I suppose that my feeling of loneliness, and the depression caused by my sudden transfer from friends in Penang, put me in no mood for the day's events, for I had developed an intense dislike for Kuala Kangsar within half a day of my arrival.

After a journey of two hours in the air-conditioned coach of the F.M.S. Railway I alighted at the small station, and was met by Horsley, my new chief, a small, tough-looking man wearing a soft grey felt hat and white shorts. I had dressed in long white trousers, coat, and tie, as this was my first transfer, and I didn't know exactly what I should wear. We drove off in Horsley's car down a hill to the cross-roads where the Sultan of Perak and residents had erected a granolithic clocktower to commemorate the Coronation of King George VI, over a slender concrete bridge and up on the other side to Government Hill, once the scene of a bloody battle at the time of the British Colonisation, but now a golf course and residential area for Government officers. A typical Government building rose on the right, with terraced lawns and a long, steep flight of steps connecting its main entrance with the road at the bottom of the hill. On the steps were marked the levels and dates of the many disastrous floods which had inundated the town area when the nearby River Perak had been swollen by tropical rains. Horsley told me that the river had risen unchecked before the Chenderoh Dam was built upstream for the Perak Hydro-Electric Company. Stately Royal palms and coconut palms formed an avenue towards the Government officers' quarters. We entered a compound ablaze with colour and trimmed with neat lawns, a pleasant introduction to Horsley's house. This was new, cream-coloured with red-tiled roof, and sat well amongst the palms, the colour and the sunshine. My new chief voiced his objections to the house as we ate the lunch served by a fat, pleasant Chinese boy. The brick walls, he said, gradually heated up until the house was almost untenable by midday, and the glass windows were a modern perpetration which could not compare with the old-style open walls and chick blinds. Moreover, he was a bachelor, and the house was too big, with many small rooms for which he could not imagine anyone having the slightest use. His interest in such problems was explained when I discovered that he had already been planning in his mind a house into which he hoped to retire when he could return to his native Australia. But my problem was to obtain quarters for myself, and I broached the topic rather timidly as we left the house for the office. It appeared that I was replacing an Assistant Engineer who was temporarily transferred to Ipoh to carry out military works, and as he still had all his personal effects in the Assistant Engineer's quarters, Horsley implied that he might not like me to occupy them. What was more, said Horsley, there was no need for me to have been sent to Kuala Kangsar at all, for he was managing quite well on his own. My feeling of depression created by his attitude became even lower when he made me sit opposite to him at his desk all through that sultry afternoon whilst he rang up dozens of people and interviewed a legion of Tamil clerks and overseers. It was all I could do choke down my unhappiness and conceal from him the poor, and I later found, unjust, impression which I had formed of the station as a whole and of Horsley in particular.

Horsley's boy came in, bringing with him a slim, smiling Chinese who, by some strange means, had heard of my arrival, and had come thirty miles to apply for the position of cook-boy. Horsley read the testimonials, which I never saw, remarked that they could be purchased cheaply from local petition-writers anyway, and scrutinised the boy carefully. A few words were exchanged in Malay, which language I had only been studying for two months, and then Horsley informed me that I had appointed the lad and was to pay him thirty dollars per month. I was too exhausted, hot, bewildered and demoralised even to murmur a humble word of thanks.

At long last the day ended, in which time a telephone conversation with the Assistant Engineer at Ipoh had fixed up the matter of his quarters, and I entered my new home. It was a wooden building with red roof, standing on stone piers some four feet high. The front wall was louvred to a height of three feet, and the rest was merely expanded metal. It was a single-storey bungalow, and reminded me very strongly of a cricket pavilion. The eaves hung over the walls some three feet, causing the rooms to be rather dark. The house was painted black and white outside, and the whole of the inside was cream. The polished hardwood floor sounded like a drum at every step.

My new cook-boy busied himself about the house, and that evening I had an excellent dinner, in spite of the fact that none of my household goods had arrived. When I prepared for bed I discovered that a mosquito net had been erected, bed linen found, and all spick and span as if I had been in residence for months. I learned that the boy's name was Ah Chang, that he had a wife named Ah Fong, a young daughter, Ah Lin, and a babe in arms as yet unblessed with any name. They were to join him later. That reminded me that I had forgotten my sais, Hussein bin Amin, and his young wife, who had followed me from Penang. I inspected the quarters behind the house, and saw with satisfaction that the servants had installed themselves without difficulty, and had borrowed a mat and bolster from my chief's driver. I realised that a great deal could be admired in the ready adaptability of the simple Asiatic to his surroundings, and I pondered on the complications introduced by our standards of civilisation as I lay in bed that night.

