October 2017 ~ Shaik Ahmad Clan

Tulip Che Lah (5) British Council Course 1954

Faridah23:59:00Tulip Che Lah (5) British Council Course at Douglas on Isle of Man 1954 1 comment

Tulip and her batch mates sailed on the Tynwald en route from Liverpool to Douglas on Isle of Man in January 1954. They sailed past the Tower of Refuge and sailed into the docks at Port Douglas. They then took a bus ride to their hotel, enjoying the beautiful scenery of Douglas along the way.

The Kirkby students in the Second Batch 1952-1954 were attending a British Council Course which was held at Douglas, Isle of Man in January 1954. They stayed at a beautiful white-washed Fort Anne Hotel in Douglas on the Isle of Man.

On 28 January 1954, the students took time off during Easter vacation. They took many photographs of their vacation on the Isle of Man. The students whose names Tulip wrote on the rear of her many photographs were Monique, Alias, Zainab, Ramli Shaari, and Sophia.

Tulip and Monique went to see the cliff formations near Douglas; Monique sketched the cliffs there.

Tulip, Alias, Zainab, Ramli and Sophia enjoyed a picnic behind the hotel, overlooking Douglas Bay. They then walked through the vast open fields (meadows) in the area.

Tulip, Alias, Zainab bt Hamid Don, Ramli Shaari and Sophia went to Douglas town and visited the Manx Museum. They sat on the front steps of the Manx Museum and were photographed together in the prevailing cold weather. They wore closed shoes and were dressed in thick coats.

The Kirkby students also sailed south, past Fort Anne Hotel and visited Castletown, a coastal town south of Douglas.

It is unknown whether they sailed around the Isle of Man or to Port Erin and back to Douglas.

Tynwald ship route from Liverpool to Douglas, Isle of Man 1954

View of the Isle of Man from Liverpool coast

Getting closer to the Isle of Man 1954

Approaching Douglas Bay, Isle of Man, January 1954.
Tower of Refuge is at right of photo.

View of Fort Anne Hotel at Douglas, Isle of Man, taken from the ship Tynwald 1954

Feeding the ducks at Douglas Promenade, Douglas, Isle of Man 1954

Rooftop view from Fort Anne Castle, Fort Anne Rd, Douglas, overlooking Douglas Bay 1954

Picnic behind Fort Anne Hotel, overlooking Douglas Bay in the background 1954.
From left: Alias, Zainab, Ramli Shaari and Sophia.

On the meadows near Douglas 1954

Perched on the clifftop near Douglas 1954

Cliff near Douglas, close to Fort Anne Hotel 1954. This could be at the Nun's Chair rock formation.

Monique sketching the cliff at Douglas 1954

Could be near Rushen Castle or at Castletown, Isle of Man 1954

Fort Anne Hotel is extant but has changed name and function. It was the Midocean and has now become the Dohle IOM, a shipping management company.

External links

Fort Anne Hotel was located at 15 Fort Anne Road.
It became the MidOcean (IOM) Ltd.
In 2001, it became the Dohle (IOM) Ltd.
The shipping management company is based in Douglas Bay, Isle of Man.
It underwent renovation in 2010 (Google).
http://www.doehle-iom.com/
http://www.midocean.co.im/
http://www.iomonline.co.im/
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/File:Im1950RAC-Fort.jpg
http://manxscenes.com/July%2004/Fortanne.htm

Douglas, Isle of Man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas,_Isle_of_Man
http://www.iomttbreaks.com/isle-of-man/isle-of-man-towns-and-villages
https://www.whatsinport.com/Douglas-Isle-of-Man.htm

Manx Museum, Isle of Man
http://manxscenes.com/Jan%2004/8.jpg
https://www.artfund.org/what-to-see/museums-and-galleries/manx-museum

Port Skillion, Douglas (cove)
https://www.imuseum.im/search/collections/places/mnh-place-11778.html
https://www.geocaching.com/

Villiers Hotel, Douglas, Isle of Man
http://www.jlb2011.co.uk/iom/douglas/page3.htm

Castletown, Isle of Man
http://www.castletown.org.im/heritage/index.html

Maps, Isle of Man
https://www.whatsinport.com/Douglas-Isle-of-Man.htm

Old photos of Isle of Man
http://www.isleofmanpostalhistory.com/
http://www.oldukphotos.com/isle_of_man_douglas.htm

Llandudno, Marine Drive, Isle of Man
http://www.anglesey.info/llandudno_photograph_archive_page6.htm

Tulip Che Lah (5) Kirkby Students 1952-1954

Faridah23:45:00Tulip Che Lah (5) Kirkby Students 1952-1954 No comments

KIRKBY STUDENTS

There were at least 4 batches of students

first batch (1951-1953) - my father's batch (Math Option)
second batch (1952-1954) - my mother's batch (Geography Option)
third batch (1953-1955)
fourth batch (1954-1956)

