My dad had flown out to KL in '55, my mother, myself and younger brother arrived at Singapore by ship in January '56. I was 7 yrs and about 6weeks old.
We must not have had enough green shield stamps to move immediately onto the Camp, which for me was a Godsend because my dad had rented a beautiful bungalow and large garden on the outskirts of KL. One end of the garden abutted heavily forested land and there were banana plants in the garden.
Primary school, which as I previously described, was on Batu Cantonment Army Camp. School hours were from early A.M. until mid-day.
Every morning an Army truck complete with a couple of young soldiers in the back to lift us into and out of this vehicle would collect me and others and transport us to school and at mid-day bring us back.
I recall little of my time at the school, other than that one day my dad flew a Single Pin in and parked it in front of the school.
But I always knew that there were terrorists at play but I guess we never strayed out of the 'white areas' as those parts of Malaya where the terrorists did not operate, were known.
We drove to a number of the coastal towns and beaches and in '56 up to Frasers' Hill for a holiday, in a convoy as I recall. On these trips we passed through many check-points in the Nash Airflight. My dad always placed his SD Cap on the rear parcel shelf. He said it got us through much quicker. Not sure if he had a revolver in the glove compartment. It would not have surprised me if he did.
Our next door neighbour was a serving Army officer. He had two teenage sons at boarding school in the UK. His hobby was collecting butterflies which he kept in beautiful wooden and glass cases. He once took me into the jungle with him in search of exotic butterflies.
Last edited by roving; 9th Nov 2017 at 17:10.
Reason: added detail