After All These Years pt. 4

Traditionally, parents were not supposed to give their children more than Twenty Ringgit for those from Forms Remove downwards - Form Remove is what Form Two is today at the College as well as other schools in the country - and Forty Ringgit maximum for the upper Forms. The average dhobi monthly cost per person was five ringgit although some might incur as much as ten ringgit a month but this was generally confined to the wealthy students of the Royal families and those from Sarawak and Brunei, whose pocket moneys far exceeded the rest of us but treated as exceptions rather than the rule by the Headmaster. The considerations were they normally had to fly home or continued to remain at the College by themselves if they so chose to do it. It was here that I was told by my dad to adopt as brother a Brunei boy by the name of Hussein bin Mohamed, called 'the millionaire' by his Form mates. Needless to say, Hussein was a spendthrift by nature. Out of the termly Three Hundred and Fifty Ringgit pocket money that the Brunei Government gave him, Hussein easily went broke before the term was over. It was because of this when I became the Prefect in charge of Pocket Money that the Headmaster Mr. Howell told me to specifically monitor and control Hussein's spending to enable him to have enough left to fly back to Brunei at any time deemed necessary. To help Hussein overcome his bad spending habits, he was encouraged not to fly home each termly holidays but instead remained back in College or stayed at friend's homes. It was this that prompted my father to make me adopt him as a brother, which literally saw Hussein almost always spending his termly holidays with my families .Later on in his life, Hussein did become a millionaire in his own right in Brunei although I have since lost trace of his whereabouts after he broke off from his wife and married someone else in Malaysia , so I was told but yet to be verified.

The College daily routines were very rigid indeed. Apart from the normal class hours, we had morning breaks of fifteen minutes around 1045 to 1100 am to enjoy prepared snacks at the dining hall, which snacks consisted of a cup of coffee or tea and a couple of locally made biscuits such as Osborne, Cream crackers or Mary. Occasionally we would have two pieces of bread with jam. The College tuck shop as the canteen was called those days for the Prep School was opened at that time too and we were allowed to skip our dining meals for the tuck shop offers. At first very few of us skipped the Dining meals but eventually we started to feel fed up of them and we began to frequent the tuck shop instead. This is where I remained different from the majority . I somehow enjoyed all the stuff that was offered at the dining halls because they bore similarity to what I ate back home apart from the fact that my biscuits back home were the genuine English biscuits of cream crackers and Mary biscuits which tasted and smell far different from those that were offered by the College. Nevertheless I soon got used to their tastes and to these days these Osborne and Marie biscuits remained my favorites ! Anyway, I saved my pocket money which was only twenty five ringgit a term then. My big brother had thirty five ringgit per term. Strangely though I never felt out of pocket money at any time. I even had some to enjoy back home during the term holidays to see lots of movies which was my favorite past times of those days, something that still remains till today.

After lunch which took place between 1.00 pm and 1.30 pm we were expected to be back at our dormitories to get ready for the 2.00 pm to 3.00 pm rest and nap period. After 3.00 pm we got ready our playing kits and went for our early afternoon tea at 3.15 pm. From then onwards we had our free time until 4.00 pm when we were all expected to be at the various playing outlets for our exercise and games until 6.00 pm when we were expected back at the dormitories to get ready to bathe and to be followed by dinner at 7.00 pm. Dinner normally ended by 7.30 pm and we would by then make our way to the classrooms for Prep time from 8.00 pm till 9.15 pm and lights off to bed by 9.30 pm. The whole place became silent except for occasional coughing or sneezing or snoring for the rest of the night until the morning waking bells sounded at 6.00 am when we all rushed off to bathe and be ready for breakfast by 6.45 am and to the classrooms by 7.30 am when class commenced for the day. The above were the rigid working hours for us at the Prep School which differed slightly at the Big School where bed time was extended to 10.15 pm, the exception given to the Fifth Formers upwards was they could go to bed at 11.00 pm. To strictly enforce these time schedules, it was the special roles of the duty Prefects at both College outlets to fully enforce them and meted due punishments for the rule breakers , which suprisingly during my College days were not many considering that we had slightly over 600 Collegians.

Life was governed by the bells throughout our College life. The bells ring for almost all activities including the changing of subjects taught in classes. Each subject was confined to forty-five minutes only and in between those there were the bells for the morning breaks and back to classrooms alert. The sounding of the bells too became the responsibility of the Duty Prefect of the day except for the subjects bells which were done by the College administrative clerks or Peon - delivery boy. There were very rare occasions when the bells did not ring. As far as I could recall when electric bells were installed in the Big School, someone naughtily stuffed cotton wools on the bells which made them soundless. Of course the bad guy was duly found eventually and meted Detention Class for a record of a month ! This guy happened to be a Form mate of ours - a royalty from Selangor named Raja Razali bin Raja Ismail, who was quite a colourful character at the College and even later on in his life time .

