by Boris Hembry
I stayed the night with Tuke, after having had a quick look at the assistant’s bungalow which was a couple of miles away from the main offices and factory. It stood in a clearing in the rubber, about 50 yards from the main estate road. Constructed of wood, it was unlike most estate bungalows in that it was not on wooden stilts or brick piers, but a two-storey house. The sitting and dining rooms and the pantry were on ground level, whilst upstairs there were two bedrooms and the bathroom. Each bedroom had a mosquito-proofed cubicle for the beds. The sanitation was the usual jamban (thunderbox), and the water, for all purposes, was stored in a Shanghai jar. On the whole the bungalow was very comfortable.
Tuke was a very taciturn man and seemed quite incapable of starting a conversation, whilst I was completely tongue-tied. After living for nearly a year without regular social intercourse I had nothing to say for myself. I was a month behind national and international news. As I began to go out and to meet other people, and neighbours began to call on me, I soon became very aware of my inadequacy. There was scarcely a topic on which I could talk, except rubber, and even then not too intelligently. I still had much to learn.
However, I soon settled down, as the routine was very similar to that I had been used to in Johore and Atjeh. And, of course, I had a Tamil labour force again, rather than Atjehnese. The latex from my division was transported daily by bullock cart to the factory on the main division. We did not get lorries until 1934.
The change between the complete isolation and loneliness of Gajah Muntah to the hurly-burly of Sungei Gettah was unbelievable at first. On most days at least two cars, several bullock carts and many pedestrians passed by my bungalow. After about a week I heard a motorcycle turn into my drive, much to my delight. It was Dan Wright, the assistant from Bukit Lembu Estate. This was our first meeting, and we were to remain the best of friends until his death nearly 50 years later. He was to take me to the Sungei Patani Club on the back of his motorbike, to introduce me to other young planters, and to help me to overcome my shyness and introspection.
The next visitor was Bob Chrystal, the manager of Bukit Lembu. He was married to Babs, an Australian whom he had met on holiday at Brastagi, the hill station in Sumatra. They married in 1928 and had Gerald and Helen by the time I first met them in December 1931.I fell under their spell immediately. Their bungalow was within half a mile of mine, and I passed it every time I went to the far end of my division, and usually got a cheery wave from Babs.
As the shyness wore off I began to enter into the social life of the district. I played golf on Saturday afternoons, usually followed by drinks with other young planters, civil servants and agency men. So that I should no longer be dependent on Dan’s pillion, Tuke suggested that I buy his Big Six Norton motorcycle. I was now independent. I could go to Sungei Patani, some 15 miles away, Penang, about 40 miles further on, and, of course, visit my various neighbours. Compared to Atjeh, I felt that I was living in suburbia.
At the Sungei Patani Club I met another young planter who was to remain a close friend for the next 40 years, Walter Northcote-Green. Greeno introduced me to the Penang Cricket Club, and, although it was late in the season, I got in a few practice games. As so many planters had been laid off because of the slump, Kedah found it difficult to raise an eleven so had amalgamated with Penang. I forget how long this arrangement lasted. I was to become president of the Kedah Cricket Association in 1954, so I assume that the two states parted company again either just before the War, or immediately afterwards.
It may seem that life was one long round of gaiety. This was far from the case as, even with my own transport, it was rare for me to leave the estate on more than one evening a week, and then only to a neighbour. I did get to the club over the weekends for a round of golf or a game of cricket or rugger, followed by a few beers and supper, whilst a trip to Penang was rarely more often than once a month. Despite the cheapness of everything, salaries were not high, and I soon ate into the savings that I had accumulated in Atjeh. Also, to go anywhere I had to pass Tuke’s bungalow, so that he could hear my motorbike and note the time of my return. Anyway, assistants were kept very busy from 5 am until teatime at about 4.30 pm – when, more often than not, there were the accursed check rolls to maintain. I have more than once arrived on the muster ground still in my white dinner jacket, much to the amusement of all concerned, to change immediately afterwards before going out around the rubber at about 6 o’clock. It was always a matter of principle for me to be on time for muster, however riotous the previous night’s party had been, or however far I had had to travel to return to the estate, and it was something I always insisted, when I became a manager, that my assistants did, much to the annoyance of some of them.
