Introduction
Previous: second half of 1927
Next: 1930
Dorothy has her first child, my father John Whyte, in April 1928. She and Billy move to a rubber plantation north of Penang, and she enjoys parenthood and visits from relatives and friends; but Billy’s work situation is not happy.
Malaya
By that time we were up at the Crag Hotel, Penang. Mrs. Arthur had given us a little Siamese kitten, which we first called Selama and then changed the name to Bintang. She was very sweet and affectionate and never left me when I was in the house, though at first she wouldn’t follow me far outside it.
I am frustrated to say that I have not identified Mrs Arthur.
Our financial affairs weren’t too rosy. Billy had had to borrow money at 10 percent for our trip; if all had gone well we could soon have redeemed it, but rubber prices had gone down very much and we simply couldn’t, so for years we had to go on paying that interest. I had an allowance of £600 a year [around £30,000 in 2025 prices] from Zora, which she had always said she would raise to £1000 [around £50,000 in 2025 prices] when I married, but she wasn’t able to. So until Billy got a job we weren’t at all well off. [The median income in the UK at present is £37-£39,000 per year, between the two figures. So Dorothy’s allowance from Zora was generous, but not luxurious, and a honeymoon trip around the world was a considerable expense.]
Baby Arrives
Zora came out on the Morea, arriving March 22nd. We stayed up the Hill [ie at the Crag Hotel] after she came for a month or so. Our days were spent in a very peaceful routine. About nine o’clock Billy always woke me with a kiss, and at half-past Zora and I had breakfast on the verandah; Billy went to the hotel dining-room for his. Then all morning Zora and I would sit and sew and talk. We all lunched in the dining-room add then rested, the kitten on the bed beside me.
About five we would go for a walk, usually the three of us, sometimes Billy and I alone, except for the kitten which had learned to go on a lead so we could take her. In the evening we dined at the hotel if it was fine, which it usually was, but if it rained the boy brought our food to the bungalow. The hotel had lots of these little bungalows so one could have complete privacy or else go to the main building, just as one liked. Zora was wonderful; I did appreciate it, knowing that she was sick with worry over what might happen.
Zora was Dorothy’s beloved aunt, Lily Gordon Wickersham (1870-1956). She had also been present 21 years earlier when Dorothy’s mother died in childbirth, so she must have been reliving some very difficult memories.
Papa was worried too, and had written to me to be sure to tell my doctor that in my mother’s family the babies tended to be very large at birth. But all went well at the actual birth; the only thing was that I was sick a great deal and usually felt sick, which was very tiresome. Bintang was so amusing and went very well on the lead; often we’d let her off and she’d run about and chase cicadas, but when I called she came racing to me. Of course we could only let her run in places where there was no fear of dogs or cats.
We hardly saw anyone else. Dr. Gossip came up twice, and Marjorie Maas and Mrs. Davis each came once. On April 26th we went down to stay at the Runnymede. Dr. Gossip rather wanted us to stay on up at the Crag for another week, as he thought the baby wouldn’t come before that, but we decided we’d rather come down sooner, and I think we all felt more comfortable once we were back in Penang, even though it was much hotter than on the hill. Zora, I know, was very much relieved. One had to take the funicular to come up the hill and if the baby had started arriving at night it might have taken ages for the doctor to get there.
Dr James Gossip (1889-1977) was from Inverness, and had moved to Penang in 1920.
This is the first mention of Marjorie Maas (1893-1988), though she features a lot in the rest of this entry. She was born Marjorie (“Nana”) Pope in Massachusetts in 1893, married Robert Hiram Turner, an American doctor, in Paris in 1915, had sons with him in 1915 and 1916, divorced him in 1922 and married Henry Oscar Maas, the anglicised son of the Consul-General of the Netherlands in London, in 1923 and had two more sons, the younger born on 31 August 1928, so she was five months pregnant in late April.
I have not been able to identify Mrs Davis.
On April 29th we went for a pic-nic to Batu Feringhi where Billy and I used to go. On our way we stopped at the hospital to see Mrs. Peal [Neale?] and her new baby. Then we went off, Bintang too, of course, and had a lovely day. Billy and I swam and then we lunched and rested.
I have not identified Mrs Peal. I wonder if she is the same as Mrs Neale, referenced later.
That evening I felt too tired to go to the dining-room, and I wasn’t at all hungry, so I just lay down till they came back. We all went to bed early, but about eleven my pains started. As Dr. Gossip was so sure the baby wouldn’t come before May 7th at earliest, I never thought about its being the baby, and took it that I had indigestion. About three Billy woke and we went out on the verandah for a bit, then back to bed. By seven I was certain it was the baby so Billy got Dr. Gossip and I went to the hospital at eight. John was born at five minutes to one on April 30th. He weighed 7½ lbs. I was terribly thrilled but I felt it was too good to be true and for years I couldn’t believe he’d really live to grow up. There was a Japanese baby born about the same time which weighed ten pounds – one of the nurses brought her to see me and she was an enormous baby with lots of black hair. It was quite amusing in the hospital; the nurses were of all sorts of nationalities and every shade of colour. One was a Phillippino, not at all dark, one was Chinese – she was very good and intelligent. I remember her telling me that her family were all Buddhists, but that she liked going to church though I don’t think she was really a Christian. But her attitude was that her parents were old-fashioned and she was much more up-to-date. I think I was there for about two weeks, but it may have been longer. I nursed John myself but I don’t think I ever had quite enough, and we didn’t test-weigh, I don’t know why. However he did all right for a time.
We went back to the Runnymede till Zora left, sometime at the end of May, or it may have been at the beginning of June – I think it was, because when she left we went up to Brastagi for a month, taking Miss Edwards, a splendid nurse, with us. We were lent a bungalow called Kenburk. But before we left Penang, and while Zora was still with us, I got dengue fever. One evening as we were about to go over to dinner I suddenly felt quite exhausted; I stood up to go, and then lay down on the sofa and persuaded Zora and Billy to go without me as I wasn’t at all hungry. I didn’t feel ill, just terribly tired, but when they came back they had sent for Dr. Gossip. I had a very high temperature – something like 105, I think – and a brilliant red rash all over. The doctor was very pleased; he said it was a classic case. It lasted four days, but of course it left me feeling rather washed-out, and that was the main reason for our going to Brastagi, I think.
But of course the most important thing was John’s baptism in the church of St. Francis Xavier where we were married. Father Devals, who had married us, officiated, and the Reverend Mother and dear little Madame Ste-Eugénie stood sponsor for him as none of his god-parents was able to come; they were his uncle and aunt, Tim Whyte and Lyla Lamb, Marianne Davis (Billie) who was my dearest friend, and my own brother Lyman, though he was unofficial as he wasn’t a Catholic. That took plate on May 16th, while Zora was still there. A few days later we had a lot of photographs taken of all of us, John of course was in each one but sometimes with Billy and me, once alone with me, and then with Zora and also with our Chinese boy, who had been Billy’s before we were married – and Bintang, in Zora’s arms, was in one of them.
Adrien Devals, born in France in 1882, served in Malacca/Malaysia off and on from 1906 until his death in 1945, including as bishop from 1933.
I have not been able to track down details of Reverend Mother or Madame Ste-Eugénie.
Tim Whyte was Thomas Aloysius Whyte (1876–1931) who had been in the Royal Artillery and in 1927 was the older of my grandfather’s two surviving brothers (of eight).
