Hiking, Job Week and a bit of history: Scouting at WPS (1963-65) Part 3

HIKING WAS a very common activity for Scouts: We are thankful for photos of them. Westlands Primary is lucky that one of its scoutmasters, Mr Hwang Hong Shi, saw it fit to take and organise them in albums (above).

During our time at Westlands, the scoutmasters, Mr John Low Thean Hock and Mr Vellasamy, were not as adventurous as Mr Hwang Hong Shi and Mr Thomas Khor who took a group of 12 Scouts on a trek to Taiping and Maxwell Hill and back. Read here. Truth be told, our parents would not have given us permission to go on such a journey – not mine, anyway. Nevertheless, we had a few small adventures.

Hiking up Bukit Cendana: One morning in 1965 about 20 of us gathered at Mr Vellasamy’s home along Waterfall Road (if I am not mistaken) and headed for the Moongate. It was my first hill hike. On the way up the trail forked. Mr Vellasamy, in full Scout gear too, guided us up one path (the right); the left would have taken us up to Penang Hill. Read details here. Atop the hill was a dilapidated bungalow overlooking Tanjung Tokong, Pulau Tikus and the city. We stopped there for a small picnic. The building has, apparently, been burnt down. There are a few pictures of it, taken in the 1970s by Rob Dickinson, in this post here.

The view was breathtaking — the huge cluster of houses below set against the sea without obtrusive high-rises and the abundant greens; they made us very proud of Penang. We thought we had trekked through virgin forests but it was not true. The British had cleared much of Penang’s hills for the planting of spices in the 19th century. There were warnings of environmental degradation and their ill-effects (like climate change!) from as early as 1848. Read here.

Picture taken in 1930s or 1940s showing large patches of Bukit Cendana that had been stripped of vegetation. Source: anilnetto.com. Read his story here

Using the Mount Erskine route to reach here, we passed
through Pulau Tikus, Gottlieb Road and the cemetery.
Photo by Liu Ruxia on Flickr 

Journeying to Choong Lye Hock Road: After getting the Tenderfoot badge, we took some of the tests for Second Class. It involved a “journey”. A few of us decided to walk from the school to Mr Low’s house. It required us, among others, to draw maps, provide landmarks, name the roads and give directions. This is one of the reasons I cannot forget his address. Regretfully, the map book that I drew with meticulous detail is gone.

Job Week: Every Job Week, I would classify the people I do “jobs” for into three groups (a) donors (b) socialisers and (c) people who want serious work done. I would approach my grandfather, parents, uncles, etc, to donate on my Job Card before heading off to other homes. The uncles and aunties who wanted to socialise would invite us in for tea and biscuits after doing a token job like cleaning the wheels of their car or polishing shoes.

Mr John Low (right) with Mr Cheng Hin at the 2003 gathering

of Old Frees (1970-72), Bukit Jambul Country Club on 2nd 

February. We invited him because he taught many of us. 

Mr Low has passed on. When I went to fetch him that day, he 

talked about preparing to hike up Mount Kinabalu: “Once a

Scout, always a Scout,” as people say

The people I dreaded most were those who wanted serious work done. One old lady got us to weed an entire garden. While the space was small, just a patch in front of a linked house, the weeds were thick and there were numerous garden furniture (a swing and large stands for potted plants) that we had to crawl under. It was back breaking but, sportingly, we completed the job and was amply rewarded with a very grateful smile and one dollar to be shared among the two of us.

The general “Burmah” (including Salween, Tavoy, Irrawaddy and Mandalay roads) and “Birch Road” areas were our favourites because they comprised linked houses. The distance between the houses was much shorter and, if there were dogs, we could spot them quickly. The bungalows were probably more lucrative; however, the jobs could be more extensive and they probably had bigger dogs hidden away where we could not see. My friends and I generally avoided them – unless it was the home of a relative or friend.

There does not seem to be a coordinated effort to have Minggu Kerja for Scouts in Malaysia. It is still going strong in neighbouring Singapore which has the same Scouting roots as us. Read here.