Here are some names which appeared on the rear of many of Tulip's many photographs (some are signed and difficult to decipher):

Tulip Che Lah (35 Maxwell Rd, KL)
A. Ratas
R.R. Sellman (her tutor, Roger Sellman; Pound-Down Corner, Exeter)
M. Sellman (her tutor's wife, Mia Sellman)
G. Ramachandran
Ariff YHKM? (Yasmin Hanoum bt Kamil Mohamed Ariff?)(Penang)
Wan Hafsah W. C. Bakar? Wan Hafsah Wan Che Bakar?
Labd / W S alis / Alias / Wan Alias? Wan Alias Wan Shamsudin?
Nagadren
Lim Yuen Chin
PH Wing / PHDing?
SB Khoo
M.F. Gwenda Rees
Ivy Oh Ei Wu/Wee?
Tan Beng Thean
T Parameswaran
Zabidah Megat Ismail
G Ches?
C. Umattevi
Francis Khoo
Joseph Chua
Umi Nandey
C. Manguyer Karasi (Karani?)
Katherine Wulff
Jessie D' Cruz (Jessica D' Cruz)
Jurien Su Amoh Gin? Vivien Su Amoh Bee?
Vijaya Vale
Khong Swee Geoh
Wariyam Singh
Raji Sundram
Tan Sook Cheng/Tan Sok Cheng?
Khamis
Monique Thomoez / Thomas?
Zainab bt Hamid Don (later wife of Ramli Shaari)
Ramli bin Shaari (later husband of Zainab Hamid Don)
Sophia
Bainun bt Mohd Ali (later Tuanku Bainun, wife of Sultan Azlan Shah of Perak)
Colette - Douglas Town Hall, Isle of Man 1954
Simone Lategir - Douglas Town Hall, Isle of Man 1954
Madeleine Baloy - Douglas Town Hall, Isle of Man 1954

Tulip was in Tutorial Group S. 9. (10 students) and her tutor was Mr R.R. Sellman, whose wife is Mia Sellman (M. Sellman). I met the Sellmans at their home at Pown-Down Corner, Exeter, UK in October 1980.

Tulip was in the Geography Option at Kirkby, in the second batch 1952-1954. There were 24 students in this Option.

Tulip played hockey for Kirkby College. She was the ladies hockey captain.

Ladies hockey team, Kirkby College, England 1952-1954
Standing from left:
Ivy Oh (Penang), Chin Tai Mois, Jessie De Cruz (N9), Miss McBain (Scottish PE instructor), Wong Yuit Bee(?), Au Moh Yin (Ipoh ACCS), Mary Rodrigues (Ipoh).
Kneeling from left:
Chandra Panniah (Convent Ipoh), Katherine Wulff (ACCS Ipoh), Tulip Che Lah (KL), Bainun Ali (Penang), Isabella Navaratnam (KL).

Ladies hockey team, Kirkby College, England 1952-1954

Sultan Selangor's visit to Kirkby College, England 1952-1954

Malay students at (could be) Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Kirkby College, England 1952-1954

Wariyam Singh, Nagadren, G. Ramachandran, T. Parameswaran, C Manguyer Karasi, Raji Sundram, et al, Kirkby College, England 1952-1954

Malayan students at (could be) Interlaken, Switzerland 1952-1954

From left, unknown woman, Tulip, Au Moh Yin (Ipoh ACCS)?, Roger Sellman?, Kirkby College, England 1952-1954

She could be C. Umattevi, Umi Nandey, or Jessica D' Cruz, Kirkby College, England 1952-1954

Tulip Che Lah (5) Kirkby Campus 1952-1954

KIRKBY

Malayan students
Second batch
1952-1954
2-year teacher training course

1952 - 1954 - Tulip then went to Kirkby College near Liverpool in England. Her senior was her future husband. Another senior was Saliah bt Ismail @ Fatima Abu, younger sister of (Tan Sri) Dr Abdul Majid bin Ismail. Other friends were Yasmin Hanoum bt (Sir) Dr Kamil Ariff (George Town, Penang), (Tuanku) Bainun bt Mohd Ali (Perak), (Tan Sri Dr) Yahaya Ibrahim (Bayan Lepas, Penang), Ramli bin Shaari (Perak) and his future wife Zainab (Perak).

KIRKBY CAMPUS
(photos from Mak and Bapak's collections)

Tulip Che Lah (4) WW2 Leper Settlement, Sg Buloh 1941-1945

Faridah19:58:00Tulip Che Lah (4) WW2 Leper Settlement Sg Buloh 1941-1945 No comments

MILESTONES

1942 - 1945 World War Two (WWII)

War broke out in Malaya at Kelantan in December 1941. It spread rapidly to the rest of Malaya. KL was capitulated in 1942. The Japanese Kempetai ruled Malaya with brute force.

