Memories of Cameron Highlands Boarding School

My parents were married in Johor Bahru in 1929. My father worked for a French merchant firm and my mother taught at Tanglin School in Singapore. I attended the Cameron Highlands Boarding School (CHS) for about two years before it closed at the end of 1941. Unfortunately I don’t think we did much school work: everything seemed temporary.

There was a rather splendid production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ performed by the older children and I distinctly recall the fine paper maché donkey’s head. My particular friend was Graham Hodgkins; also known as ‘Hedgehog’. We boys had an awful matron. Since we were all very young – I was only six when I started at CHS – there was a lot of homesickness to which she contributed not a little.

Luckily I had a very nice form mistress called Miss Vendrell. She would lend me books to read as we had long afternoons lying on our beds being terribly bored. For a long time I only had my Bible and Prayer Book! I remember spending a lot of time reading a book called ‘The Flying Submarine’.

Jungle walks and riding lessons used to be a regular feature of school life. We had riding lessons in a clearing in the jungle. The school maintained its own riding stables down the steps below the main school building.

Just before Christmas 1941 I returned to Singapore and I remember being in a large bungalow with slit trenches dug in the lawns outside: very wet and muddy red. We would troop out there mainly at night when the air raid sirens went off. There was also an old well in the garden with a wall built into a bank. The well was covered with atap and according to my mother, my brother and I would sleep in the well whilst she and the servants were waiting for the all-clear signal. Food supply was also a concern and I recollect growing sweet potatoes. Fortunately just before the fall of Singapore (15 February 1942), my mother, my brother and I were evacuated by ship to India together with a French family. My dad was a Prisoner of War (PoW) in Siam (Thailand) but luckily survived. After the war my parents returned to Singapore until 1960.