pakdoktergolfblog: 1958 to 1963......

Pakdokter got down to recollecting on what it was like to celebrate the Hari Raya when pakdokter was growing up as a boy in Kuala Lumpur. How little could pakdokter remember actually......

The years in Brickfields was a complete black-out! So were the years when pakdokter's family moved to the government quarters at Jalan Pegawai/Jalan Ampang Hilir area. In fact when pakdokter went there some months ago to chance at taking a photograph of that old house, sadly the rows of semi-detached double-storey houses were no longer there anymore! On its ground now stands a high-rise building which pakdokter was made to understand is an apartment block for government officers....(pakdokter can see this apartment block from the Royal Selangor Golf Club every time pakdokter plays golf there nowadays)

Only old pictures could trigger the blur memories of the old days. One of the oldest pictures of pakdokter in the collection was the one below which pakdokter assumes was taken on a Hari Raya day. Why would pakdokter be wearing the full suit of a Baju Melayu if it was not on the Hari Raya day?

pakdokter......circa 1960?......

picture taken in pakdokter's home in PJ,

where the family resided,

upon pakdokter's father's retirement..

Pakdokter was generally a quiet and a rather shy boy. Perhaps for that reason, pakdokter did not have that many friends. There were a few that pakdokter can still remember and these were the few who would visit pakdokter on the Hari Raya day at our home in PJ, and in return pakdokter would follow them to their houses after that.

These were friends from pakdokter's Malay primary school in downtown Kuala Lumpur. One of them was a boy called Shuhaimi ( Emeh or Emmie for short..).The other was Ghani, who was more commonly addressed as Gadul! Emeh and Gadul were of Bawein or Boyan or maybe of Minang descent. Their families lived in houses on the slopes of Jalan Damansara, near the Socfin Rubber Plantation. Their parents were probably workers of the rubber estate or maybe were workers of the race-course at Jalan Ampang ( the Boyan were famous for being good jockeys and good at taking care of horses). Or maybe they were traders ( the Minang were famously traders )......pakdokter has no way of knowing actually....

Pakdokter cannot actually remember how we got to get to their houses. Perhaps we had to take a bus. Pakdokter can vaguely remember that one of the things that we used to do together was to catch 'fighting fish' in the streams within the area of what is today the Lake gardens.

Of course these houses are no longer there today. This area, the Damansara Heights, has now become one of the most expensive suburb of the city! When that area was taken over, these families were relocated to an area in Kampong Pandan. Pakdokter can remember visiting them in their houses in Kampong Pandan, too, after they moved there. Their houses reminded pakdokter of houses built for the Felda settlers in the land development programme. These houses are probably no longer there anymore. If pakdokter is right, on the land where these families were relocated, now stands the residential projects of Pandan Maju.

And on where and what these childhood friends of pakdokter are today.....Wallahu'allam.....

pakdokter's class photo circa 1960?....

cannot remember the teacher's name...

it was a co-ed school, 38 pupils in a class..

the St Mary's Church can be seen behind the school...

The primary school that pakdokter went to was called Sekolah Umum Gombak Lane. Pakdokter attended this school for 4 years. The school was located on the banks of the Gombak River. Across the river was and is, until today, the St. Mary's Church and beyond that the Selangor Padang and the 'Dog' or the Selangor Club. This school, of course, is no longer there. It has made way for development. On it now is probably the huge concrete Rafflesia water feature which is a tourist landmark of the city.

Pakdokter was in standard 1 at this Malay School in 1958. That was one year after Merdeka. Pakdokter had written, in an earlier blog on pakdokter's father, that for reasons only known to him, he had enrolled pakdokter into this Malay school when the elder siblings of pakdokter all went to the Batu Road English School, the Victoria Institution, the St John's Institution and the Methodist Girls' School ( the MGS). As pakdokter had commented, pakdokter suspected that he must have been passionately swept along by the wave of 'nationalism' that came with the Independence.

The condition of this Malay school was pathetic! There was the main block consisting of maybe 4 classes in a wooden building raised from the ground on concrete and timber supports. There was another block closer to the river bank, another wooden structure raised on timber supports with a chest-high wall of bamboo strips and thatched attap roof.. Today such a structure would make a good sea-food restaurant like the ones at the Bagans of Port Klang....Despite of the fact that these buildings were raised from the ground, quite often after a heavy downpour the Gombak River would overflow its banks and the school would be partly submerged in flood water!

We did not use any exercise books then. We used a granite pencil to write on a 'papan batu' ( a granite slate) and would rub off the page using our own saliva! Exercise books only came into the picture at standard 3 or 4 maybe......Pakdokter used to tell pakdokter's children that pakdokter's schooldays were very much like the ones they see on the 'Flintstones' programme on TV.....Yapppp birdda beddduuu......

a close-up of the picture above....

pakdokter in the centre, last row, behind the teacher

last row:hashim,fauzi,rosnan?,pakdokter, baba gemuk,emeh,adnan..

middle row: juniati?,zaiton?,??, gadul, abdullah wari, ???, zaaba pendek....

front row:???, fauziah, ???, cikgu??, nik something, ???,???

names listed from left to right.