Letitia Mary Whyte (1872-1938), known as Lyla, was the third of my grandfather’s five sisters and the one who Dorothy had become closest to. She married Stephen Eaton Lamb (1860-1928) in 1898; he died a month after my father was born. They had five children, only one of whom had children of his own; but all four of her grandchildren are still living as of late 2025.
Marianne Goodhue “Billie” McKeever (1898-1934) was Dorothy’s closest friend at Foxcroft boarding school; she married Edmund Steuart Davies in 1925.
My grandmother’s elder brother, Lyman Charlton Hibbard, was born in 1893, six years before her. He died in 1956, and had no children of his own, though he brought up his wife’s son from her first marriage.
It was a wrench saying good-bye to Zora; in those days before air travel became general – I don’t think there were any planes to the Far East then – Malaya seemed very far from everywhere. But she couldn’t stay forever and of course she wanted to get back to Aunt Dollie.
The first scheduled air services in Malaya were not until 1937.
“Aunt Dollie”, born Blanche Lucy Rigg (1872-1946), married Frederick Harvey Erskine Sperling, known as Harvey (1868-1921) in 1906. After her husband died she became very closely attached to Dorothy’s aunt Zora.
Bintang disappeared when we were leaving but Zora found her later and Mrs. Arthur took charge of her till we got back. So Zora’s ship must have left after we did, and we weren’t there to see her off; how horrid for her. I never realised it till now. At the time I was so absorbed in John that I paid little attention to anything else though I did miss her very much.
At Brastagi we spent a week at the hotel – I suppose the same one where I had stayed the Easter before – and then moved to Kenburk. Miss Edwards was splendid and taught me all about looking after John; we had an amah but I was determined not to turn him over to her completely, having heard so many stories of babies being given opium if they cried; the Chinese do it to their own children and see no harm in it, so of course it is quite natural for them to do it to other babies. Miss Edwards had to leave on July 1st but we stayed on till the 7th. Then we went back to the same rooms at the Runnymede, till July 18th when we moved to a bungalow on Krian Estate, Nibong Tebal, which we had rented while Billy was looking for a job.
Nibong Tebal is at the southern edge of the mainland part of the territory of Penang, 40 km from Georgetown. The Krian Estate still exists.
Everyone took it for granted that he would take over the management of Hibernia, the estate he had opened up himself and which he loved, but he didn’t think it right to turn out the Corbet-Singletons, who by this time had a son too, a bit older than ours. I wish we could have gone there, as we could have been much happier than we were on Kuala Muda where we finally went, but I suppose Billy was right; anyway I thought he was at the time. We stayed at Krian till January 8th. We lived very quietly and saw few people. There was a big Christmas party for all the children at the Club and of course he was invited, but we thought he was too young and we didn’t take him or go ourselves. I believe this gave offence. But in Malaya I’m afraid I did quite often give offence without meaning to do so. I think what with the heat and the monotony of the life people tended to be much more on edge and much more easily offended than they would normally be.
The Hibernia Estate had been founded around 1919 by Billy Whyte. It still exists in Perak, about 80 km by road from Penang, 35 km from Taiping and 12 km from Selama. It is now owned by Riverview Rubber Estates, which despite the name produces exclusively palm oil.
Morice Grant Corbet-Singleton (1894-1963) had married Enid Mary McIlwraith (1903-1957) in December 1926. Their son John Michael Corbet-Singleton was born in London in March 1928, a few weeks before my father. He became a prominent member of the Conservative party in Chelsea, and died only in 2022.
1929
When John was six months old he wasn’t gaining weight as he should and we went for two nights to Penang and stayed with Marjorie Maas. He was test-weighed and it was found that he was getting only 24 oz from me instead of the 30 oz he should have had, so after that he was given small supplementary feeds of Cow and Gate and soon was putting on weight rapidly. Marjorie’s own baby, Jeremy, was a few months younger than John, and she also had Peter, who was about three. She had two older sons by her first husband. [As mentioned above.]
Talking about babies, I keep forgetting to say that it was firmly believed in Malaya that all babies were born between the new moon and the full moon. John was born just before the full moon [on 30 April; the full moon was on 4 May], and Doctor Gossip said that if he hadn’t been born then he wouldn’t have come for another two weeks – or a bit over. Perhaps it so he would have been one of those enormous babies like the ones my mother and grandmother had. It was certainly true that when I went into the hospital there were a number of mothers and babies, and when I left there were none and they said there wouldn’t be till the new moon.
Kuala Muda
I can’t remember exactly how we came to go to Kuala Muda. I think the manager heard that Billy wanted a job and wrote to him, but I’m not absolutely sure. Anyway when we went we were at first on the Home Division, which was nearest to the manager’s own bungalow. The Manager’s wife, Mrs. Hume, was very nice indeed and we became quite good friends, though I’ve never seen her since. Their two children were at home at school, and she went home quite often. Of course that is the hard thing about living in the East; the children have to come home and from then on the wife is torn in two.
Kuala Muda is on the mainland in Kedah state, north of Penang.
I tentatively identify the Humes as Thomas David Cottingham Hume (1888–1952) and Mabel Rose Cottingham (1886–1965), and their children as Timothy David Hume (born 1923) and June Roseleen Hume (1926-2012), who became children’s author June Counsel.
The bungalow was quite a nice one but smallish. It was also haunted by an extra boy. I often saw him, usually just going into a room.
It never entered my head that he wasn’t a real person; he looked very like our own boy, and wore the same white drill coat and black trousers, and when I’d just seen our boy pass and then saw the other, I took it for granted he was a friend who had come in, as they often did. But one day as I was on the verandah I saw a boy going into our room – actually I thought it was our own boy. I remembered that I hadn’t told him not to polish something, I forget what – they had such a passion for polishing everything they could lay their hands on. So I jumped up and went straight after him into the room, to show him the thing I didn’t want polished (I think it was something made of that very dark silver – is it oxidized) but when I opened the door the room was completely empty. It was very large and there just wasn’t time for him to have gone the whole length of it to the only other door, the one to the bathroom, but even so I ran quickly and looked out of the bathroom window, and saw our own boy and the other servants all sitting on the ground near the well, chattering away. So then I realised that what I had seen couldn’t have been real. But the oddest episode was shortly before we moved from that bungalow. The dining room was underneath the building, and Billy sat with his back to the front steps, looking towards a large screen which hid the passage to the kitchen. I sat on his left, as he heard better on that side, and so I wasn’t looking straight at the screen, but I always saw the boy come round it. We had reached the coffee stage and I saw the boy corn’s with the tray and pass behind my chair. The usual thing was for him to pick up the big silver cigarette box on the side board behind me, put it on the tray and then bring us our coffee and cigarettes. At luncheon that day – this all happened at dinner – the box had been empty, and he had gone upstairs to get a second box which was on the upstairs verandah. I couldn’t see him go up the stairs without turning almost completely round. I thought how stupid of him not to have looked in the box, which I had filled since luncheon, but as I was thinking it the boy appeared round the screen, picked up the box behind me, and brought us our coffee. I was puzzled and said to Billy: “Why in the world did the boy come in twice?” “He didn’t he just came now for the first time,” Billy said, and was quite amused when I insisted that I’d seen him before, but I was quite convinced that I had seen him. Later on, talking to different people on the estate, I found that the little hill near the house was called the “Bukit Hantu” – the Haunted Hill – and I was told that the coolies refused to pass near there at night, so someone else must have seen something.
