The holder of a First Class badge,
Foo Chee Wee was a Patrol Leader and later Troop Leader in the
V.I. Second Selangor Troop. He was a School Prefect and the
monitor of his class of 1938 that still meets regularly more
than sixty years after their V.I. days.
Chee Wee was in Government service before independence, in the
Public Works Department, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Natural
Resources. He has served as clerk, storemaster, timekeeper and even phone operator. After
Merdeka he was became Organisation and Methods Officer in the Treasury.
He was sent for overseas training to Australia as one of the first Malaysians to
be exposed to computer systems analysis (in the bad old days when Fortran and
Cobol were in their infancy and they had to programme computers in machine language).
Chee Wee was posted to the Implementation and Coordination Unit of the Prime
Minister's Department in 1975 and after that to the Petronas Corporation. After
retirement he worked in his son's business from 1981 to 1985. Since 1986, he has
been storemaster at Tun Hussein Onn Eye Hospital.
ooking on the left at the 1938 photo of the First and Second
Selangor Troops, you will find me sitting third from left beside the
V.I. Headmaster, Mr C E Gates, and on his left is the ADC, Mr
E M F Payne. We are part of a V.I. Scout gathering to present
a thanks badge to Mr H L Barnett and a parang to Mr Payne. I
am dressed - would you believe - as a fencer. To tell the truth,
I could fence better with a ruler than with a foil! As could the
other ‘fencers’. After all, we had had plenty of practice with
our rulers in class whenever the opportunity arose. However,
this practice did cost our parents dearly. Besides, our maths
teacher was never quite appreciative of the rather crooked
lines we drew with the said rulers!
I got to know Mr Payne well when I was one of the
lucky six from the V.I. to be selected to go on a tour of Kelantan and
Trengganu in 1938. The others were Jalil, Yaaya, Majid, Thiam
Tsiew and Mun Thong. I cannot remember the names of those four
Scouts from Malacca. Besides Mr Tacchi and Mr Payne (who would
later be a postwar Headmaster of the V.I.), the other Scouter
was Mr Muir of Malacca, who later became an Assistant Inspector
of Schools in Selangor. That tour was fantastic – it was a
series of adventures intermingled with misadventures!
In those days, there was no East Coast road linking
Kuantan to Kota Bahru. We went in three cars from K.L. to Kuala Lipis
through the Gap. We lads started in high spirits up the winding
road, but before long, most of us, car sick, were in no mood to
enjoy the rest of the journey. However, after arriving at Kuala
Lipis, our young constitutions enabled us to recover quickly.
As none of us had been to Kuala Lipis before, that evening, we
went out for a joy ride. Although Kuala Lipis was only a two-street
town then, we still managed to lose our way and got one of the cars
stuck in a rut! In trying to get the car out, some of us got
ourselves into a stinking mess! We spent practically the
rest of the night washing the car, our clothes and ourselves!!
The next day, we went to the railway station to
catch the Sakai Express coming from Gemas to go north to Kota
Bharu. The first part of the train journey was quite interesting,
travelling across the Main Range through, I think, five tunnels
to reach the plains of Kelantan. From there, the journey became
monotonous – nothing but practically flat land all the way.
After passing Kuala Krai the train followed the west bank of
the Kelantan River. After quite some time, we stopped at the
station at Palekbang. We learned that it was directly opposite
Kota Bahru on the east bank of the Kelantan River. We crossed
the river by ferry and were met at the jetty by some Kelantan
Scouters and Scouts. We were taken to the Montgomery Camp by
the South China Sea. There some Scouts were preparing our
dinner while we had a short walk to look around. We then all
sat down to a sumptuous dinner: a truly Kelantanese spread
consisting of dishes I had never tasted before!
Many visits were arranged for us. One was to the
British Adviser’s residence for tea. When we arrived, the host ushered
us into a room. We, the Scouts, suddenly came to a stop; not
because we were taken in by the splendour of the room, but
more so by what seemed like a huge monster slowly lifting
itself from the floor! We had read and seen pictures of Great
Danes, but this one was ridiculous! It was more a pony than a
dog – it was huge!! Although it was quite tame and friendly,
we were never quite comfortable in its presence.
Another was a trip to Pasir Mas at the invitation
of the District Officer. The lunch was more a feast! But what was more
memorable was the journey to and fro – by launch along the
Kelantan River. It was the dry season and the water was low,
so low that the launch had to wend its way from bank to bank.
At one point, the launch ran into a sand bank and got stuck.
Some deck-hands jumped into the river and the water hardly
reached their waists. They managed, after much straining on
our part, to push the launch free. Fortunately, none of us got
sea sick!
Then came the trip to Trengganu and what a trip!
We went by bus – ah, but it was not like the buses of today with air
conditioning and cushioned seats equipped with head rests. Our
bus was open-sided with wooden benches facing outwards on both
sides. As the bus moved off, the Kelantan Scouts told us to
count the number of wooden bridges we were going to cross on
our way to Kuala Trengganu. So we took their advice...! Outside
Kota Bahru we turned into a laterite road and almost immediately
we heard a rumble as the bus bucked across a wooden bridge. We
started counting - "One!" Most of us stopped when we reached
"100". Later we learnt that there were over 120 wooden bridges
over a distance of just one hundred odd miles! The bridges
were over gullies created by the monsoon rains. When we
reached Kuala Trengganu, how we ached! But we could not help
laughing at one another. Why? All of us were red-headed! All
our well-groomed and well-greased heads were coated with red
laterite dust!