On the following day the lorry brought my barang from the station, and Hussein drove the car from the rail truck, grumbled at the dusty and finger-marked condition in which he found it, and proceeded to give it a cleaning with as much care as a mother with her firstborn.

Within a week I had met a number of the Europeans in the district and was introduced to the Club, which the secretary assured me was always empty, but which I must join in order to meet everybody. At that time I felt that I had no desire to meet anyone at all. My new chief apparently was doing his utmost to assure me of my worthlessness. I had had a touch of dengue fever from the unaccustomed mosquitoes and I hated Kuala Kangsar and the East with a hatred far more intense than any other emotion I had ever felt. My near-by neighbours ignored me, and I could not speak Malay sufficiently well even to converse with any freedom with my servants. The first people to take pity on me were the local Police Superintendent and his wife, and at dinner one evening they helped me to emerge from my shell and take my place in the diminutive social circle of the district. That night I met the District Officer, a jovial, generous man who was popular with everybody. He proved to be my guide, philosopher of sorts, and friend of no mean order in the days that were to come.

One afternoon when we were able to get away in good time, Horsley took me to the Istana for an hour's tennis. This building, the Sultan's official residence, was modern, and combined Eastern pattern with the latest methods and materials. It stood on the rise of a hill overlooking the River Perak, a huge mass of pink granolithic. Its central and four corner domes were covered with various colours of mosaic tiling, which gave the appearance of speckled gold when shining under the noonday sun. Around the walls were beds of tropical flowers, their vivid reds and yellows making the well-kept lawns look like a brightly-fringed Oriental rug. Palms and gay-blossomed bushes and trees dotted the sward, and the aspect was reminiscent of fairy tales in strange settings, where imagination conjured up visions of sugar-loaf castles and magic carpets. Twice a week the Europeans were the guests of the Sultan of Perak, himself a keen tennis player and on that day I was introduced to His Highness and to the Rajah di Hilir. The Sultan was most charming, a witty conversationalist, and a good tennis player, and even on the court he had a bearing which emphasised his personality. The Rajah di Hilir was freer in his manner, a great sport, and when he employed his favourite strategy - the lob - the harassed behaviour of his opponent was a source of great amusement to him.

After the game we used to linger a short while, sipping passion fruit juice, and watching the sun going down. The muezzin would call out the stirring Arabic summons to prayer from the Istana's private Mosque and the cry would be echoed back from the minaret of the Mosque which lay nearby. The sky was unreal, unbelievably beautiful at this time of day. Over to the west, where stood the forest-clad hills and the mysterious building known as the Hermitage, once the residence of an eccentric Rajah, but now in ruins following an unaccountable fire, the sky would be a pale turquoise blue, and as you turned your head the colour would change and deepen until the western skies were the deepest of pure ultramarine. The few wisps of cloud gleamed and shone with silver, pink, and gold, moving with infinite slowness across the sun like fairy feathers. I must have seen this sight two hundred times or more, and never ceased to marvel at the beauty and wonder of it.

By gradual stages I began to feel my feet. It was a painful process, for my nature is retiring, and I still felt myself to be a stranger in a strange land. Then I realised that the few Europeans in the district were simply letting me settle down, watching my habits and finding out my inclinations. I decided to take a practical interest in the garden, and very soon made a habit of gardening every Sunday morning, turning over a bed or planting kachang bende, tomatoes, or some kind of bringals.

One morning, as I was turning over a flower-bed, a group of small Tamil boys stood shyly at the entrance to my compound. There was a fruit tree at the corner bearing a type of fruit which is not eaten by Europeans, but which is as popular to Asiatic youngsters as crab apples are to an English lad, and I could see that they were hoping for a chance to climb up and steal the prize. I reached up and pulled off half a dozen biji, distributing them to the delighted children. This action broke down their shy attitude, and in a few minutes we were conversing freely in Malay, the boys squatting near to me, weeding around a bed of flowers.