Dorothy saw, or thought she saw, two other ghosts in the course of her life, one in France in 1924, the other later in Ireland; I’m afraid it became a bit of a family joke.
When we were out there very few bungalows had running water; we never had any. At Krian our drinking water was brought by bullock-cart every day, but I think there was a well for water for other purposes. On Kuala Muda we were able to drink the well water. But every drop of water for baths etc. was carried in empty petrol tins from the well up to the bathrooms, by the “tukang ayer’s” stairs. The tukang ayer – water-carrier- was usually a Tamil; of the Indians only the Untouchables would do that work. But later we did have a Malay who was quite a young and attractive girl.
My letters to Zora from Kuala Muda were very long and detailed, a great part of them was given over to John’s various doings, and then I fairly let myself go about the people on the estate. There were a few we liked very much; Mrs. Hume – but she was away a lot – and the Fletchers who were on another estate quite near, and the Griersons, also fairly near, and the Mallets [Barretts?], who were further away but we sometimes went there for the day. But the other managers and their wives on Kuala Muda weren’t very congenial. And I don’t think I tried hard enough to get to know them. I was terribly taken up with Billy and John and didn’t really want anyone else, and I couldn’t see any point in going to the club in the evenings, and we didn’t play much bridge, though we played occasionally. I took John sometimes to tea with Mrs. Aitken, who had a little girl, Mary Rose, about the same age. She was a pretty little thing but very spoilt, and he mother said that John was the only child who would play with her nicely – which meant giving her everything she wanted. I can’t remember their coming to us, though they must have done so, but if she had taken all John’s own favourite toys I doubt if even he would have accepted it philosophically. Then the Barretts, on our own estate, had a small boy a little older than John, and they sometimes brought him or we went there. I remember Mrs. Barrett brought him once the day we went to see the eclipse at Alor Star.
I have not identified the Fletchers or the Griersons.
I have found Mary Rose Aitken (1927-2005), born in Dublin and later to become Mrs Halfpenny, and her parents William Inglis Aitken (1896–1968) and Violet Melville Law (1894–1964).
I have not found anything about the Barretts apart from the birthdate of one of their sons (see below).
I haven’t yet come across any reference to that, but I’ll tell about it here. The Sultan of Kedah had a huge enclosure made and invited hundreds of people to watch it. I’d always longed to see a total eclipse, so I was thrilled, and we saw it wonderfully. It was hard on the scientists with all their instruments and the people all milling about and asking questions, though. Outside the enclosure there were crowds of Malays and Chinese, and when the moon had quite covered the sun and it was dark, the Chinese started beating drums. I think it lasted nearly two minutes and it was very uncanny; not pitch-dark but still very dark indeed, and of course one could see the stars. It is terrifying; I don’t know if the Chinese really believe that a big dragon has swallowed the sun, and that beating drums will force him to disgorge and flee, but one can imagine that ignorant people would have to work out some sort of explanation. When the sun began to appear again there were such shouts of joy from the people outside, and I think they let off fire-crackers; the Chinese would be almost sure to.
The eclipse of 9 May 1929, a few days after my father’s first birthday, had its maximum extent just off the Malay coast. The path of totality clipped Penang and was deepest just to the north of Alor Setar.
For some reason all my letters from Kuala Muda up to August 1928 are missing, though I wrote to Zora every week. Letters took three weeks and the mail was supposed to come in one day and go out the next, so I kept a sort of diary letter and then if I got Zora’s in time I could comment on it at the end. But quite often it didn’t come till after mine had gone.
We acquired a dog on Kuala Muda; she was abandoned by her owner and was half-starved and frightened. She looked something like a large fox-terrier, white with black markings, but she had a soft coat, more like a setter’s coat. We called her Jane, Our Stranger – Jane for short. One she wouldn’t come when I called her, and I sat for ages calling and coaxing, and finally she crept up, obviously terrified of what I’d do. I petted her and praised her and after that I never had any trouble, she came racing at the first call. She and Bintang were never friends, they just ignored each other. Bintang had an affair with an unknown who was certainly not a Siamese; she had three kittens which we named Haig, Joffre and Foch; they were all black and white. I think they all went wild in the end, as I don’t remember having to arrange about them when we left.
Sometime in July Glory Hancock must have come out; I don’t think she stayed with us, but she certainly either came to see us or we met her in Penang – no, in a letter written August 1st I say that the day that Glory came was the one rainy day we had had in weeks. I said it was lovely seeing her; we must have seen her in Cannes when we were there on our wedding trip, as I talk of Billy’s having known her. I said she wasn’t looking well and I didn’t think her hair suited her, she had bleached it. When she was young she had glorious red hair but when it began to go grey she did so hate it and tried all sorts of dyes and things. I was never to see her again, dear Glory. But she did so hate the idea of being old. Some women just can’t bear it.
Madelon Battle “Glory” Hancock (1881-1930), later Countess de Hellencourt, is one of the most glamorous names to appear in Dorothy’s memoirs, if only briefly. She was born in Pensacola, Florida, where her father was a naval doctor, and brought up in Asheville, North Carolina. She met her husband, British army officer Mortimer Hancock, in New York in 1904, and they had one son. She threw herself into battlefield nursing at the outbreak of the first world war, and was reputedly the most decorated nurse of the entire conflict. When she came to Penang in 1929 she was 48; but she had only a year to live.
I have moved the next two paragraphs here from the 1930 section of the original typescript, for obvious reasons.
I have just found that two of the letters were out of place, and were written in 1929 instead of 1930, but there isn’t much of interest in them, though I tell of Glory’s visit – she was only able to come for tea and dinner, and I drove her back to the ferry; Billy had gone to meet her in the morning. Her ship was sailing at dawn, so she had to go back.
Joan Langstaff wrote me to say that Mme. Henneront, the concierge at 278 Boulevard Raspail, had told her that the proprietor wouldn’t let her go on living there unless I gave up the flat and she had a new lease. I was sure it wasn’t true and I wrote Joan that Mme. Henneront probably had been offered a big tip by someone who wanted the place themselves – I knew that concierge very well. I said I was quite willing for Joan to have the flat if she’d pay me 2000 for the furniture – she’d never paid me a cent for the use of it and the silver and linen etc. – but I think I begged her to go to see the owner herself and not do it through Mme. Henneront. Joan, of course, thought she knew better than I, so she sent me out some papier timbré and I wrote the formal letter and sent it to her, but told her she’d much better tear it up. The silly girl gave it to Mme. Henneront, I think, and was promptly turned out. When I say I asked 2000 francs I think it must have been 20,000 I meant – 2000 would have been only £20; £200 would have been little enough. Maudie Ponton kindly stored some of my stuff but lots of it was lost and I never saw it again. I don’t think Joan could have gone to see the owner, who was quite a decent man. Mme. Henneront tried to get money from me too, I seem to remember, though the details escape me. This all happened in the summer of 1929.
Dorothy had had the apartment on Boulevard Raspail since 1924. She noted in 1927 that the Longstaffs were living rent free there, and comments that she was a mug to allow this. Given her other economic constraints, it’s hard to disagree, unless one of her aunts was paying the rent.
I know nothing more about the Longstaffs, or Mme Henneront.
Maudie Ponton was mentioned in passing in 1925, but I have no more about her except that she had a sister called Nancy.
Back to the 1929 chapter of the original typescript.
I went down to Penang one day to do some shopping; it was the first time I had left John, but of course Amah was there, and Billy was in and out all day, and all was well. John was very active and we used to play hide and seek with him in the garden; when he found us he would laugh so hard that he had to sit down; he couldn’t laugh heartily and stand up at the same time!
