Kuala Lumpur
Early in August 1946 1 was posted to 28 Squadron at Kuala Lumpur. It was a Spitfire squadron and they had very advanced aircraft.
There were only two fitters for the whole squadron and I was concerned that I would not know enough to cope. They must have been Mark 19 or 21. Actually I did not have a problem and I do remember changing a five-bladed propellor.
In our hut we had a gramophone. and I also built a small darkroom. I used to teach in the afternoons in the Education Centre.
Suddenly my ‘tapes’ came through and I was a sergeant. The sergeant in the hangar said ‘Well done, you can buy me a pint’ At lunchtme we went to the Sergeant’s Mess; it was a dreary place and some of the old sergeants were not very happy about my meteoric rise, however they had to lump it.
There was a small bedroom in the Education Block, so I slept there for a while. I was then invited to go and live with some sergeants who had a bungalow, out of the camp. It was on the top of a little hill at about half-way to town and it was at a junction of five roads, one road went to Pudu Gaol.
(To my amazement, when passing through KL in the 90s, I called Dad and he was able to direct me from Pudu Gaol to the little estate he lived. It was still there. An old gardener there had worked on the estate since the end of WW2. He said he would have known my Dad, but when I optimistically described Dad to him he said all 'ang mo' looked the same to him!! It was quite spooky to be chatting to someone who had seen my father 50 years earlier.)
We had staff to run the house and bar, my room was very light and airy. It was easy to walk to town, Kuala Lumpur is very elegant. The Government buildings and the- railway station were built in a Moorish style, with minarets, There was a very nice park with a lake and a cricket ‘Padang’ with a fine pavilion. There were several tail buildings, one near the station was the Education Office, Now, of course, there are many skyscrapers. There was plenty of night-life, dance-halls and restaurants.
In the mornings we would prepare lessons for the afternoon classes and play classical records. I also made posters to decorate the walls, using old magazine cuttings. The Education Officer was a pleasant man and we all got on reasonably well together. We also had an office boy, Addle, he was an intelligent fourteen-year old Malay lad. At 1100 we would send him to get coffee and cakes for the four of us.
One afternoon I hired a taxi and went to Raw Caves. These are about eight miles north of KL, there are two caves at the top of a long flight of steps. The first cave Is completely dark and is full of bats; the guano is collected and sold as fertilizer.
The other cavern is huge and lit by a chimney. It is as large as a church and has altars where people worship.
At the week-ends there were excursions for the airmen to go to Port Dickson. This was a small coastal village about sixty miles to the west. I was the N.C.O. in charge of the outings. When we were ready to return at seven o’clock on Sunday night, some of the airmen were so drunk that they were almost unconscious. I had them loaded onto the floor of the lorry and it bounced along the road and they were duly delivered back to camp.
Last chapter tomorrow.