After a few weeks I could see that Ah Fong was not happy, and I was not surprised when he came to see me one day to say that he had made a mistake and that he should have stayed in Atjeh. I was very sorry to see him go but could well understand the reasons. I paid his fare back to Langsa. Before he went he fixed me up with another Chinese cook/boy who had worked for the Chrystals.
All was well for a few weeks until Bob and Babs came round for drinks one evening. The first thing Babs spotted was her fruit bowl on my sideboard, the first of many such items we were to discover over the coming weeks. There was much embarrassment on my part, but none on the cook’s. Babs gave me the bowl, but this was lost, together with everything else we owned, when the Japanese invaded.
Cookie did not last long for one day he was recognised by a dresser from the state leprosy hospital and carted off to complete his treatment. Whilst I am sure that the risks for me were practically non-existent, I did feel somewhat uneasy for several months afterwards.
My new cook/boy was Ah Kim, a young Chinese. He was always very cheerful, married, a good cook and honest. But he was an habitual gambler, and this eventually got him into very serious trouble. Ah Kim remained with me throughout my stay in Kedah, and later joined Jean and me on Kamuning. He left us only when his winnings could no longer sustain his opium addiction, in 1937.I paid Ah Kim $25 a month contract (about £3) and from this he fed me more than adequately, and kept the balance for his own wages.
Shortly after I arrived on Sungei Gettah one of the Indian clerks gave me an attractive little kitten, and I was to become very attached to it. In those days I had large white tablecloths which covered the round dining table, reaching almost to the floor. The floor was of cement, painted red and highly polished. One night I was sitting at the table, having supper and reading. The kitten was playing under the table, hissing and spitting. It became rather aggravating, so I gently tried to nudge it away with my foot, but without success. The hissing and spitting continued, only beginning to sound rather angry. Tiring of its game I lifted the tablecloth – and had the fright of my life. Standing at least two feet high was a cobra, with inflated hood, hissing at the kitten. My bare ankle must have missed the snake by only a couple of inches each time I had tried to nudge the kitten. I leapt up, grabbed a golf club, yelled ‘boy!’, yanked the kitten away with the club head, and tried to hit the snake on the head – not easy in the confined space under the table. When the boy arrived we lifted the table clear so that I was able to have a good swing and soon despatched it. It was a good six feet long. Afterwards I realised that the cobra, which can usually move like greased lightning, was unable to get a grip on the polished floor. Otherwise my kitten would most certainly have been killed, and I would have been severely bitten on the leg, although I would probably have been able to reach the estate dresser in time to get the antivenom injection. Thereafter I always made a point of peering under the table before sitting down for a meal.
Another night I was asleep in my mosquito-proofed cubicle when I woke to see a man bending over the dressing table. He was standing with his back towards me going through the drawers. I watched him for a moment or two, but other than that he was Chinese I did not recognise him. Letting out a bellow, rather as I had done with the honey bear in Sumatra, I leapt out o
f bed but tripped on the mosquito netting, so he got away, running into the bathroom, down the back stairs and out of the back door. As the intruder seemed to know the house intimately I came to the conclusion that he might have been a servant for a previous occupier of the bungalow. Nothing appeared to have been taken, and I was not troubled again in such a way on Sungei Gettah.
Towards the end of 1932 my life changed again. It was now at the very worst time of the Depression. The price of rubber touched the all time low of 1½ pence per pound. It was decided that Tuke would take over Jabi Estate, near Alor Star, and I would assume the assistant managership of Sungei Gettah, under fortnightly supervision by Tuke. He would live on Jabi, and I would move into the manager’s bungalow on Sungei Gettah.