Billy wasn’t very happy at his job. It wasn’t a happy estate, the manager was very fussy and was always changing his mind – he would order something to be done and just as it was fairly started he’d change his mind and decide that something quite different must be done, and lose a lot of time. All the managers were grumbling. I said in one letter that two of the three other managers were looking out for other jobs, but a depression was on the way though we didn’t know it then.
When we left on our wedding trip Billy had sold Angsenna, but I don’t think he sold the baby pony, I think a friend kept her, anyway we had her on Kuala Muda. I rode her, and then the Neales [Peales?] had a horse, Roy, stupid and rather ugly but also in very bad condition; they lent him to us and he looked much better after we’d had him for a bit. But there wasn’t much place to ride, just through the rubber, and one had to be so careful of holes. Still we did ride each day. I remember once when I was alone something fell from a tree on the pony’s near shoulder – I thought it was a twig till I looked down and saw it wriggling away. It was a krait, which is very small but very poisonous.
The Neales came one day and asked what that horse was that Billy had been riding – they hadn’t recognised Roy! Soon after that the Neales took him back. One of the reasons that Billy wanted me to have the Baby pony was that I’d always wanted to ride in a ladies’ Race, and there was to be one quite near. But I just couldn’t face it because of John; I kept thinking what would happen to him if I were hurt, and I lost my nerve completely. I’d never have thought of anything going wrong before.
I have not been able to identify the Neales. I wonder if the Mrs Peal referenced above was really Mrs Neale?
I must tell here about Billy’s favourite pony which I never saw. Once when Billy was passing a rubber estate he saw a very nice-looking pony, but in miserable condition, grazing as well as it could on very poor grass. He went to the nearest bungalow and asked about it, and found it belonged to a man who had gone home and left it with two of his friends, neither of whom knew anything about horses. Billy asked if the man would sell it and the other men were quite sure he would, so Billy bought it and sent his sais for it. The sais walked it very slowly to Penang, where Billy got the vet to see it. The vet thought it might improve with good feeding but wasn’t sure and said it might have to be put down. However it rapidly improved and Billy got quite devoted to it – why do I keep calling him “it”? At the club when Billy was talking about what he would call it one of his friends suggested “Herbert”, another one “Arthur” and Another “John” so he was given the name of Herbert Arthur John. He got so well that Billy began to ride him and one day galloped him on the race-course and realised that he’d already been raced. So then he entered him in several things. At his own weight he was the fastest pony there, but when they put up the weight he couldn’t, of course, do so well. I think he ran 14 times, and was 1st three times, 2nd three times, 3rd three times, and unplaced five times. Alas he developed a painful bone disease which ponies out there sometimes get and he had to be put down, which nearly broke heart – that was shortly before we met.
My grandfather had a second cousin of about his own age whose name was Herbert Edward Walter Christian Whyte (1882-1962), and whose father, British admiral William Henry Whyte (1829-1912) had exactly the same name as my grandfather, his first cousin once removed. They must surely have known each other – my great-grandfather would hardly have accidentally given his son exactly the same name as his first cousin. I am in touch with Herbert Whyte’s grandson, who lives in London.
I also haven’t mentioned Billy’s dear old pariah bitch, Puppy (of all names for an elderly lady dog!). He had her when we first met, and she slept under our bed the first week we were married, before we left on our trip round the world, and she was there to meet us when we came back – I think De Buriatte had looked after her. We had her when we were up Penang Hill, before Zora came out, but she was getting very old and could hardly drag herself round and the vet was firm that it was no kindness to keep her alive. Billy felt very badly about it he said he felt like a murderer. She adored him but towards the end if I said he was coming – which used to rouse her at once – she would just slowly try to drag herself to meet him. So one day he took her down to Penang and the vet gave her a good meal with some stuff in it that sent her to sleep so she didn’t feel the injection that ended her life.
Ernest Arthur De Buriatte (1887-1953) later succeeded my grandfather as commander of the 3rd Battalion, Straits Settlements Volunteer Force, the former Penang & Province Wellesley Volunteer Corps; he was also a lawyer and served on the Straits Legislative Council.
In one of my letters I gave an example of the conversation of one of our fellow-managers, which I’ll cite here.
“Well, speaking of big estates – and when I say BIG estates I don’t mean SMALL estates, I don’t mean even moderate-sized estates, I mean I don’t mean estates of 500 or 400 or even 600 acres even – I mean really big estates of 2000 or 5000 acres – but to absolutely really make it quite clear I should specify one estate, if you see what I mean, you could take an estate like Kuala Sidim, that is 2000 acres in all, but of course they have 500 acres of young rubber which you really couldn’t include, I mean to say I am speaking of mature estates, but however that may be the fact is that an estate of that size – remember that I mean a big estate, not a small one – ” etc. etc. I said that that was a mild example. However, I added, he was an easy guest to entertain as you had only to ask one question and the answer would take you through dinner. And yet, I added, he wasn’t a fool and he had had a most interesting life, and his division was very well run. I asked Billy on how he ever got anything done if he gave directions to his coolies in the same way that he talked, and we decided that he probably didn’t speak Tamil well enough to do more than give the very simplest orders.
In the same letter I said that they were all a bit queer on Kuala Muda. I quoted a woman I had met when we were on Krian who had said: “My dear, when you’ve been out here fifteen years, like me, you’ll find that everyone including yourself is rather odd.”
In August there was a visit from an Indian Government Agent to inspect the labour force. Mr. Hume was terribly worried. Billy was with him when the Agent – a very black gentleman – came. Hume assured him that no coolie on the estate got less that 50 cents a day. The Agent asked to see the pay roll, and on the first page were the names of a lot of coolies getting 45 cents. Hume turned to Billy and said: “What does this mean?” jabbing at the page with his finger, so Billy explained that those were all children. The Agent snorted and said he would like to see them. All that could be collected were brought in, grinning all over; they were kids of twelve or so, all fearfully pleased with themselves. Then the Agent asked each one his or her name and how much they’d been paid last pay-day, and compared it with the pay-roll and found the latter was correct. Then he said: “But it is too much for children!” and Billy said no, they did the work and deserved the pay. Then they went over the lines and the Agent was much impressed. So the Estate got a very good report.
Personally, I am not so impressed by the child labour.
When we first came back we had had Billy’s boy, and the amah, and a Tamil tukang-ayer, and a cook, Chinese. But then the boy had to go back to China for a time and we got another boy; I said in one of my letters that he was very good, but I don’t remember him at all.
Much of my letters to Zora are complaints about the General Manager – pages and pages of that – and accounts of John’s latest achievements, cutting of teeth, etc. I’m just tearing up those letters without typing out any of them. It wasn’t easy for Billy, who had come out to Malaya with Percy MacDermot after the Mediterranean fever he had had left him so deaf that he had to leave the army. For some time after we married his hearing seemed to improve, but I think it was only that I talked such a lot and he got used to being talked to and paying attention. Anyway when he had to leave the Army he was very unhappy and had no idea what he could do, and then Percy, who was out here rubber-planting, came home on leave and suggested Billy’s going out too, which he did. After a time on Percy’s estate he raised enough capital from friends and relations – he had only £800 of his own – to open up Hibemia. He ran it himself till the first war, and then went back to the Dublin Fusiliers which he had left as a subaltern in 1906. He was a born soldier and commanded the 6th Battalion in Salonika, and Palestine – I think he was put in command at Gallipoli, though he was a major when they went out.
