Page 19 - Malayan Story
P. 19
MALAYAN STORY
“Pretty well. Malaya is still suffering from the ‘curse’ of British colonialism, and the Public Works
Department is always on the job keeping the roads in repair. Do you see how wide a strip has been
cleared on either side of the road? That is so that the jungle will not be a shelter for guerrillas right at
the edge of the road. It isn’t much of a deterrent, but it does help a bit.”
We travelled all day, but stopped at various places where CIM missionaries were already living in
New Villages. There are two main roads from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, and the one which
follows the coast was the safest, but also the slowest because of the ferries which had to be used at
two different places. The centre road was also the one nearest to where our missionaries were living,
so that is the one we travelled on.
Our first stop was at Scudai, a village about 10 miles north of Singapore. This had been occupied in
October 1951 by three ladies who had come direct from Hongkong after leaving China. Betty Laing,
Margaret Hollands and Doris Dove had moved into a small room in the school there where Betty was
ablt to get a teaching appointment. By the time I arrived, Margaret had moved on to a small village
near Kuala Lumpur called Sungei Way, where she and Annette Harris and Ferne Blair had now been
working for nine months or so.
This was my first sight of a New Village with its high barbed wire fences and guard posts
overlooking the whole village. At the entrance was a Police Post where we had to pull up and have
the car searched before being allowed to enter. The village itself was a surprise. On the main street
were six or eight shops attached under one long roof and with one long verandah.
Drawing of a New Village by Cecil Gracey
The owners lived behind and above the shop. Boards which slotted into each other were put up at
night to cover the whole shop front. In the morning they were taken down and the shop was open for
business.As we drove along, I could glimpse other houses behind the shops with shiny corrugated
iron roofs. The houses beneath the roofs looked old because people had brought all they could of
their jungle homes when they moved. When the building materials they had were not sufficient, they
19
“Pretty well. Malaya is still suffering from the ‘curse’ of British colonialism, and the Public Works
Department is always on the job keeping the roads in repair. Do you see how wide a strip has been
cleared on either side of the road? That is so that the jungle will not be a shelter for guerrillas right at
the edge of the road. It isn’t much of a deterrent, but it does help a bit.”
We travelled all day, but stopped at various places where CIM missionaries were already living in
New Villages. There are two main roads from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, and the one which
follows the coast was the safest, but also the slowest because of the ferries which had to be used at
two different places. The centre road was also the one nearest to where our missionaries were living,
so that is the one we travelled on.
Our first stop was at Scudai, a village about 10 miles north of Singapore. This had been occupied in
October 1951 by three ladies who had come direct from Hongkong after leaving China. Betty Laing,
Margaret Hollands and Doris Dove had moved into a small room in the school there where Betty was
ablt to get a teaching appointment. By the time I arrived, Margaret had moved on to a small village
near Kuala Lumpur called Sungei Way, where she and Annette Harris and Ferne Blair had now been
working for nine months or so.
This was my first sight of a New Village with its high barbed wire fences and guard posts
overlooking the whole village. At the entrance was a Police Post where we had to pull up and have
the car searched before being allowed to enter. The village itself was a surprise. On the main street
were six or eight shops attached under one long roof and with one long verandah.
Drawing of a New Village by Cecil Gracey
The owners lived behind and above the shop. Boards which slotted into each other were put up at
night to cover the whole shop front. In the morning they were taken down and the shop was open for
business.As we drove along, I could glimpse other houses behind the shops with shiny corrugated
iron roofs. The houses beneath the roofs looked old because people had brought all they could of
their jungle homes when they moved. When the building materials they had were not sufficient, they
19
