Life around atkinson clock tower
Published on: Sunday, October 17, 2010
By: Dr Wong Si Lan
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He saw no potential customer except for another towkay who also came out to the five-foot way, probably with the same thought.
They conversed about the low rubber prices since the ending of the Korean War.
During the Korean War, there were years of rubber boom when there was the demand for natural rubber by the Americans.
North Borneo, a rubber-producing region, enjoyed some years of prosperity to have a better life after the World War II.
There was no children playground. The whole town was the playground for the many children as most families had five to eight children.
If we played at the five-foot way, the adults would give us hostile looks or even chased us away as if our presence and noise would obstruct their business.
Later, we moved to play at the sea-front (somewhere near the former Cathay Cinema before the shoreline was reclaimed).
One day, my father found my brother's hidden wet underpants and gave him some strokes of the cane as my father had heard of drowning at Kampong Air. We did not know much about the Big Clock Tower, until one day we were warned not to go near it otherwise the police would catch us.
At a closer examination of the Big Clock Tower (as the local residents called it in Chinese), we found that it stood on a raised ground supported by a very steep-sided giant base. It looked formidable even to the energetic and adventurous boys. looking from the town, on the left side of the Big Clock Tower was the large bushy area near the mud road leading to the Signal Hill. At right was a hill next to the Reservoir Road and the Town Padang (later known as the Padang Merdeka). The government built a reservoir at the end of the road to supply clean water.
Many poorer folks carried water from the reservoir in kerosene tins on poles to sell to the townsfolk as drinking water. During those days, diarrhoea was common. We lost my immediate younger baby brother due to diarrhoea. When my grandmother came to stay with us, I saw how she made the big earthen filter jar. She carefully put layers of big stones and small pebbles and the river sand, interlayered with fibres from the coconut husks to filter the water leading to a small tube at the base to be collected in drips.
A few shops dug wells inside to get some water supply for bathing and washing purposes.
Wells which were reinforced with wooden planks at the sides were more affordable than those reinforced by concrete.
The clearer and cleaner water from the concrete wells could be filtered to be drinking water.
Those shops with no well had to source the water supply from others' wells.
Some concrete wells were dug with half of it inside the shop and the other side opened out to the back lane. I used to carry some drinking water in metal pails along the slippery back lanes some shops away.
A few times, I tumbled down with the pail full of water.
Even though using a small bucket to draw water from the well, I could not remember how many times I nearly fell into our own well, if not for grasping and gripping tightly to the side planks.
In those days no one noticed and I dared not talk about them for fear of being reprimanded or punished.
I considered my experiences as less traumatic compared with the shopkeeper's wife two shops away.
One early morning, we were asked whether we were disturbed by the thief because some one shouted "Thief! Thief!" at 3 a.m. The story that whispered around was that the woman two shops away tried to steal water at that time, and was caught by the well's owner. Even at my young age, I sympathised with that woman.
She had five young children, aged from seven to a new-born baby.
During the day, she had to help running the grocery shop, besides minding the children and doing household chores of cooking and laundry.
She had to get up very early in order to complete her work before midnight.
The only time she could draw water was in the early hours.
After that incident, she dared not come out of the shop or talk to anyone for the next two years.
The children could only play around the edges of the Town Padang, while the adults played football.
I was always thrilled to watch my father playing 'full back' in those football matches.
On days when my father's team was not playing any football match, he would sit with me under the huge wattle trees, explaining to me how the matches were played. My father stopped playing football after he had arthritis in his legs, partly due to playing too much football in the rain.
Footballers were also advised not to eat 'kangkung' because this kind of vegetable (grown best in wet ground) would make the legs soft.
Some time later, the piece of land between the Town Padang and the main road of the town was developed into a children is playground.
There was so much fanfare when the parents took their children to the newly-built children is playground with many swings.
The bigger children monopolised the big swings and the younger ones had to contend with waiting for their turns at the smaller swings.
There were shouts of joy in swinging up to the air.
Some turned to cries, particularly the younger children who were frightened by the height of the swinging. I soon gave up because the swings made me feel giddy.
I continued to visit the playground as my girlfriends who also disliked the swings asked me to join them in learning to ride the bicycle.
With or without the permission of the adults, we took their high Raleigh bicycles with the cross bar below the handles to the seat.