The whole arrangement was, of course, a cost-cutting exercise by the Company, but it meant real promotion for a young planter of just 22, especially as Tuke’s visits soon became only monthly. I was aware of some jealousies, particularly from some of the older assistants in the area, but I was lucky that, in the short time I had spent out East, I had worked on three contrasting estates, under three different managers, in rapidly deteriorating financial circumstances, and had started planting several years younger than the norm. I owed a lot to my previous managers, and especially, of course, to Peters on Sungei Plentong. To Tuke must go the credit of instilling in me the very valuable experience and lessons of producing rubber for next to nothing, paring production costs to the bone. My experience over the next two years, in the worst of the slump, stood me in excellent stead in the years to come.
I have always acknowledged that my subsequent success was in part due to the advantage I had over many planters, of the same vintage, whose careers were interrupted by the retrenchment during the years 1930 to 1935. I was genuinely fascinated with the whole process of producing rubber, from seedling to auction in London, whereas I felt that several of my contemporaries were more interested in the good life and took up planting merely to enable them to have it, and so, perhaps, were not so committed to assimilating experience, learning the languages, getting to know the peoples and the flora and fauna of Malaya. To me the social life was a bonus which I grabbed with both hands, but a bonus nevertheless.
Several of my friends and acquaintances have described the humiliation of not only searching for a job, but also in the work they were sometimes forced to do, and it is not surprising that most hurried back to Malaya as soon as the world economy improved. I am thankful that I was spared this.
There was no question of selling forward, but of realising the assets as soon as possible. I sold all the rubber I could sell to local Chinese rubber merchants, cash on delivery, buyer collect. I managed to get the cost of production down to the selling price of the rubber. And we always had the liquidity to pay the labour force and the suppliers. Only when these were paid could I draw my salary and expenses. Quite often I could not, and these would be credited to me.
The manager’s bungalow was built on pillars, on a hill, which allowed me to look over the rubber trees to Kedah Peak, so I again had a view. I could tolerate any bungalow, no matter what its deficiencies, providing it had a view. The bungalow was large, with a verandah on three sides, and both bedrooms and the sitting room were mosquito-proofed. The bathrooms had the usual thunderboxes and Shanghai jars. The garden was wonderful, full of jacaranda, tulip, and flame-of-the-forest trees, and always a blaze of colour.
After several tumbles off my motorbike, usually due to a combination of the loose laterite gravel on estate roads and over-indulgence in alcohol, painful experiences but not seriously injurious, I began to contemplate buying a car. I felt secure in my job, there had been no adverse criticism from my manager or visiting agents. Furthermore, Tuke had a small 10 HP Fiat for sale, which had belonged to a former manager from a neighbouring estate who had been axed. I had made the decision to buy this car one night when I had landed in the ditch, with the Norton on top of me, and the red hot exhaust pipe resting on my thigh. The next day I sold the motorbike to a local Chinese garage for $75, and bought my very first car for $100 (then about £12).
It was a super little car and never let me down. In 1934 I drove it all the way down the Malay Peninsula to south Johore, and when I went home on leave in January 1935 I left it with the local Chinese shopkeeper in lieu of what I owed him. I must say, he was not too happy. Being Chinese he was really only interested in payment in currency. Or gold.
Sometime towards the end of 1932 Tuke invited me up to Jabi Estate one evening for dinner. The estate lay astride the Jitra road, east of Alor Star. In December 1941 the invading Japanese army were to use this road as one of their main lines of attack, and the area around Jabi was the scene of much bitter fighting.