Percy MacDermot (1875-1955) was one of the many brothers of Charles Edward MacDermot, the husband of Billy’s sister Caroline.
Billy was not in fact in command of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers until September 1917, two years after Gallipoli.
Hume had Major Potts to stay in August and we dined there and they came to us for drinks another days I can’t remember him, but he’d met Zora and asked about her, so we must have known him in Penang. He wanted very much to see John, as he said he’d heard on all sides that he has an absolute paragon – tactful man!
I have not been able to track Major Potts.
We sold the Baby Pony to some very nice people called Sheffield in Alor Star; I missed her but as I told Zora it was really easier without her; she had to be exercised and I had so much to do for John that it wasn’t easy to find the time. But I was very fond of her and she was the only horse I’d ever owned. Zora was most upset but I think I finally persuaded her that I really didn’t mind. Mrs. Sheffield fell in love with her at once, and I was sure she’d have a good home. She was a very friendly affectionate little beast. John loved the horses and crawled into their boxes whenever he got a chance.
I have not been able to track the Sheffields.
I expect some of my complaints about the management were justified but they really make rather boring reading.
Jane learned to shake hands and insisted on doing it at every opportunity; she refused to eat her dinner till she’d shaken hands with me. The cats weren’t very kind to Jane. They had their food at the same time but in a different place; they would hastily gulp down the best bits and then come racing to see what Jane had, and Jane would stand back and look at me appealingly till I drove them away. Bintang was a holy terror with dogs, especially after she had kittens. Hume got two half-bred bull terriers, nearly full-grown, and warned me that they were death on cats. One day he brought them when he came to see us but Bintang saw them as they came up the drive and raced out and chased them away howling with fright. After that I had to shut Bintang in the bathroom if Hume brought them. However she never really bullied Jane just ignored her.
We were on the Home Division while MacCormac was on leave, and when he came back the idea was that he should go to another estate, owned by the same company, in Johore. But Mrs. Mac didn’t want to go to Johore. There was some talk of sending us, and I told Zora we’d like that, and we’d be fairly near Singapore where Maisie was. She had married Ken Warden who had a job with an import export firm there, Lemoine Comte. However in the end the MacCormacs came to the Home Division, the Mackays went to Johore, and we went to their division, Kellang Lama.
I have not been able to track the MacCormacs or the Mackays (possibly MacKayes).
Kelang Lama is a suburb of the town of Kulim, in Kedah, just east of Penang.
Marjorie Maas came for the day in August; I hadn’t seen her since November, when we’d stayed with them in Penang.
I gave Zora in one letter two instances of the feeling between the Malays and the Chinese. One day coming back from Penang in the ferry we ran down a sampan with two Chinese in it. Though we waited about for a long time and other sampans came to the rescue, the two men were never seen again. When we landed I asked Mat, our Malay driver, if he’d seen it and he laughed outright, saying: “They’re certainly dead, those men;” Incidentally we always talked Malay to our staff, both Malays and Chinese – the sort Malay we talked was as simple as possible, and it is very easy to pick up enough to manage, though of course to speak good Malay, and especially Rajah Malay, isn’t so easy.
Another incident was when Mat’s eldest son, a boy of ten, died after a long illness. Amah, who was Chinese, came in and told me with a broad grin, and I thought I’d misunderstood her and made her repeat, and then I said: “Oh, poor Mat:” at which she nearly collapsed with laughter.
I was fascinated by everything to do with rubber. The trees themselves ware very handsome, rather like chestnuts. On Hibernia, where, they had been planted in avenues, one saw them at their best; later the quincunx system came in and one couldn’t see the individual trees so well. Every year there was the “wintering” when they lost all their leaves and the new ones came at once; during that time the crop fell off very much. I think this was in February or March. It was always a puzzle to me how the trees knew when to start. The temperature was always about 85° [29.5° C] and as we were so near the equator there was little difference in the length of the days which were from about 6 am to 6 pm. Some of the fruit trees bore flowers and fruit three times a year – again, how did the trees in different parts of the country know when the magic moment came to put out flowers? It wasn’t always on the same date; with the rubber it could be early or late, and I imagine that was the same with other trees.
Every morning the coolies were out before daylight, ready to tap the trees as soon as it was light enough. At that time trees had a V-shaped cut, with a cup hanging under the point of the V. The coolie carefully scraped away the rubber which had oozed out and hardened from the tapping of the day before, and stuffed it into a bag he – or she – carried over the shoulder; this rubber scrap was used for different things. The good coolies just scraped enough of the bark to start the rubber flowing again, and were very careful not to wound the actual trunk under the bark; if it were wounded, a rough scar would result and it could never be tapped over the scar.
Lots of changes have been made since which were just starting when we were there. I’ve already spoken about the different method of planting the trees. Then when we were first there there was a passion for “clean-weeding” – the ground was kept scraped absolutely bare between the trees, the idea being that the trees should have all possible nourishment, not sharing even with a blade of grass. But then it was found that in torrential rains some of the precious top-soil was washed away, and also that it was better for the trees to have other things growing round them, so various “cover-crops” were encouraged to grow – that was accepted everywhere before we left, but I’ve been told that later they didn’t bother about any special cover-crop, but just let anything grow that would grow. The coolies liked the clean-weeding as then there was no danger from snakes, but it wasn’t so good for the rubber.
Then as to the trees themselves; at first people just collected seeds, or clones, from the best trees they had and planted those – it is remarkable that all the clones of a tree bear a strong resemblance to each other, so that if you’re given a mixed batch you can easily sort them out. But that wasn’t altogether satisfactory, as though you the tree the clones came from, the “mother” so to speak, you had no idea which tree was the father. Then a lot of research was done in clearings in the jungle, too far for birds or bees to fertilize the flowers from rubber trees in other places, and gradually some very high-yielding strains were developed. There were other things to be considered besides the high yield; resistance to disease was very important too.
Then the methods of tapping were changed and various systems were tried. At first every tree had been tapped every day; then it was found that it was better to tap every second or third day, and some people began resting the trees completely in rotation for a month or more, and still got more rubber than they had from tapping each day, and sometimes only one half of the V cut was tapped instead of both. I don’t know how they do it now; these things were all being tried out when we were there.
The Malays often had a small rubber plantation near their kampongs, villages, with the trees all jammed together and all tapped every day, but they got very little rubber. Not that they worried. In that climate where things grow like mad if you just put them in the ground, there was always plenty of food. The only kampong I knew really well – where we were to take Bunnie one day – had every sort of fruit tree growing among the houses, and bananas, and pineapples, and coconut palms, all giving no trouble to anyone. Then there was a patch of padi – rice – and that did mean about a month’s fairly hard work, but provided the whole village with rice. There was fish in the river, and with the money from the rubber they could buy any clothes they needed, sarongs and bajus. They never had to worry about keeping warm, and the only fires were for cooking and were out of doors. Whenever you went there, except in the early morning when the women were tapping, or during the time when they were planting or harvesting the padi, everyone just seemed to be sitting on the steps of their houses chatting – or the women might be cooking, but it wasn’t usually more than just boiling rice and perhaps cooking fish; I never did watch to see how they cooked it. I think they made curries, but I’m not sure; the richer Malays certainly had them but I’m not sure if the people in the kampongs did.