Obviously, these bicycles were too big for us and our feet could not reach the pedals.
After falling many times sustaining many bruises, we gave up.
Yet, we still loitered around the playground, sometimes to scoop up tiny shrimps at the nearby drain.
One morning during the school holidays, my girl friend from the next shop came with a beaming smile as she wanted to show me some cups she discovered on the slope along the Reservoir Road next to the Big Clock Tower. We sneaked out of the house to the Town Padang.
We managed to climb up the steep muddy hill slope.
She showed me the small 'monkey cups' with fresh clear water inside.
We examined the green and purple-dotted plants and were wondering whether we could drink the water.
This 'pitcher plant' became meaningful to me as I studied about it at the St. Agnes Primary School, which was situated on the hill opposite to the All Saints' Cathedral.
It never crossed my mind why the shops did not have any wall-clock until the relatives combined to buy a big wall-clock for the house-warming of a relative in Menggatal. I overheard that the relative needed a clock for his new house. Some time later, these relatives were being criticised for giving other people a clock (as 'clock' in Chinese sounded like 'ending').
The chimes of the Big Clock Tower behind our shop-houses automatically told us the times of day and night. We had to see the exact time through the cut-out opening at the roof.
The small opening at the roof led to a wooden platform bridging the two parts of a roof.
The wooden platform with raised wire lines served as laundry-drying area at day time.
At night, some people sat on the platform to fan themselves before going to bed.
At the chime of two, I would be wakened up from my afternoon nap to buy fish when the fishing boats would be at the fish market.
One day, my mother woke me up to go to the fish market as it was 2.35p.m.
I rushed to the fish market to find that my primary school-mate, Kiun was still waiting with her empty big straw basket.
She shared with me that she must get fish for dinner as it was a Friday.
All good RC would not eat meat of land animals on Friday (to commemorate Good Friday).
The following days I was also late in going to the fish market. Then, I realized that the Clock Tower did not chime anymore. My mother did not wake me up anymore for she herself also was not certain about the exact time as the Big Clock Tower stopped working and the its hour arm remained at 2 and its minute arm had not moved from 7.
All the towkays complained that wall clocks were expensive.
They could only buy clocks from the sole clock and watch shop at the Railway Street.
No wonder the clock shop towkay all of a sudden emerged as one of the well-to-do in town.
Nearly every shop then had a wall clock to give the time. It seemed years before any repair or repainting began for the non-functioning Big Clock. The people were informed that the restoration of the Big Clock Tower was delayed because the heavy spare parts for this especially Big Clock had to be shipped all the way from England, thousands of miles away. That was the period of time, when the residents of Jesselton forgot about the existence of the Big Clock Tower.
Instead the focus was shifted to the Reservoir Road next to it.
The Reservoir Road was sealed with tarmac leading to the official Residence of the Governor of the British North Borneo (somewhere near present day Istana). The Road was renamed as Atkinson Road after the British Police Chief of Jesselton. Obviously, he was in charge of the new police station built somewhere between the Big Clock Tower on the right and next to the Signal Hill Road on its left.
PC Atkinson had a commanding physic of being tall and fat with a big belly. People were awestricken when he appeared in his police uniform with shiny white iron buttons on the pocket covers and shoulder-stripes of his thigh length khaki shirt and the smooth well-tailored long trousers for special ceremonies like the British King's birthday. Once I happened to stand next to him and shivered at his towering figure because my height was at his enormous waistline.
Between the Big Clock Tower and the Atkinson Road facing the Town Padang was the big bungalow on strong stilts. We always looked at it from afar as only the white people could enter.
On weekends, many of them were there and music was heard floating out of the bungalow.
To our total surprise, on that Christmas week, my father said that my elder brother and I could go to join the children's Christmas Party at the Jesselton Recreation Club (JRC).
We met some fiends who proudly informed us that the Party was only for the JRC members' children.
Not long after the Christmas Party, music was no longer heard from the JRC bungalow.
It was deserted for some time. The JRC had moved to a new premise with a large sprawling resort-like building at the far end of the Town Padang.
We noticed the new building as we went to collect the red beads from the nearby trees.
During the red beads season, the children in and around Jesselton would play the 'Red Beads Game' using the little fingers to push the red beads. The boys were more interested to pluck the 'Asam Java' fruits from the tall trees. The boys forbade the girls to climb the trees and they would only throw down the fruits for us to collect.
