colonies to complete their careers.15 Meanwhile all the remaining British companies were vulnerable: Guthrie’s, for example, fell to a stock-exchange takeover in 1981. Finally, the last generation of Britons to arrive in Malaya were affected. A Scottish executive who started in 1955 as a twenty-one-year-old shipping assistant in Harrison & Crosfield had his post Malayanized in 1984 after many years in commodity marketing and a decade spent in training local people. Satisfied that he had completed his task, he was aware that most of his British friends had already left.

  During the 1970s and 1980s, the British civilians in Malaysia were mainly consultants and advisers whose world view was radically different from that of earlier generations. A certain cultural friction was inevitable, as a senior planter explained:

  Towards the end of my years in Malaysia there were very few of the ‘old hands’ still at it in the planting business. The expatriate community was made up of people on short, two or three year, contracts. They were largely young, expert in some particular field and not deeply in to the country and its people. There was not a high incidence of competent command of the Malay language, as at one time was the rule. So life and prospects changed to reflect this. Latterly the new expatriates were living in communities of their own, taking every opportunity to visit all the places of interest during their brief sojourn. The ‘old hands’ were still in their established clubs as a very small minority amongst a majority of Malaysian members, perhaps the more senior members of the Malaysian community. In this way perhaps there was still a degree of influence exerted. There was not a lot of contact between the ‘old hands’, who tended to have greater contacts with Malaysians, and the short term expatriates.16

  On the other hand, the British community had never been completely homogeneous, and one new commercial man found himself unimpressed by the ‘old hands’ and the diplomats. ‘I did not like many of the British attitudes towards Malays, Chinese and Indians, and later was uneasy with members of the British High Commission, who made little effort to learn Malay or how the local folk “ticked”.’17

  Hindsight tended to mellow British views on the changes in Malayan society. Though some were concerned about new undercurrents of racial intolerance to the detriment of the Chinese and Indians, there was a genuine desire to see Malaysia succeed.18 No country could have generated more affection and nostalgia; nowhere was there more sadness at leaving or a greater sense that life might never be quite the same again. When asked for their impressions, expatriates from various backgrounds expressed very similar views: ‘Malaya is a beautiful country with a largely friendly population’, ‘A wonderful country to live and work in’, ‘A great country with kind, hospitable, friendly people much missed’, ‘A country of great potential riches, of great beauty, possessed of an outstanding people’, ‘The lifestyle, the friendliness of the people, the weather, the attractiveness of the countryside away from the populated areas and the general atmosphere of stability’, ‘I loved the country and the people I worked with.’19

  Mrs Kerr-Paterson wanted her children ‘to remember Malaya as we loved it – the rural type of Malaya’, not the later ‘Americanized type’ with skyscrapers.20 A pre-war resident, Cecil Lee, paid homage to ‘its great stretches of jungle-dad hills, its pungent-scented coastline with coconut palms bordering the long sandy beaches, the serpentine rivers past little Malay kampongs … the rice fields and plantations of rubber, coconut and oil palms’.21 Agnes Davison recalled ‘so many happy memories – of moonlight trips down the Kedah River with all the bushes sparkling with myriads of fireflies; of evening parties on the lawn at the Residency … of the brilliant ceremonies at Malay weddings, of Indian fire-walking; of wonderful sunsets at Langkawi, and countless others’.22 Many cherished specific images: a bed of cannas and a casuarina tree against the distant brightness of the sa
nd and sea, or dawn breaking over the Straits of Johore – ‘a shawl of ripe peach gossamer, the richest, boldest, rosiest fragment in my childhood kaleidoscope’ – while the train rumbled over the Causeway towards Singapore.23 In his farewell broadcast to the people of Singapore in 1949, Bishop Wilson spoke from the heart: ‘Last night I saw again what is for me the fairest sight in all the Far East, the lovely view from Penang Hill, of islands, sea and distant peak; last night I watched the light of the setting sun on the waters of MacRitchie Reservoir and saw most vividly, “the long low splendour of the level lake”.’24

  Much of Malay tradition related to water, as one might expect of a race of fishermen. For Margot Massie it was encapsulated in the celebrations for the coronation of the Sultan of Trengganu in 1949, at which she was an honoured guest. The Royal Fish Drive on the Trengganu river climaxed when the armada of little boats converged with spears and nets upon the stunned fish ‘in a bubble of excitement and friendly rivalry’.25 This special event highlighted the Malays’ respect for royalty, their natural good humour and the sportsman’s love of the chase, while the cordiality between the Sultan and his British guests was cemented at the Coronation Ball the night before, when everyone joined hands to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’. If Mrs Massie remembered Malaya for its rare celebrations caught on cine or a modest Brownie box camera, Katharine Sim cherished its appeal to the senses, the overwhelming pungency of everyday smells – ‘the heady wafts of pigeon orchid; the sweet cloying scent of the frangipani flowers; the spicy smoke of joss sticks … the delicious tang of wood fires and the fragrant, hungry smell of curry cooking’.26