Pakdokter's family lived in a government house on Jalan Pegawai in Ampang Hilir. Some of the government bungalows for the more senior officers are still there today. Middle-level officers were given a double-storey semi-detached houses. Pakdokter lived in one of these but the houses have been demolished and replaced by hig-rise apartments.

Pakdokter's father would normally drive and send pakdokter to school. At times one of pakdokter's elder brother would send pakdokter on his bicycle. Imagine sitting on the cross-bar of the bicycle from Jalan Ampang Hilir, down Jalan Ampang to Jalan Mounbatten and to Gombak Lane. By the time pakdokter was dropped off the bicycle, pakdokter's legs were numb, limp and 'paralysed' from the vascular obstruction to the legs from the hour-long ride of sitting on the crossbar!

One day, after being dropped off, pakdokter found out that the school was closed for whatever the reason was. There was no telephone those days. And pakdokter probably had no money or no knowledge on how to go home by bus. So pakdokter walked home all the way from Gombak Lane, up the Mounbatten Road, up Jalan Ampang (passed what would today be the KLCC) towards the RRI building before turning right through some rambutan orchards ( today this property is probably where the Great Eastern Mall is located) to reach Jalan Ampang Hilir and Jalan Pegawai...... Luckily for pakdokter that those days there were not that many pedophile body-snatchers and stories of lost children like Nureen etc were unheard of!

Pakdokter's father retired from the government when pakdokter was in standard 3 or 4 and for a few months we lived with pakdokter's elder brother who had a government quarters house at Jalan Princess.( This row of houses has today been replaced by the august buildings of the Institute Medical Research and the Faculty of Medicine of UKM and UPM). Pakdokter's brother, despite being a good student with a grade 1 in the Science Stream at the Senior Cambridge Exam in 1957 from such a good school like the Victoria Institution, did not continue to Form 6 but chose to work and was trained to become a medical assistant. ( He could easily have become a doctor if there was an affirmative action then to provide proper career guidance and sponsorship for further education. My elder brother at a later stage in his career was helped by Dr Tom Dooley - of the famous 1970's song representing the 70's rock era - who helped him get a scholarship to the UCLA in the United States of America and became qualified in Medical Engineering specialising in hemodialysis for chronic renal patients. On coming back to Malaysia, he continued to serve the government hospitals as a medical assistant until retirement, all his life as a medical assistant/renal dialysis technician! Such is the fate of a bumiputera who was university trained in the science and technology. No way one can be a DO or a DG or a KSU ect. Such posts are only reserved for the more intelligent students who studied Arts, Malay Studies, History and Pengajian Islam....)

Pakdokter's father had bought a house in the newly developed area of Petaling Jaya and upon completion of that house we moved from Princess Road to PJ. The house in Section 12 of PJ was a single storey bungalow with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, a living and dining and a kitchen. It was quite comfortable for our family of 8. ( My parents, step-grandmother, 3 girls and 2 boys. How we all fitted in the 3 rooms, pakdokter cannot now figure!)

The roads from the Federal Highway ( where the EPF Building is now) to our house were not even paved yet. But we were pioneers of this new settlement. To go to school, pakdokter had to walk from the house, at the mercy of threateningly fierce dogs, ( which is near the Sultan Abd Samad Sec School in PJ) to the Federal Highway in front of what is today the University Hospital, to catch a bus to Foch Avenue. From there pakdokter would walk down to the Gombak Lane School.

To spare this agony pakdokter was transferred to the Sekolah Kebangsaan Petaling Jaya, located at the Kawasan Melayu in old town PJ near the RIDA College. That school is still there today. Pakdokter had to catch a small 20-seater bus that picked up pakdokter from Jalan Kemajuan and be dropped off at the PJ Old Town centre. Pakdokter was there for 2 years until pakdokter was selected to a boarding school in Ipoh for the secondary education.

The school in PJ was a much better school than the Gombak Lane school. Pakdokter was a good student all along. Pakdokter was almost always first in class tests for as long as pakdokter can remember. But what pakdokter will never forget was the fact that in pakdokter's class at that time there were a few pupils who were slow learners ( and with pakdokter's medical knowledge now pakdokter can confirm that a few of them were cases of cerebral palsy and mental retardation). The poor teacher could simply not cope with teaching a class of such a diverse capabilities. So quite often pakdokter was assigned to look after and coach the intellectually challenged classmates while the teacher concentrated on teaching the other pupils.......!

Here too pakdokter had very few friends and pakdokter has lost contact with all of them. Looking through the old albums, pakdokter found these two pictures of a school picnic outing to the Klang Gates. Honestly pakdokter did not at all remember that such a trip was made but these pictures bear testimony that such an outing did happen. The pictures helped remind pakdokter of some of the classmates during that 2 years in PJ.