Tulip's father had just adopted a son and the family had just moved back to Selangor when the war broke out.

Tulip, her parents and her sibs were staying at the Leper Settlement in Sungai Buloh. The family lived there since 13 June 1941. The war broke out in December 1941 in Kota Bharu. When the white doctors at the Leper Settlement were interned at Changi Prison in Singapore, her father became Medical Superintendent at Sungai Buloh, along with Dr Abrahams, looking after the entire Leper Settlement. Dr Abrahams later died from being overworked.

The family narrated several stories of cruelty and killings of the Kempetai. Her father was tortured with salt water jet to this throat when the Kempetai found out he had buried his big black car - a bloke leaked it to the Kempetai. The family suffered many ordeals till the war was over.

External links

NewspaperSG - Morning Tribune, 13 June 1941 - eResources
eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Issue/morningtribune19410613-1
Dr.M.Che Lah Dr. M. Che Lah, AM.O.. District Hospitai, Klang, has been transferred to the Leper Asylum. Sungei Buloh. Dr V Velupillal, from Bukit Buloh, has ...

http://leprev.ilsl.br/pdfs/1964/v35n4/pdf/v35n4a08.pdf

Tulip Che Lah (4) Amend

Faridah19:56:00Tulip Che Lah (4) Amend No comments

MILESTONES

1946 - 1951 - An intelligent, obedient and observant child, Tulip attended the St Mary's School at Batu Road in Kuala Lumpur. She recalled a chauffeur in white uniform drove her from her home to school and back, in a white Rolls Royce. Tan Sri Dr Raja Ahmad Noordin also recalled having been driven in the same Rolls Royce, after a meeting with Dr Che Lah, from the government health office in Kuala Lumpur to Sg Buloh where Dr Che Lah's family resided. Then the chauffeur drove him back to Kuala Lumpur. We don't know where this white Rolls Royce went.

----
1954 - 1958, 1960 - 1963 - After returning from England, she became a schoolteacher, first at the Bandar Hilir English School and then at the Jasin English School 1954-1963.

1964 - 1967 - She then taught at Sultanah Asma Secondary School 1964-1967. It was in Kedah that she became friends with Dr Siti Hasmah and Dr Mahathir who were practising doctors in Kedah. At the time, Dr Che Lah was retired and had returned to Penang and practised privately while helping out at the Penang Town Council.

1967 - May 1969 - Tulip was then relocated to Sabah College, Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu). It was at Sabah College that Tulip became the teacher of Datin Marina Lokman, the elder sister of Datuk Mahathir Lokman. She was also the teacher of Mahani Pengiran Ahmad Rafaie (I can't recall), who is the ruler's daughter in Sabah at the time when Tun Mustapha was Chief Minister. There was also a Black Jamaican teacher at Sabah College, named James or George (I can't recall).

May 1969 - Jan 1972 - Tulip then transferred to Sultan Ismail College (SIC) at Telipot, near Kota Bharu, Kelantan.

The SIC is in front of Dr Ali Othman Merican's house lot. The wooden house named Pondok Keseena was moved to Sg Buloh by his son Dr Ahmad Ezanee Merican. Dr AO Merican was an early Malay doctor, a bit earlier than Tulip's father. Dr AO Merican had passed away towards the end of WWII in Kota Bharu.

Feb 1972 - 1975 - Tulip then transferred to Malacca Girls' High School at Durian Daun. The school was in front of the Maktab Perguruan Perempuan Melayu government quarters where she lived with her family. She taught English and Geography at the school.

1976 - 1986 - Finally, she relocated to the Penang Chinese Girls High School at Pulau Tikus where she retired in 1986. It was both a sad as well as a happy time at retirement. She was sad to leave teaching altogether for she enjoyed teaching. She was happy as she had planned to visit the author towards the end of the author's PhD at the University of Western Australia (UWA).

Her personality
Tulip was a quiet person and played the piano. She completed her piano lessons in England and became a certified pianist though she never performed publicly. She played Chopin, Voices of Spring (Strauss) and some ragtime including The Sting and Maple Leaf Rag. She was a good swimmer as a teenager and could perform most swim strokes. She also played hockey for St Mary's and for Kirkby College, along with Tuanku Bainun who lived across from her room. She had colours for hockey. She enjoyed tap dancing as a young teacher in Banda Hilir, Malacca.

Her mother figure
As a mother, Tulip was a quiet person around the house. She never spoke much except she would blurt a proverb or two at the right time and laugh once in a while. She was an avid reader and read Jane Eyre as well as Enid Blyton books and British magazines which were sent by her tutor, Mr Sellman of Essex, UK. She enjoyed needlework and craft. She sewed, knitted and did crochet. She did not like gossip and never had a close-knit group of friends for that purpose. She had never learned the computer and never touched it. She watched English news on TV and read the English newspapers.