Things were beginning to go badly and lots of estates were cutting down on staff and reducing salaries and so on. Everyone was worried. When we had left, and Billy had borrowed on his Hibernia shares, we had expected to redeem them very soon, but as Billy’s salary was so low – he wasn’t on the permanent staff, which was better paid, but he was just supposed to be replacing Mackay while they were on leave – we couldn’t use any of that to repay the loan, only what we got from Hibernia. We owned part of another estate too, then called S.O.S. till it was decided that that name was unlucky and it was changed to Aldenham – that was owned by a group of ex-service men who had been given the land after the war by the government but it wasn’t paying yet. We were paying ten per cent and yet the man who had lent us the money would have been very glad to get it back as he could get a higher rate from someone else. Corbo (Corbet-Singleton) on Hibernia was getting twice what we did, in salary. Zora too was worried as Dollie’s money came mostly from rubber and she was getting very little. Uncle Bobby was to give Zora some money and didn’t do it for ages. Then a woman she knew was put in prison for debt and Zora paid the debt and got her out, and was eventually repaid but not for a long time. My letters are full of her and our own financial difficulties.
Uncle Bobby was Dorothy’s aunt Bunnie’s husband, Sir Robert Hadfield (1858-1940).
My other great topic was of course John. Those letters are quite embarrassing. I thought he was quite the most remarkable child and stopped telling of all his accomplishments. I’m afraid I rather went in for pointing out the shortcomings of all the other children I knew too! But I expect most mothers tend to do that with their first child
In October Nancy Corbally came to stay with us. But before that there was the great Communist round-up. One evening – no, it was late at night – the police swooped down and removed six Chinese from the estate – one family lost their cook, boy, and tukang-ayer at one fell swoop. None of ours was taken, but Hume lost Hai, who was an almost perfect servant. He was so good that once Mrs. Hume said to me that he was far too good to be true and she was sure he was a Communist! Of course she was only joking then, but he really was amazing. When she was away she asked me to go in and play the piano and just keep an eye on him, and every time I went he was cleaning away and the bungalow was immaculate. When the police took him Hume was furious. He came to see us and pour it all out; he’d been in to Sungei Patani to try to bail him out, but Kenny, the police Superintendent, said that he was willing to take bail for the others, but that Hai was the head of the Communists in the district. As I say, Hume came to see us and kept repeating that he couldn’t believe that Hai was a Communist as he had always expressed such pro-British sentiments. I said to Zora that I supposed Hume would have expected him to say: “I’m a Communist and I’m planning to do you in! Yah!” I think all those men were deported though some may have been sent to prison, but I think deportation was the usual thing. One woman I knew told me that the Chinese would have thought it bad luck for a servant to kill any of the family he was working for, but that he’d kill off another family, and someone else could do his.
We’ll get to Nancy Corbally in a moment.
Dorothy writes as if “the great Communist round-up” of 1929 was a notorious event. I have found no reference to it whatsoever in online sources. What I have found, however, is that in the 1920s, Communist sympathies and organisation in Malaya were almost exclusively the preserve of the ethnic Chinese, and indeed mainly of those from the southern Chinese island of Hainan, who provided many of the domestic servants in British homes in Malaya. Communism was also closely entangled with the Kuomintang movement founded by Sun Yat-sen, which had meanwhile taken power in mainland China. A crucial moment was the killing of six protesters by police in Singapore in 1927
In 1928, the left wing of the Kuomintang in Singapore and Penang merged with the South Seas branch of the Chinese Communist Party (“Nanyang”, 南洋, which literally means “South Seas” but is also the old Chinese name for the Malay Peninsula and the nearby islands) to form the Nanyang Communist Party, which was active across all of the English, French and Dutch colonies of south-eastern Asia. British repression of the Communists in Singapore and Penang, most of whom were Chinese as Dorothy reports, had the effect of pushing activists to found the Malay Communist Party in 1930.
This clearly remains a very sensitive historical topic in both Singapore and Malaysia. I found James Mah Yi Hong’s 2018 undergraduate thesis on “Liminalities of Colonial Understandings towards Malayan Communism, 1919-1941” very helpful in improving my understanding.
François was in China, at the Belgian embassy, and wrote that he was to meet Bunnie at Shanghai, and go with her to Peking and then Saigon, and then they were coming to Malaya, and I was thrilled at the thought of seeing them again, though we could hardly make them comfortable as the bungalow was very small and our only spare room was Billy’s dressing room; however we thought they’d probably prefer to stay at an hotel in Penang which is what they did do.
Bunnie is Dorothy’s aunt, Lady Frances Hadfield (1862-1949).
François is François de Buisseret (1899-1933), son of a friend of Bunnie’s who had died during the war. He was a Belgian diplomat.
We were expecting Nancy in October, but before she came we had an excitement. Some Malays were wood-cutting in the jungle and one of them was about to put his baju on what he thought was a branch, and then he saw it was a huge python lying along a branch. It must have eaten fairly recently as it paid no attention to them, and they got a gun and blew its head nearly off. Then they got a lot of other men and brought it to the office and put it down on the verandah there. Hume bought it from them and I suppose was going to have it stuffed or something, I never heard what he did with it. But we all went to see it; it was a bit over 22 ft. long and 26″ round, really colossal. The horrid thing was that though it was quite dead, with its head smashed, it went on writhing, which was gruesome. The Malays said it would go on till sunset, but I don’t know if that was true or not.
Billy and I went down to Penang to meet Nancy; we had to spend the night in Penang as the ship was due very early. I didn’t want to leave John, yet I didn’t want to upset all his routine by taking him. Then Mr. Hume very kindly offered to have him for the night – of course with his amah, and Billy was so pleased at this solution that I felt I simply must go.
Billy’s own boy had come back from China and wanted to come to us again, so we took him back – the other one left quite cheerfully. He was very ugly, Billy’s boy, but a very good worker. He was quite horrified at the state of Billy’s clothes and the bungalow generally, and was always popping out on the verandah to ask why Billy’s flannels hadn’t gone to be cleaned, or what had happened to his second pair of dress trousers; or else he brought me something that was broken and said reproachfully that it was quite whole before he left. I told Zora that I didn’t think the boy approved of my housekeeping, but was willing to help me out.
I told Zora that the Baby pony was very well and adored by her new owners, and had come second in a race at Alor Star. I had been sorry to let her go, but it really was easier not to have to bother about her, and I knew she was in good hands.
Nancy duly arrived, and at first all went well. Only she had thought that someone was going to arrange a lovely trip for her, and then he said he hadn’t any money, and every thing fell through, and it looked as though she’d be with us for four months! It was rather a grim prospect as our only spare room was Billy’s dressing-room, which was rather small and hot, and there is little privacy in those bungalows where the walls don’t go all the way up to the ceiling, to allow air to circulate, but of course voices circulate too.
Nancy was Anna Mary Whyte (1874-1954), one of Billy’s five sisters. She married Louis William Corbally in 1906; he was killed in the First World War.
Soon after Nancy arrived I had an S 0 S from Mrs. Barrett. She had one boy of three, Christopher, and a new baby, Roger, and she sent me a chit to say her amah was ill and to ask if I would lend her mine.
I find a Christopher Malcolm Barrett who was born in Malaya on 8 August 1926, but I have no more details about him of his parents or brother.