We only collected the unripe sour green fruits as the boys pocketed the tastier ripe ones.
Soon, we were not allowed to go anywhere near the new JRC.
Our primary school music teacher took us to the new buildings on the spur of the hill behind the Big Clock Tower to record our singing for Radio Sabah. From our Bond Street shop, I could not see the Radio Sabah buildings as they nestled among the trees behind the Big Clock Tower.
The singing sessions stopped as our shop-houses at Bond Street and Railway Street were burned down on that fateful morning. Fire at Jesselton was a frequent happening as all the post-war shops were rows of wooden-attap structures.
That was why the local people called Jesselton - "ApiApi" (even until today).
We managed to move to an apartment in the new three-storey concrete shop buildings, next to the office of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce at Beach Street. My father rented a shop at the unaffected Opposite Street (the street name was derived from its position opposite to the Bond Street, which had been regarded as the central street of Jesselton).
That was the time I saw my father lost weight and his characteristic pot belly disappeared.
Within five years we moved back to the shops at the former Bond Street site but it was renamed the Gaya Street. The Gaya Street was a row of three-storey concrete buildings like that at the Beach Street.
My father secured a shop at Gaya Street as the former Bond Street shopkeepers were given the priority to buy or rent the shops.
Some of Bond Street towkays moved back to the Big Clock Tower at night because it was fitted with bright lights, I could see the Big Clock Tower at night because it was fitted with bright lights.
People in Kota Kinabalu (as Jesselton was renamed after the formation of Malaysia) were not perturbed by the newly lit Big Clock Tower as most of the residents had their own wall clocks and wrist watches had been popularised. By then, I came to know that the Big Clock Tower had always been known officially at the Atkinson Clock Tower.
During my upper secondary school days, we heard about the well-known names of politicians like Donald Stephens, Datuk Mustapha, Richard Yapp and some others. Their names appeared frequently in the sole Chinese Newspaper of the day. Some of the more politically conscious educated personalities of the town would start their day talking aloud in the coffee shops nearby. At the beginning of August 1963, the schools were supplied with tin badges painted with the new Malaysian flag and the date 31st of August 1963.
We were instructed to line up in our uniforms at the Town Padang on that morning.
Two days before the end of August, my school had an emergecy instruction that the intended assembly at the Town Padang would be postponed to 16th September instead. We were quick in our reaction, asking about the dated badges. We were to wear those badges even with the change of date.
There was a widespread whisper that the delay was because the top hierarchy involved in the formation of Malaysia could not finalise the relevant documents in time.
The bright sunny morning of 16th September, 1963 was the last time I walked pased the Atkinson Clock Tower at close quarters without any building or structure between us. on that auspicious day, the students assembled and lined up silently along the edges of the Town Padang to witness the proclamation of the formation of malaysia.
The new Head of State, Datuk Mustapha and the new Chief Minister of Sabah, Donald Stephens, the new Sabah Cabinet Ministers and the representative from the Federal, Datuk Abdul Razak were among the dignitaries attired in the fineries of their traditional costumes or the official coats.
They were seated with the invited VIPs on the platform at the centre of the Town Padang.
The pageantry started off with the Police Brass Band marching into the Town Padang in full blast of the trumpets, cymbals and drums of the favourite British marching musical pieces.
After some speeches, there seemed to be some exchange of documents (which we could not hear or see well from our far end).
Led by the Chief Minister and the Head of State with raised hands, the dignitaries seemed to be shouting 'Malaysia! Malaysia! Malaysia!' I could not recall exactly whether there was the 21canon-gun salute as the usual mark of the finale in previous British ceremonies.
I was distracted by the sight of the British Governor, Sir William Goode in his full white uniform with white shoes, and wearing the official white helmet-like tall hat with a distinguished-looking long white feather donned at its side. The tall British made his exit in his regal gait walking towards the awaiting car.
-Dr Wong is a retired secondary school Principal-cum-Education Officer born and bred in Jesselton but later taught in secondary schools throughout Sabah.
As one of the original residents of Jesselton, Dr Wong wished to share some genuine experiences and fond memories around the Atkinson Clock Tower.
This is in the hope that it may shed some light on its value not only for the past but also its sentimental value to be remembered now and for the future generations.
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