The ringleader of this circle of new-found friends was a boy of fourteen named Avuly, a bright and intelligent lad with a good knowledge of Malay. We talked about the flowers and vegetables which I was growing and I discovered that he had a surprising knowledge of gardening. He told me the Tamil names of the various vegetables, and when the small party left that morning we were all on the best of terms.

It became a regular weekly custom to call on me, and I was touched by the innate good-heartedness of the small boys. One brought a handful of tomato shoots, which I planted in a bed along the edge of the house, others gave me bringal shoots, and a tiny curly haired child one day brought me a papaya. I wondered what I could give them in return and had an idea that they would appreciate English Postage Stamps. I spent an hour one day floating the many stamps from home letters, ranging from a halfpenny to half a crown, and on the following Sunday distributed them amongst the youngsters. They were able to recognise the head of King George VI, and I told them to keep the stamps in an album, so that they could build up a collection from my further gifts.

Avuly was an expert tree climber, and one day asked me if he could climb my coconut trees and twist off the fruit. I assented with some misgiving, and he stripped and clambered up the tree, gripping the rough trunk with his feet and sliding his hands farther up, then pulling his feet up so that his knees were level with his shoulders, and so on, folding and stretching at an incredible speed. At last he disappeared amongst the fronds, and a nut came crashing to the ground. He probably removed twenty coconuts before coming down, and he refused even to take one for himself. In return I gave Avuly and his friends permission to take the fruit from my mango tree, and every time they called on me after that they used to stand beneath the tree and pungal - throw sticks into the branches with surprising accuracy and bring down a shower of fruit.

I joined the Swimming Club at Taiping, and often went along later on Sunday mornings to swim in the cool fresh-water pools formed in the side of a granite hill, and fed continually by a stream which tumbled over the rock face through a cleft in the hill. I was invited to other swimming parties, at Menggle Enchor, where the overflow from the Water Reservoir spilled down a granite slope to a pot-hole in the bottom, and at the Irrigation Dam on the Kenas Road.

At last I made a very big decision: I should have a swimming party of my own, followed by curry tiffin at my bungalow. This was a daring thing for a bachelor to think of, as the ladies were very competitive and critical when it came to entertaining. I took stock of my home, my tableware, and my supplies of cigarettes and drinks; I pointed out to my boy that all must be of the best - and he smiled, for he had always worked for married couples before, and knew far more about it than I - and I invited the Health Officer and his wife, and the young Police Officer and his wife. On that day I made four good friends. First we went to Taiping, and swam in the cool water there, returning with great appetites for our feast. The curry was prepared by my sais's wife on true Malayan lines, with bowls of curried lamb, curried chicken, curried fish, prawns, curried vegetables, and the sambals, salted nuts and dried fish, shredded white onions, shredded fresh coconut, potato crisps, sweet chutney, and sliced banana. The sweet was the usual mould of sago over which was poured coconut milk and gula Malacca - a toffee-like syrup extracted from the flower of the palm. After the meal the atmosphere was drowsy, to say the least, and at three o'clock we went our several ways for that Malayan luxury commonly known as a 'lie-off'.

From that day forward I cannot remember feeling lonely, for the initial step had given me confidence, and I enjoyed being host at informal dinner-parties, usually followed by an evening at one or other of the local cinemas. Being a bachelor I was a guest even more often than a host, and soon my leisure hours were fully occupied.

Occasionally, I walked down the hill before dinner for a little exercise, and called at the Club to read the assortment of American and English magazines, or listen to the news in the airy room which served as a ballroom and lounge. The Medical Officer, Dr. Brain, was frequently there, playing billiards with a planter or one of the teachers from the Malay College.

In Kuala Kangsar Club I met an assortment of people with widely divergent views and ways of life, a strangely mixed crowd. But it was easy to define the principal sections of the European population. They were the Government officers and the planters. In no respect were these two types similar, and I often attempted, in my immature and clumsy reasoning, to define the differences between them.

I think the principal difference was caused by the fact that all the Government officers were qualified men and women, who had passed through professional training as doctors or teachers or engineers, civil servants or police. The planters were, for the most part, men who had come to Malaya to learn how to grow and produce and process rubber.