Her amah, incidentally, had chronic malaria, and the doctor had told her she shouldn’t keep her as she might be a danger for the children, but Mrs. Barrett liked her and trusted her. Any way I sent off Amah, and then a little later went around myself with some baby things in case she was running short. I found Mrs. Barrett was all right herself, and Amah was looking after the children, so I went back and cooked John’s luncheon (I usually did that anyway) and of course looked after him – I didn’t go till he had gone to bed for his rest, and Nancy was there, and the boy. I didn’t then know that Nancy had never looked after a child though she’d had four.
Actually Nancy had given John some picture books to look at when he woke up and was very much pleased with herself.
Next day Mrs. Barrett asked if I could spare Amah to go to Penang to find her another one, which of course meant another day without an amah for me. Of course that meant I couldn’t go out at all. That afternoon Mr. Hume had invited us all for tennis. Billy had some late work to do, and couldn’t, and I couldn’t leave John. As Nancy was leaving she said she’d laugh if she found Mrs. Barrett there. Billy said if she was, while I had to stay in because my amah had gone to Penang for her, he’d never let me help her again. And she was there! Her amah had somewhat recovered and off she’d gone, leaving the baby with a half-sick amah and taking Christopher with her. My amah came back with one she’d found in Penang for Mrs. Barrett, who came to pick her up, and asked my advice. I told her I thought she should get rid of the one she had, as the doctor said that if a mosquito bit her and then one of the family they’d get malaria, which would be bad, especially for the children. I can’t remember what she did in the end. Nancy said at intervals that she didn’t knew how I did all I did do, and that I’d wear myself out, and added what a pity it was that she was no good at “these things” . She told me that with her own children she had felt that her responsibility ended when she got a good nurse for them.
Poor Nancy, her trip wasn’t working out at all as it had been planned. She was quite a social success with all the people on the estate, but there wasn’t much entertaining going on and she was bored. Biddy had gone into a convent – where she wasn’t to stay long, but one didn’t know that then – Pat was in India, Teddy with the R.A.F., and Molly at school, and Nancy said she was desperately lonely. She hated being alone and never left us alone for a moment.
Nancy’s oldest son Pat (Marcus Joseph Patrick Matthew Corbally, 1907-1983) is the only one of her children who I remember meeting; he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, just like his uncle, my grandfather. He had an artificial leg as the result of a war injury. His only son died in 2015, but his three grandchildren are living. Teddy (Edward John Corbally, 1909-1981) rose to the rank of Air Vice Marshall; one of his three children, my second cousins, is still living. Biddy (Dorothy Mary Corbally, 1910-1981) never married; nor did Molly (Mary Corbally, 1911-2008), though she lived to a grand old age.
Jane had puppies in October, four bitch puppies, father unknown but it might have been her own father, we thought, I don’t know why we thought so. One died and one we had put down and left her two, a black woolly one and a brown and white. I don’t remember much about the brown and white but the black one became John’s dog and they adored each other and played together as though they were both puppies.
Nancy wasn’t an easy guest. One day she told me that she bitterly regretted having come, hated the heat and was very homesick. She really didn’t consider us at all; I said in one letter that we were like a hotel that wasn’t as good as she’d expected it to be! She never meant to give offence; she just said whatever came into her head.
I sacked the cook – I said he’d been slacking for ages – and made the boy into cook, the tukang ayer into boy, and was getting a new tukang ayer when I wrote. So from that it seems the tukang ayer must have been Chinese, though I remembered him as being a Tamil.
I wrote Zora a description of the Hindu Deepavali [Diwali] festival; the coolies paid us visits in parties; I took a picture of some of the girls dancing, but of course there were no colour films then. They were dressed in red, pink, magenta, yellow, orange and vivid green, blue and purple, so the colour in the brilliant sunshine was bewildering. John thoroughly enjoyed it, he took his own chair over to the verandah railings, watching them and applauding. He especially liked the noise, drums and cymbals and firecrackers, and the way they shouted as they danced. He shouted too, much to their amusement.
The MacCormacs had come back and were in the assistant’s bungalow across the road, small and not too comfortable, but they were supposed at that time to be leaving soon for Johore. We dined with them one night but it wasn’t very comfortable as Mr. MacCormac would tell us various things about the Volunteers and the Ex-Service Men’s Association, things which were not at all accurate – Billy had run the Volunteers for some years after the war, and had founded the Ex-Service Men’s Association, so he really did know something about them.
I did get down to Penang one day and lunched with Marjorie Maas while Nancy was with us.
Bunnie and François came in November, while Nancy was away – she had gone to Hibernia and then to Frazer’s Hill [a hill resort north of Kuala Lumpur] where that friend of hers had taken a bungalow, and had invited her and another woman to stay.
Bunnie and François were due at Sungei Patani [the main train station in Kuala Muda district] at 3:20, but when we went to meet them we found the train had arrived at 1:20; all the trains had been changed that very day and they had never told us when we went in the day before. However they just went and waited for us at the rest-house and we found them there, very cheerful and rested. We brought them back for tea, and then went for a walk to the little Kampong quite near. To get to it you had to go over a deep irrigation ditch on a bridge which was only the half of a tree trunk, flat side up, with no hand-rail. We thought Bunnie would be content just to look at the village, but not at all, over the bridge she went and of course we did too. It was such a pretty little village, with the houses all nearly hidden in the fruit and rubber trees, with the tall palms overhead and bananas and sugar-cane and pineapples growing all round, and lots of flowering shrubs. Bunnie found that all very interesting.
Bunnie was by no means a baby-worshipper but was quite amiable to John, though she thought he was bow-legged (as of course he was at that age) and she offered to have his legs broken and reset entirely at her own expense, but when I laughed and assured her that his legs would be perfectly straight in another year or so she accepted that – or seemed to; I never knew what she said to other people.
We went back with Bunnie and François to Penang for the night, leaving John and Amah at Mr. Hume’s, and were Bunnie’s guests at the Runnymede, which rather distressed Billy, but she insisted. We dined there and then drove round Penang in rickshaws.
Next morning I had breakfast with Bunnie who ate a great deal of fruit, and I was afraid some of it was over-ripe; anyway she got a tummy upset. Still we did one or two errands and drove to the Snake Temple and then went up to the Crag for tiffin – they were our guests for that at least. Bunnie went in a chair from the station and was prostrate when she arrived and just took a room and lay flat on her bed. She had nothing to eat, only milk and Vichy. The rest of us had a fairly good meal, but the whole place was being done over and the dining-room, as I wrote to Zora, was in the bungalow which we’d had when she was there. After tiffin it looked as though it might rain, and we all took chairs to the station of the funicular, Bunnie quite cheerful again by that time – she’d been violently sick and had evidently got rid of whatever had disagreed with her.
We saw them off on the “Klang” for Singapore. Bunnie had a very stupid French maid named Henriette, who spoke only French and was very helpless and inefficient. Bunnie had engaged her in America and had not realised how very stupid she was. She wandered off while we were arranging for a car to take her – and, I suppose, the luggage – to the ship, and I found her sitting dreaming peacefully in the garden. Bunnie said that in America Jan Juta had done everything, even to the packing!
Jan Juta was an artist friend of Dorothy and Bunnie’s; see 1923 for his portrait of Bunnie.
I thought François looking much better than when I had last seen him, though he was thin. He worried over himself a lot and was always afraid of insanity. And he took his responsibilities as regards Bee very seriously, and worried over her too.
Beatrix Caroline Marie Josephe “Bee” de Buisseret (born 1910) was François’s sister. I have not been able to find the date of her death.
