My parents

mum & dad

I remember that my father was among the first person to own a motor cycle in Miri town. It was a BSA Bantam which had a single flat exhaust on the right side. Later he sold it and bought a bigger bike, a 350 cc Norton and then a 500cc BSA which had a side car attached. He used this to send the whole family to church on Sundays. My mother, Theresa Thien Nyuk Lan, was a catholic educated in the Carmelite convent in Jesselton (KK) and we, the children were all baptized at St. Joseph’s Church, Miri as little baby Catholics soon after birth.

We lived in Pujut in a small wooden house built by my father with help from friends and neighbours. I still remember that the beams holding up the roof were round timbers which were thicker at one end![1] The roof was covered with rusty galvanized iron and the walls were made from horizontal wooden planks which overlap each other. The windows were very crudely made, with hinges along the top edge and we used a stick to probe the bottom end open. Later on, my father added another building to it, the master bedroom! This time the posts were 8”x 8” belian posts salvaged from the old Miri wharf when it was demolished and replaced by a new one constructed in reinforced concrete! Thirty years later, after all the rest of our house has rotted away, these belian posts were still standing there for many more years!

We had two acres of land in Pujut, most of which was swampy ground under lalang and it was perpetually flooded. I remembered my elder sister Rose helped my mother doing chores around the house, cooking and ironing. My younger sister, Cecilia and I, simply played around the house, like most little kids did. In the beginning, we attended the Pujut Chinese primary school just across the road from our house. We went to town once a week for Sunday mass at St Joseph’s wooden church whenever we could get there. Mostly, we took the bus when my father was not around. He was seldom at home because he worked a lot of over time and went hunting for wild boar quite often with his friend, Chiew Fook Onn[2] Yong Jin Fook and Francis Loke.

After the sidecar, my father bought an old car and we became one of the very few people in Borneo to own a private motor car in the early fifties. It was an Austin 30. In order to start the car, my father had to crank it manually with a special tool. There was also an indicator arm on each side window pillar with a light bulb inside an amber coloured plastic cover. My sister, Rose and I always tried to catch it when it was erect! Mostly my father used hand signals by sticking his right arm out of the car window and making strange circular movements with his arm and sometimes holding his hand at right angle.

There was no electricity and water supply to our house in Pujut. We collected rain water from the rusty corrugated iron roof in a steel tank for cooking purposes and we used water from a shallow well for bathing and washing clothes. The water was a dark brown colour, like strong Ceylon tea. We had no washing machine and no colour TV in those days; but we did have a brand new His Master’s Voice record player. A spring had to be wound manually with a special handle each time before playing the gramophone records. All of them were heavy 78 speed vinyl records. The machine could also play 33 1/3 and 45 speed records; but we did not have any of those, only 78’s which were thick and heavy. The stylus had to be changed after playing one record. These were mainly songs of Chow Sian and Pai Kwang.

Soon afterwards, my father bought a Philips mantel radio which could receive the BBC world news on short wave. There was no local radio station on FM or medium wave. The Sarawak radio service was not established until the early 60’s. Then it was customary for us to listen to request songs from Rock Kuek on medium wave radio Sarawak, every Saturday. Favourites were Ricky Nelson, Frankie Avalon, Connie Francis and Doris Day.

My mother also had a brand new Singer sewing machine operated manually by a foot pedal. She used this to make curtains, all our school uniforms, pajamas, under wear and other street clothes for the whole family. My father however went to the tailors to make all his work shirts and pants. Ready made clothes were not yet available in the early 50’s. In high school, my school uniforms were all tailor made and I wore a neck tie! Tracy Bracken[3] taught me to tie an American knot! It was different from an English knot because it was fuller and looked nicer. However the tie must be made slightly longer to accommodate the extra turn required. Even today I could still remember how to tie this knot even in the dark. We used a charcoal fired brass iron for ironing clothes. It has a wooden handle. This had to be taken outside to fan the embers every so often to keep it hot. Then it was tested on a piece of green banana leave before using. It produced a hissing sound if it was hot enough and the wax

iron

from the surface of the leaf was transferred to the bottom of the iron, making it smooth and easy to use. The smell of burnt banana leaves still brought back nostalgic memories of early childhood for me! Our cousins, Bridget and Paul Voo had a kerosene powered iron for pressing their school uniforms. All that they needed to do was pump it up like a Tilley lamp. All our school uniforms were always starched and ironed properly with razor sharp pleats.

lamp

For lighting in the bedroom, we had a small kerosene lamp with an adjustable asbestos wig covered by a glass chimney to protect the flame from the wind.

For the sitting room and kitchen we used a Tilley lamp which has a mantle made of asbestos. It was my job to light the Tilley lamp and all the kerosene lamps every evening.

This is how it is done:
· Fill the lamp up with kerosene.
· Fill the small vessel under the mantle with methylated spirit.
· Light the spirit with a match, producing a blue flame which lasts about two minutes.
· Immediately turn the needle up to block the nozzle, close the air release valve and work the pump until the needle shows maximum pressure.
· Wait until the blue flame is just about to go out then open suddenly the needle valve. The kerosene spray vaporizes on contact with the hot metal tube and the mantle catches fire and taking up a bright incandescent yellow glow, giving brightness of a 40 watt bulb!
· The lamp’s fuel capacity should last about 5 hours. It is necessary to maintain pressure in the fuel tank every hour or so by working the manual pump.

dad

To keep away the mosquitoes, we sometimes burnt some bark of trees in a container to produce dense smoke. Later on, this was replaced by Gold fish brand mosquito coils. We also had a manual spray which used Ridsect, a smelly liquid manufactured in England. The container has drawings of marching royal guards. This mosquito repellent was very effective but expensive to use. It made my eyes water. I do not recall seeing our neighbours in Pujut using it. During the early 50’s, many of the buses in Miri were converted from old Fords, Austin or Hillman saloon cars; but with wooden slat bench seats along both sides so that four to six passengers could sit facing each other with the middle isle reserved for vegetables baskets

and other goods such as live chickens or ducks in wire cages bound for the Sunday market! There was a canopy made of canvas over a metal frame to keep out the sun and rain. The sides can be raised to let in cooler air during fine weather. The road to Miri was only a single lane dirt track, full of port holes. On both sides of the road were deep monsoon drains and beyond those on both sides were secondary jungles. Monkeys and snakes can often be seen on the roadside between Pujut corner and Charcoal plant.[4]

mum

Some times we went in our car to Tanjong Lobang beach for picnics. It was usually a whole day affair and we got sun burned every time! The waves were huge during the monsoon season and it was fun running on the beach with my sisters, Rose and Cecilia and our cousins, Paul, Bridget and Martin.

[1] Unprocessed timber straight from the jungle!
[2] Chiew Yong Ming’s grand father.
[3] He migrated with his family to England and returned 30 years later to work in SSB. Now, he called himself Patrick Bracken, not Tracy.
[4] opposite the present Petronas service station, two km from town.