But another fundamental difference was financial. Rubber was at a premium, and the estates were coining money in the biggest boom ever. The planters, who were paid a basic salary plus a bonus based on profits, were 'in the money'. The Government officials, on the other hand, were drawing salaries on a peace-time scale, sufficient for their needs, but not too much with the rising cost of living caused by the War. The planters lived in luxurious bungalows on the estates, whereas the Government men had to take the quarters allocated to them, furnished by Government with 'good, serviceable' - but heavy, dark and uncomfortable furniture.

This difference made itself evident in the Club life. The planters lived lavishly, spent freely, spread themselves whilst they had the money to do so. The teachers, nurses, doctors, and the P.W.D., with their fixed incomes, were obliged to watch their Club bills. Horsley and I were in the Club one evening when a party of planters came in and invaded the bar, and he turned to the subject of Club life.

"When the slump was on," he said, "the planters were for ever grumbling at the security of the Government officer. Now there's a boom, and we're small fry."

One evening a Club Dance was arranged, and I made my way to the Club at eight o'clock. Every member was asked to provide some foodstuffs, and my boy had been busily engaged on the preparation of hors d'ouvres, which I carried in carefully from my car. A trestle-table was set with plates of caviar, sausage, all manner of small delicacies, biscuits and fruit.

As the members arrived a radiogram played dance records, and I danced with the younger wives of my acquaintances. The group of regular tennis players naturally tended to stick together, and my favourite partners were Ann Burgess, wife of the Health Officer, and herself the Lady Medical Officer, and Eilleen Ryves, the wife of Harvey Ryves, junior Police Officer for the District.

At nine o'clock or so we adjourned for supper, sitting at the table or lounging by the bar. The party livened up and many of the men had too much to drink. My party of friends - the District Officer, Ann and Jim Burgess, Eilleen and Harvey, and a nursing sister called Alice Rossie - returned to the dancing, leaving the drinkers to their whisky-sodas.

As I danced, I glanced through the open wall of the ball-room and saw a crowd of white-clad, ghostly figures standing along the roadside in the black night. When the record stopped playing I excused myself and walked to the Club entrance to see what was going on.

Twenty or thirty Asiatics, clad in white suits or sarongs, were standing in front of the Club. They were watching us as we drank and danced, laughed and fooled around.

I thought of the men at the bar, of the revelry and the noise, the bright lights and dancing, and I wondered what the Asiatics thought of it all. Pretty comic we must have looked, like marionettes performing for their amusement as they stood silently by the roadside.

All that evening, from nine o'clock until two in the morning, we were watched. Watched, I felt, by dark eyes whose expressionless gaze gave no clue to the thoughts of their owners. Yet their very silence, their stillness, made me imagine them to be thinking 'Look at the White Men'.

It was the same every time a dance was held. The other members ignored the watchers, but I was a new-comer, and my imagination was strong

At one affair, a member, having his fling whilst his wife was at home, began to drink heavily, and was soon out of control He became aggressive and made himself unpleasant when a guest visitor named Eilleen Tray refused to dance with him. A most uncomfortable atmosphere was created, until at length she agreed to dance. They had not been dancing a minute when he crashed his partner against a chair by the wall and fell to the floor. Eilleen tried to pass it off, but he had made a fool of both of them and the party gradually broke up. Even the District Officer lost his customary smile, and we left the offender to drink alone.

And the Asiatics were lining the road, watching the show.

But as time passed, and my confidence grew, I was able to pick my friends. It was natural that I should prefer the company of young people, and those who enjoyed a game of tennis or a morning's swimming. After an evening's tennis a small party would sit in Jim Burgess's bungalow, cooling off and enjoying a drink and discussion. Our conversation was almost always about our work, and I soon came to realise that one's work is one's life out there. The reason, I believe, is that the Britisher never makes the East his home; he has gone there to work, and work takes all his daylight hours, fills his life between leaves. There is no family life, for the children must go to England or Australia when they are seven or eight years of age, and their parents, whom they meet once in three years thereafter, are merely the people who pay the bills for school and clothes.

I am not sure that that was a good thing. I often discussed the matter with my neighbours, and my subsequent experiences have led me to believe that perhaps we should have been more successful if we had taken Malaya to be our home. Perhaps then there would have been a different background to our relations with the Asiatics. Perhaps, if we had regarded Malaya as our own personal country, and all Malayan's of whatsoever race or creed as our fellow-patriots, then, perhaps, we might have been justified in expecting the loyalty which we wished for in December, 1942.