As soon as we had seen them off we went back to Kuala Muda – by the way, if I remember rightly that means “Young Muddy River-Mouth”. [Not verified by any other source that I have found.] On our way we ran over a cat but didn’t quite kill it so Billy had to finish it off, which he hated doing, but we couldn’t leave it there with a broken back.
We got back to find Mrs. McKaye at the bungalow with John and Amah, who had brought him back early from Mr. Hume’s. Mrs. Mc Kaye (I think this is the right spelling at last!) was very kind and offered to come at any time; she said she had wanted to offer before but had not liked to invite herself.
John was delighted to have us back; he was asleep when we came, so we didn’t see him – or rather he didn’t see us, we’d looked at him in his cot – till next morning, when he clung to me as if he’d never let me go, and was much more affectionate all day than ever before.
Bunnie had given me some frocks, and Zora sent me some, and I made some myself – but dhobi washing soon wore them out and in nearly all my letters I spoke of frocks having fallen to pieces.
I said earlier that I had sacked the cook, made the boy into the cook, promoted the tukang ayar to boy etc. That tukang ayer was the one who seemed so intelligent that we had thought he must be a police spy, at the time when the Communists were rounded up. But he wasn’t a good boy and I was one the verge of sacking him when he gave notice himself. I suppose it was a month’s notice but I didn’t say in my letter. Anyway one morning early Amah and I had taken John to be weighed (I don’t know where we went for that – perhaps to the estate office) and the cook was out too, and when we came back, Amah and I, with John, the new tukang ayer said that the boy had bolted. Most unfortunately the day before we had drawn the money to pay the staff and I had left it in a drawer and it was gone. When the cook (who had been Billy’s boy before) came back he rushed to my room to find out if my rings etc. were safe – I seldom wore them out there. They were in a drawer in my dressing-table and I had no idea that anyone knew where they were, but he did; however they were safe.
We chased the boy as far as Sungei Patani and went to the police there, but he’d already cleared out and they held out little hope of finding him and certainly none of getting the money. The police were a bit scathing of my having left money in a drawer, but short of a solid safe there was nowhere to leave anything – of course I should have taken it with me.
Talking of keeping things safe, some people out there locked up everything; some women doled out the day’s supply of sugar, butter, eggs etc. and then locked everything up again; Mrs. Barrett was one of those. One day she had gone to Penang and her husband brought some men in and called to the boy to bring beer. The boy said that the Mem had gone to Penang and taken the keys, but when he saw that Mr. Barrett was really upset he said cheerfully that if the Tuan wanted the beer, he had a key to the store-room himself, and he trotted off and got it and produced all the beer they wanted. So much for her system of locking everything up; I never did, as one or two women I trusted, of whom I think Dorothy Buckwell was one, told me it was far better to trust one’s servants, and they wouldn’t cheat one so much.
Dorothy Buckwell, born Dorothy Marie Wills (1889-1964), married Robert Leighton Buckwell (1873-1952) in 1912. They had five children born in Malaya between 1914 and 1922.
The money the boy took came to about £20, of which £5 had been given to me by Bunnie for John. It really was a blow.
£20 in 1929 would be about £1,000 today, allowing for inflation. Ouch.
Finances were a problem anyway, with rubber down so much; Hibernia was still paying 16 p.c. but of course all that went to redeem the mortgaged shares. P.M. Robinson, who had lent the money, wanted very much to have it repaid and to invest in something as shares were going for a song; I said if only one of us had a few thousands to spare we could have got the most wonderful bargains. In one letter I said I was going to ask Papa if he could lend us the money to redeem our shares and that we could pay him 8 p.c. But if I did ask him he didn’t, and probably couldn’t, do it.
I have only small details about Percy Malcom Robinson, who seems to have been an engineer, a banker and a member of the Straits Settlements Legislative Council.
John had difficulty cutting his last baby teeth; some days he was quite miserable and would come and climb on my knee and just sit quietly, and then for a day or two he’d be quite cheerful again. Then one night he couldn’t get to sleep at all, and I remembered that Dr. Gossip had said it would be quite safe to give him a little brandy, so we gave him 15 drops in half a cup of warm water. Billy wondered if he’d take it, but he lapped it up and immediately seemed drunk as a lord and laughed and gurgled when he was put back in his cot. He slept like a top and woke with no hangover.
Bintang had more kittens, four this time; we had two put to sleep but kept two, and I don’t remember what happened to them as they got older – they may have gone wild, or we may have given them away. I said one of the puppies wasn’t looking well, and I was giving them raw meat. But I said that it was nice to have all those creatures dependent on me and to be able to make them all comfortable and happy.
Nancy came back again early in December – she was to have come on the 6th, at least, but as I had flu and then John and Amah got it Billy wired her not to come then, and she wired back suggesting coming a few days later, and finally appeared, on the 11th, but only when she went to Hibernia. On the whole she was better, but tact was never her strong suit. She said she had never been in such a hot uncomfortable room, but that it was a good thing to learn to do without one’s comforts; I said mildly that I’d rather people didn’t learn that in my house.
By this time John was talking a lot, both in English and in Malay, with a good many words of Tamil and Cantonese – he knew quite well which words to use to different people in the house. He was all for everything being kept in its right place; each time he took out one of his books from the book-case, he always put it back again. He couldn’t bear disorder in his room and insisted on Amah’s picking up everything before he’d settle down. One evening I left the lid off the powder box and he yelled; we couldn’t think what was wrong till Amah saw it and put back the lid, whereupon peace reigned again.
He had a wonderful time playing with the puppies in the garden, they all three rolled over each other and he would laugh till he was exhausted. He was greatly admired – of course some of it was just people being polite, but not all. He had a lovely Christmas that year, though again we didn’t take him to the club party, as we thought he was too young, and the other mothers all thought we were wrong. But he had lots of toys at home, some that I’d made, some bought. Zora sent a lovely Christmas parcel, and a number of my friends sent him presents. I told Zora that it was difficult to believe it was really Christmas, with the hibiscus in bloom and the orchids sunning themselves.
Papa and Sally arrived soon after Christmas; their ship, the “President Van Buren” caught fire in Singapore, fortunately with no loss of life, and all baggage was saved, but they had to come up to Penang by a small coastal steamer and Billy had to get up at 4:30 to go to meet them. The assistant who had been promised (incidentally I don’t know where the MacCormacs were, as they had been in his bungalow) had never turned up, so we were able to put the family in that bungalow, just across the road. I was pleased, as it had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and I thought they’d sleep in one room, use the other as a dressing-room, and each have a bathroom. But they insisted on using on only one room and one bathroom. Sally refused to let Amah do any of her washing, as Amah had done for Nancy, and was of course prepared to do for Sally.
See Dorothy’s profile of her father, Henry Deming Hibbard (1856-1942), which also describes his second wife Sally Brookes, née Ames (1858-1946).
The fire on the President Van Buren on 26 December 1929 destroyed 150 tons of rubber. It was owned by the Dollar Steamship Company and did a round the world service from Havana, Colon, Balboa, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu, Kobe, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore, Penang, Colombo, Suez, Port Said, Alexandria, Naples, Genoa, Marseilles, and Boston, then back to New York. So Henry and Sally had crossed the Pacific to get to Penang, though they probably took the train to San Francisco, where Henry of course had cousins, and boarded there. Having said that, it is later implied that Henry and Sally had been to see the Great Wall shortly before coming to Penang, and Shanghai is nowhere near the Great Wall, so they must have crossed the Pacific on a different ship and joined the President Van Buren in Shanghai after their trip to northern China.
Next: 1930