Her cooking
Tulip also read Betty Croker cookbooks. She liked baking cakes and learned new recipes from a women's cook group when she lived in Sabah. Some of her favourite are devil's food cake (an American rich chocolate cake), macaroni bil asad (an Egyptian recipe like lasagnia) and nasi tomato. She didn't know how to cook most Malay dishes except she picked up on a few from asking friends and her Malay relatives - nasi tomato, sambal udang, kerabu pucuk paku, masak asam pedas, masak lemak cekak manis with labu (pumpkin), fish head curry with pineapples and ketupat plus beef rendang for Aidilfitri. She was good with simple Chinese dishes and continental recipes.

Her aspirations
Tulip wanted to become a doctor just like her father but she said the Japanese war spoiled everything. She missed 5 years of British education and attended Japanese school instead. She learned to read, write and sing in Japanese. She was able to read and crochet from Japanese books even in her old age. She told many horror stories about the Japanese war, including what happened at Sungai Buloh Settlement where her father was tortured. Her father took charge of the settlement as the Medical Superintendent, as the British doctors were all interned at Changi Prison in Singapore. Together with her father in the lead, her family helped out to provide care, fed and looked after the lepers at Sungai Buloh till the war was over.

Her diary
Tulip kept a complete work diary and a small pocket diary but she wrote nothing much in her diary except a few wise words. She never wrote anything much in her little dark blue diary. She last wrote of her father at his death bed. She wrote his name, birth date and date of graduation from the King Edward VII Medical School in Singapore. These were written on a piece of paper torn from The Star newspaper. Dr Che Lah passed away on 23 January 1986 at GH Penang.

Her marriage
Tulip married her Kirkby colleague Abdul Rashid and they had 7 children. Tulip suffered from chronic diabetes type 2 and succumbed to myocardial infarction (MI) while visiting her children. She passed away on 5 June 2004 and is interred at Tanah Perkuburan Islam in Bandar Baru Selayang, Selangor.

Tulip (right most) and school friends reading at St Mary's School library, Kuala Lumpur, 1945-1951.

Tulip (right) and her mother Catherine Daisy de Coursey Bulner at the Kuala Lumpur railway station in 1952, before she left for England to study at Kirkby.

Tulip's marriage to her Kirkby colleague Abdul Rashid
in Banda Hilir, Malacca, 24 December 1955.

Tulip and her father, Dr Che Lah on his 71st birthday in 1974 at his home in Penang. The little boy is Dr Che Lah's grandnephew Jasri Joonos.

Tulip Che Lah (4) St Mary's School 1946-1951

Faridah19:52:00Tulip Che Lah (4) St Mary's School 1946-1951 No comments

MILESTONES

4 November 1931 Birth at Tanglin Hospital, KL
1932 - 1937 Lived in KL and Klang
1938 - 1941 Attended primary school in KL and Singapore
1942 - 1945 WWII (Japanese War/Japanese occupation/Perang Dunia Kedua)
1946 - 1951 Attended St Mary's School, KL (secondary school)

HER ASPIRATIONS

Tulip said she wanted to become a doctor, just like her father. However, the war broke out and she could not proceed with her studies and dream to become a doctor.

She was 10 years old when the war broke out in Kuala Lumpur. She was 14 years old when the war ended in Malaya. She lost 4 years critical time for good education, and her dream slipped away.

After the war, she knew a few languages - English, Malay, Chinese, Tamil, and Japanese. English was her mother tongue and Japanese was her newly acquired language as a result of the war. She was a self-taught polyglot at 14 and she was good at it.

Tulip attended a few schools in Klang, KL and Singapore. Of the schools she attended, St Mary's School in KL was the most she talked about. The School was special to her.

ST MARY'S SCHOOL, KUALA LUMPUR

In the post-war, an intelligent, obedient and observant child, Tulip attended the St Mary's School at Batu Road in Kuala Lumpur. She recalled a chauffeur in white uniform drove her from her home to school and back, in a white Austin Princess 5a, which resembled the Rolls Royce and was often mistaken for a Rolls Royce. The family does not know where this white Austin Princess 5a has disappeared to.

In May 2007, when I interviewed Tan Sri Dr Raja Ahmad Noordin at his home in Kg Tunku, PJ, he also recalled having been driven in the same "Rolls Royce", after a meeting with Dr Che Lah, from the Government Health Office in Kuala Lumpur, to Sg Buloh where Dr Che Lah's family resided. Then the chauffeur drove him back to Kuala Lumpur. He described the family's life as that of upper class.