My Father was teaching in Raub, Pahang and Mother was a stewardess with British Airways. They would visit me twice a month, and there were always presents and maybe a trip to Ipoh for dinner at Canning Gardens.

We had a wooden JVC black and white TV with two channels, and watched programmes like Gilligan’s Island, The Thunderbirds (the first animated cartoon?) Astro Boy, Green Acres and I Love Lucy

The Phillips radio was a varnished wooden box with one speaker on the right hand side, and a clear plastic needle indicator with a red stripe down the middle. You twiddled a plastic knob dial backwards and forwards until you were satisfied with the sound quality. Ours was permanently set to BBC London.

Our telephone was the black Bakelite model with circular chrome finger inserts, and get this – our telephone number was 358. Only three digits. My Grandma’s “teegah leemah laapan” or “Mrs Sidhu speaking” (depending on her mood) still rings in my ears.

GAH: Did your Grandma drink?”
Me: “Nolah, she didn’t drink or smoke or man-nize, but she did play the numbers” I noticed the bottle had quickly reached halfway status as I poured another round for us, so I dug another one out on standby and continued.

“Our fridge was another Phillips product, a heavy creamy green coloured affair with a horizontal solid iron chromed handle. My Grandma cooked with firewood and charcoal on an earthenware stove and later upgraded to the metal kerosene stove with the square glass fuel container.

We normally had rice or chappati with a variety of vegetables for our meals and fish, chicken and other meats were reserved for when we had company as they were considered expensive.

Our bathroom was beside the kitchen and consisted of four corrugated iron walls. Inside, under a tap, was a huge ceramic pot that kept the water cool. Hot water had to be boiled in a huge pan over the stove and was a luxury reserved for only when I was sick.

Our toilet was located some distance behind the house and consisted of a wooden outhouse with three cement steps leading up to the door. Inside was a wooden platform with a hole in the middle. You squatted and did your business into the rubber bucket below. Yes, I’m talking about the bucket system!

There were few cars on the road as the ubiquitous Honda 50 and Raleigh bicycles were the main mode of transport and the words “traffic jam” were not invented yet. Car drivers were polite and actually waved to each other and gave way at junctions and roundabouts because everyone knew everyone else.

If there was a wedding or a death, a childbirth or a festival, everyone got involved irrespective of race and religion, gotong royong style. God bless any thief who got caught because the whole town would bushwhack him before handing him over to the Police, and drug addicts were not invented yet.

Every Sunday, my Grandma and I would walk the less than 1 mile to the wet market to buy our week’s supply of groceries and everyone along the way would chat with her and enquire about her health, her family, etc etc, making the journey painless and easy. On the way back we would take a trishaw for 30 sen.

There was a stall just down the road from Grandma’s house and on a hot day, nothing beat having an “ice kapal”, where the vendor would shave a block of ice by hand and form it into a ball with his bare hands (yes we were very hygienic then) and pour red sugar syrup over it, put it into a newspaper and hand it to you for the princely sum of 5 sen. For another 5 sen he would drown the ice kapal with condensed milk.

Posted by: Dave Avran / 4:32 PM