After the usual abstemious evening I left at about 10 pm for the two-hour journey home. I had passed through Alor Star and was on the main north-south trunk road when I began to feel very sleepy and to keep my eyes open became a very great struggle. The realisation that I had left the road and was heading for the ditch certainly woke me up, but there was nothing that I could do before I was waist deep in water. Luckily the Fiat was an open two-seater so that there was no danger of drowning, but having scrambled out, I stood on the bank, wet and miserable, surveying my pride and joy. A passing lorry driven by a Chinese and carrying vegetables to the market in Penang stopped and gave me a lift to Bedong, where I was able to get a local taxi to take me back to Sungei Gettah. The following morning I went over to the Chrystals and used their phone to speak to my friend Eddy Gardener, the local PWD engineer. He agreed to recover the car and to tow it to Sungei Patani for draining out and repairing. He did this the next day for me, but I was quite rightly charged for the PWD services. He told me later that he had received a rocket from his superior, even though the PWD had made some money out of the episode, as apparently their accounts department was not geared up to sending out invoices for services rendered to private citizens.
The damage was quickly repaired and I had my car back within a couple of days. But never again did I drive when I was over-tired, except in wartime. I always pulled over for a quick forty winks.
I was now playing cricket regularly for the Penang Club, often on both Saturdays and Sundays. Also, we raised a Sungei Patani Club side which played other towns in northern Malaya. On one particular Sunday we had a game against Taiping, away, and Greeno, another young planter named Tyndale-Powell and myself drove down with Pat Daintry in his Ford. After the game, for some reason or other, we had to drive straight back, forgoing the usual after-game beers. Just outside Butterworth Pat said that he was suddenly feeling very tired. Mindful of my experience in the Fiat, I took over the wheel, and we proceeded on our journey home.
As we were passing through Sungei Pasir village a Tamil suddenly darted out into the middle of the road in front of us. I stood on the brakes but nothing happened. I grabbed the hand brake, still nothing happened. At the same time I swerved to the right, but the Tamil ran into the near side mudguard. I somehow eventually managed to stop further down the road and we ran back to find the old Tamil lying moaning and groaning, and obviously very drunk. He died before we could get him to hospital, it turned out of a ruptured spleen. Paddy McNamara, the local OCPD, was soon on the scene and took statements from us all. He later tested the brakes only to find them almost non-existent. To add to my problems, not only did I not have a Kedah driving licence, but Pat had not even licensed the car.
I knew that I was in a lot of trouble. I had visions of being sent home fairly smartly by a company which could quickly fill the vacancy many times over. Fortunately we were able to prove, from the time we had taken to get from Taiping to Sungei Pasir, that we had not been speeding, and we could also produce corroborative evidence that we had each imbibed only one shandy after the match. However, the next day I was charged with (a) causing a death by a rash act; (b) driving a vehicle without efficient brakes; (c) driving a vehicle without a valid driving licence; and (d) driving an unregistered vehicle. The
case would be heard in the Sungei Patani Court the following March – three months ahead. Pat Daintry was most apologetic, but there was nothing he could do except, perhaps, to appear on my behalf in mitigation.
I had many sleepless nights before the trial. I worked even harder than usual during the days, and spent most of my spare time with Dan Wright, playing cards and generally trying to keep my mind off the forthcoming trial. I did not tell either Tuke or the agents of the mishap – a great mistake, because, of course, word would soon have got around the expatriate community, but I was still young and immature. I forget whether I even informed Jean of my predicament.
At last the day of the trial arrived. To add to my anxiety, under Kedah law defendants were not permitted the services of defence counsel: one had to conduct one’s own defence. The magistrate was a Malay, the prosecutor Paddy McNamara, and the witnesses the three other occupants of the car.
The postmortem report was read out in court by a hospital dresser. The Tamil had died of a ruptured spleen, and there was much toddy in his stomach. The evidence showed that the chap had been drinking heavily and the witnesses confirmed that he had suddenly darted out into the road and had run into me, rather than I into him. The magistrate enquired whether I had been drinking and the prosecutor could offer no evidence that I had. After a little deliberation the magistrate found me not guilty on the major charge and fined me $100 for the minor ones. My relief can be imagined.
As soon as the case was over, all concerned jumped into cars and headed off to Alor Star to watch an interstate soccer match. I went with Paddy McNamara, whilst the others were driven by the magistrate, at breakneck speed, in his open Alvis.