We were well taken care of by some Trengganu
Scouts. We camped by the sea. The following day, the tide was low
and the sea was more than one hundred yards out. Most of us in
our trunks walked out to the sea and soon we were in water up
to our waists. But before we could get our navels wet, we
heard shouts from the shore. We looked back, and to our
surprise (or was it horror?), we found the sea was already
half-way between us and the shore and was running in fast.
Those at the shore were shouting and waving frantically. We
immediately made for the shore and found ourselves struggling
hard through the water. At several points, the sea bed dipped
suddenly, caused by the under currents. One was rather bad.
Luckily we had joined hands helping one another along. Those
who had crossed this point pulled the rest across. Majid,
who was at the end of the line, was nearly swept away! With
this experience - I do not know about the others - but I never
ventured in to the South China Sea again even though I went
back to the East Coast several times subsequently.
However, for me, personally, the highlight of
the tour was the reunion with my second sister and her family
whom I had not seen for years! My brother-in-law was a Chinese
school teacher and the last I heard of the family was that he was
teaching somewhere in Kelantan. One day, I learnt that one
of our Kelantan host Scouters was an officer in the Education
Department. I casually mentioned my brother-in-law to him. The
next morning I received a message for me to call at the
Education Department. There was my brother-in-law! He
took me home to meet my sister and various nephews and nieces
some of whom I had not seen before!
In those days in West Malaya, when we entertained,
the main dish would be chicken. But in Kelantan, chicken was a daily
fare. For non-Muslims, the main dish was pork (secretly procured!).
That night, at my sister’s place, I had pork for the first
time in days! It was, indeed, a feast not only for me
but for the whole family as well!!!
The present day Scouts are lucky to have a
large hut for their Scout Den. Our pre-war Scout Den was the first
floor room at the end of the Birch Road wing of the school.
Also, when camping, the present day scouts sleep on raised
beds, while we slept in self-pitched tents in our time. I
remember the first time we went to the Castle Camp in old
Rifle Range Road. On arrival, we cleared the sites to pitch
our tents; and gathered wood for the night camp fire. When
we finished, we were so tired that we just crawled into our
tents and fell asleep. The next thing we knew was a heavy
body crashing through the bushes outside our tents. Before
we could open our eyes, we heard a loud voice, "Get up,
you lazy pigs!" It was our Scouter Mr Lim Eng Thye! Well,
we got out of our tents faster than when we got into them!
There were various Victorians whose fame of
old may elude many of those of the present young generation.
Tan Sri Majid Ismail was a scout. He is not to be confused
with the Majid who went to Kelantan with me. That Majid
was Majid Tahir, if I remember correctly, who became a Selangor
State Assemblyman. He was a keen footballer. Tun Ismail
was, of course, one of the famous scouts. I certainly
remember Mohd Noor, one year my senior, and Abdul Aziz,
who was my classmate. Both were scouts.
When I was reading about the Scouters of my
time, it struck me that something was missing. After much digging
into my poor memory, I came up with the name: Ariffin bin Nam.
He was a Raffles graduate who joined the V.I. staff and became
one of our Scouters. One thing I truly remember of him: he
was an excellent gymnast. He often demonstrated his prowess
on the parallel bars which were kept in the School Hall. Other
Scouting Greats: Dr Lee Siew Choh, Dr Keshmahinder Singh,
Singapore Chief JusticeJ Pung How and Dato' Nim Chee, all of
whom were my contemporaries in V.I.
Kesh was my classmate from 1935 to 1938. At the
Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology (APAO) 12th Congress held in
Seoul in June 1989, Kesh was awarded the Jose Rizal Medal. Once every
two years during the Opening Ceremony of the Congress of APAO,
this medal is awarded for excellence in Ophthalmology
and contributions to eye care in the Asia Pacific region. Dr
Jose Rizal, after whom the award is named, was himself an
ophthalmologist and a freedom fighter of the Philippines.
In 1985, Kesh helped to found the Tun Hussein
Onn Eye Hospital in Petaling Jaya and became its Honorary Director
until he retired in May 1994. He even donated his lucrative
eye clinic in Campbell Road (now Jalan Dang Wangi), Kuala
Lumpur, to the hospital as its K.L. branch clinic. During
one of our regular class reunions, Kesh asked me what I was
doing. I told him I was not doing anything in particular.
He then invited me to serve as a voluntary worker at the Eye
Hospital that he had just helped to found. I accepted the
offer and helped to set up the general store. I became the
storekeeper cum store clerk cum storeman cum store labourer -
all four in one! A superman? Well, not really. I only work
in the morning for about three to four hours, then home to
lunch, read the papers, and - most important - have my
afternoon nap! Yes, I am still, in a sense, working; just
to keep myself physically mobile and mentally alert.
Old Victorian Lee Kuan Yew was a champion
pole-vaulter and high-jumper at both state and national levels.
We met and became close associates when we were both elected
officials of the Selangor Amateur Athletic Association (SAAA).
He was the President and I the treasurer and, later, of the
MAAU as well.
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