Scouting in Penang: Some snippets

• The first Malaysian Scout Jamboree was held in Penang in 1966. According to a story in the Persatuan Pengakap Malaysia, Pulau Pinang website: “Jubilee Camp, the then campsite of the Local Boy Scouts Association, was transformed into the Jamboree Village with nearly 3,000 inhabitants of various colour, class and creed, adhering to the tenets of the Scout Law, which incidentally was the Law of this camp... Eleven countries, including Malaysia participated; 2,328 scouts from Nationalist China, Great Britain, India, South Korea, Laos, Nepal, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia took part. The Chairman of Organising Committee and Camp Chief was Wong Pow Nee; it was declared open by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the Sultan of Trengganu.” Read the story here.
• Claims made at the jamboree that scouting in Malaya was founded in Penang in 1908 via an experimental troop with the YMCA are apparently not true. According to Wan Meng Hao, co-author of Scouting In Singapore 1910-2000, “the photo of that 1908 scout troop was taken at Fort Canning, Singapore. Goh Guan Ho was working and living in Singapore in 1908. He had yet to relocate to Penang”.
• In 1934, Lord Baden-Powell and Lady Olave Baden-Powell made a visit to Penang, Kuala Kangsar, Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur. In Kuala Lumpur on 25th Nov, the 77-year-old Chief Scout was quoted as saying to 30-odd Scouters: “You chaps won't get a chance to see me again. Let me shake hands with you.” He went on to have a word with all of them individually. The group was struck by his informality. It was indeed his first and only visit to Malaya. He retired from public Scouting in 1937 and died in Kenya in 1941. Read more here, here (The Straits Times, Nov 26, 1934) and here.

Scouting continues to be a strong movement in the country. According to a census taken in 2010 by the World Organisation of the Scout Movement, there were 48,394 members then. I purchased recently a translation of the book, Scouting for Boys, by Robert Baden-Powell. It gave me goose bumps to know what we read about scouting in the 1960s are still being read today but in Bahasa Malaysia. The 233-page translated book, Ilmu Pengakap bagi Budak-budak (shown above) sells for only RM13.90!

Aerial photo of the 1966 First Malaysian Scout Jamboree at Jubilee Camp. Source: Persatuan Pengakap Malaysia, Pulau Pinang. Read the story here.

This is the third of three parts:

• Part 1: Building character and skills in uniform. Read here
• Part 2: Camping and cooking. Read here

– Lim Siang Jin

Camping and cooking: Scouting at WPS (1963-65) Part 2

Jubilee Camp, Teluk Bahang 1958. Photo courtesy of Mr Hwang Hong Shi

TELUK BAHANG was a sleepy fishing village in the 1960s. To reach it from school, we had to take a Hin Company blue bus from Burmah Road to Tanjung Bungah, to a depot opposite Sin Hai Kheng Hainanese restaurant. At that stop, we had to alight and switch to another blue bus for Teluk Bahang. As Scouts, the main attraction of the area was Jubilee Camp, situated just after a promontory with huge rocks – a favourite spot for anglers. When we were camping, the Scoutmasters would go to a row of shophouses for provisions and its famous mee goreng. We were not afforded the luxury of this delicious dish as far as I can recall.

The campsite then, set on an undulating sandy and grassy incline towards the sea, had many matured coconut trees. There was a guardhouse-like structure at road level. This was where we kept our provisions and equipment. Nearby were one or two single-storey beach bungalows.

Coconut trees and undulating grounds: Jubilee Camp in the late 1950s.
Photo courtesy of Mr Hwang Hong Shi

In 1966, Penang hosted the First Malaysian Scout Jamboree at Jubilee Camp. Although it was touted as a most important event in the state’s scouting history, the charm of the camp site disappeared with it. The area was flattened with laterite soil to make space for contingents from 11 countries. For a week Jubilee accommodated nearly 3,000 people. I thought that greater care ought to have been taken to preserve the environs of the camp.

The following anecdotes on camping and cooking are from my three years as a Scout at WPS:

The “Lantern Lady” at Jubilee Camp: In 1964 (Standard 5), I was not allowed to go camping. Ewe Tee went and came back with the most amazing story. Jubilee Camp was apparently haunted. On some nights, a woman in white carrying a lantern would walk the area. She was said to have committed suicide because her husband had not returned from sea. Therefore, on few nights each month she would still go to the beach to wait for him. Ewe Tee said he saw her walk past their tent. The next morning a raincoat used to prevent rainwater from dripping into the tent had bloodstains.