However of worthy note here is we almost always could tell which teacher was walking along the classroom walkways. The loudness and most prominent was our Headmaster Howell whose footsteps could literally be heard miles away ! One of our teachers walked almost tiptoed to a complete silence, which quite often caught us by surprise with his sudden appearance. Others whistled and hummed some tunes of sorts, whilst some smoked their passageways with the distinct smell of the branded cigarettes that they smoked.. The most common cigarettes of the time was The Players and Craven A and very rarely a brand that we could not recognize. There were the cigar smokers too but these were very few. Of the chain-smokers from amongst them, the duty roster boy of their classes had busy time emptying the ash containers and rid the classrooms of the receding smokes when they left the classrooms. Of course I cannot ignore the bad habits of some of our English teachers who loved to throw pieces of the blackboard chalks at us to get our attention on matters discussed in class. Again whoever was on the duty roster for the class on those days had a busy time picking these pieces of chalks from the floor all over the classroom.. However, despite these minor shortfalls in the character habits of these teachers, they were all very dedicated teachers who never fooled around with their responsibility as a teacher be it in the classroom or at the playing fields in the evenings when they too were expected to be with us to do their specialty bids such as at soccer, tennis, badminton, squash, cricket, hockey, athletics, gardening and even boxing too. Literally they lived with us ! It was little suprise they all observed and knew all our characters too. Such was the comradeship at the College of those days, which I am told is not the case anymore these days, which is something most unfortunate for present day Collegians.

All of us were expected to know and experience every game at the College, and this was done right from the very day when we first went to the College field near the Prep School.. Games were schedules in such a way that almost everyone managed to have a game of some sort everyday. Of course following the British seasons back home in England, our games were seasoned too, with soccer or football as it was called then in the first term, cricket in the second term and hockey and athletics in the third term. Later on in the late fifties when rugby was introduced in College, the rugby boys played all year round and they practiced regularly at their specially allotted field, something that paid off well for the College later on to covert the Rugby Championship for the whole State of Perak, where Kuala Kangsar was one of the districts of the State .

I feel proud to note here that the first rugby captain of the College was the late Abdul Fatah whose sister Ainul became my wife in the early sixty. Incidentally he was also Sabri Mohd Rejab's's younger brother, which made me qualified for the saying' brother to begin and a sister to win " ! Indeed Fatah and his rugby mates made history for the College and the traditions continue until today that the College rugby team remains feared and respected by all the other rugby playing schools in the country. The only team that almost always except on very rare occasions got beaten by the College was and is College in Thailand, which name I cannot recall right now. Worthy to note though, the College rugby boys were the envy of the rest of us, because they were given special foods and privileges not normally enjoyed by the rest . Their daily breakfast consisted of two fried or boiled eggs with no limited number of bread pieces to eat with Milo or Horlicks as the regular beverage choices. As for their main meals they got to eat more beef and chicken and choiced vegetables and no limit to the amount of rice they would wish to eat. But of course the emphasis was on all round fitness for them when they were expected to run around the playing fields a minimum of two miles daily. Their prep time was extended and they could sleep as late as midnight if they wished too as this was to facilitate their out station matches which made them return late at night on each outing. Academically, almost all of them were top students with the majority attaining professional qualifications in later life. These early rugby players later on formed the Selangor Rugby Cobra team which made a name for themselves for many years. Their team mates were opened to non Collegians eventually due to lack of younger players in the Selangor State but the Cobra is still a team to reckon with till today. Incidentally Abdul Fatah passed away peacefully on 14th December 2006 leaving two wives and six children consisting of a girl and three boys from the first wife and two boys from the second wife. The College has never had such a rugby captain of such colourful character as the late Abdul Fatah, as only his family can confirm.

I desire to pen on many memorable episodes of my early College life but suffice it for now to take a break till another inspired time in the future - God Willing !

( Footnote : The speaker I referred to in my first paragraph of this article was Dato' Abu Bakar Mahmud, who sadly passed away barely two weeks after that surprised and splendid dinner at the Ampang Park Cozy Corner. We never get to see his published book or if it is at all published as intended by our late friend. May Allah Bless him always !. )

(Addendum Footnote : It could be coincidental that barely two weeks before the demise of Dato' Abu Bakar, a very close friend and classmate of our 1949 MCKK batch, suddenly passed away barely a week after we had a lunch gathering of friends at the Aldiafah Restaurant in Sri Petaling. At that lunch, our late Mohd Suffian Abdul Ghani was the most chatty amongst us . May Allah Bless him always ! )
( TO BE CONTINUED )