Ewe Tee does not recall the story. However, another friend of mine, Patrick Choo, formerly from theSun, confirmed it: “I remember our Scoutmasters telling us stories about the ‘lady with the lamp’ and asking us to fetch water at night from the well.” Patrick was not from WPS but St George’s Balik Pulau. Their Scout troop used to camp at Jubilee annually too. My own suspicion is that it was a means of the Scoutmasters to keep a tight leash on their charge. They certainly could not afford to allow 12-year-olds to wander around at night.

Pranks at the camp etc: In 1965, when I was finally allowed to go camping, at Jubilee too, we did not see any ghost. A few other things were carved into my memory though:

• Colgate prank: Our boyhood activities were full of mischief. The Colgate prank kept me awake for most of the night because I knew, if I fell into a deep slumber, others might spread toothpaste on my face, or worst, in my pants.
• Going out for air: The other matter that kept me awake were the musty smell of the tent and the stench of our collective eight bodies cramped under 6ft by 8ft of thick canvas. They gave me hay fever. I was finally able to breathe properly by sticking my head out from under the tent. Luckily, it did not rain those few days.
• Soggy fried taugeh and burnt rice: Cooking the very affordable taugeh and rice in large aluminium pots (about 2ft diameter) over a makeshift stove was standard practice. It gave us a very soggy version of the vegetable dish. Often, the rice we cooked would be slightly burnt. Famished, we walloped them anyway.

The spring water tank in 2017: Disused and overgrown with weeds.
Photo by Lim Siang Jin

Cold spring water and dark nights: One of the iconic facilities at Jubilee was cold spring water that flowed into a large holding tank (about 5ft by 20ft). Some of us called it the “well”. The water then overflowed into a drain that led to the sea. To get to the tank, we had to walk along the drain and under a small bridge; above is the Teluk Bahang Road. The water was very cold. We shivered each time we bathed but it was fun. Sometimes we would see locals and picnickers there too – men, women and children – to bathe or to wash the salt off their bodies after a swim. Today the tank (right) is overgrown with weeds.

As Patrick said, fetching water at night was scary. So was going out to ease ourselves. There were no toilets then and we had to make do with the drain for any big job. The hurricane and carbide lamps helped a bit. Since they illuminated so little, a mere few feet, they constantly left us wondering what’s beyond the lighted space.

Chap chnai (Pacific mole crab) that is found in abundance occasionally at
Teluk Bahang. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Abundant seafood and dangerous currents: The Jubilee beach was rich collecting grounds for siput (tiny shellfish) and the chap chnai (also called the Pacific mole crab). They would appear as we disturbed the sand when the waves broke at the edge of the shores. They did not add much to our diet but food-gathering was good exercise. We were not allowed to swim though. We were told that beyond a few feet of the shallows was a trench that could swallow even the strongest swimmer. This could be true because the sandscape at the beach go through tremendous alterations over the course of a year. It would take very powerful currents to effect such change.

Mr Vellasamy was Class Teacher of 

Standard 4C, WPS, in 1963. This is the 

best photo I can find of him

Cooking with Vellasamy: As part of preparation for camping, Mr Vellasamy taught us how to cook – in school. Apart from the soggy taugeh and the occasional burnt rice, we cooked chicken curry. It was most memorable. First, we bought and prepared the ingredients — chicken (chopped into small pieces), sliced onions, grated coconut (from which we squeezed santan), curry powder, a slice of toasted belacan, coconut oil and salt. The oil and onions went in first into the heated pot; and then the chicken, curry powder and belacan. When the ingredients started to char, we added the santan and salted the curry to our taste. It was great stuff!

Mr Vellasamy has passed on. I have not met him since 1965. I have fond memories of him as a caring person who was concerned about our welfare and how much he could teach us.

This is the second of three parts.

• Part 1: Building character and skills in uniform. Read here. 
• Part 3: Hiking, Job Week and a bit of history. Read here.

– Lim Siang Jin