1984: Radio RAAF Butterworth station production manager Flight Lieutenant Peter Howman with announcer Bronwyn Tuohy going through the recorded tape tracks.

The days of a special radio station and the community of Aussies who made Tanjung Bungah their home while working at the Butterworth air base.

GROWING up in the 1970s as a teenager, there was no such thing as Internet radio. There was no paid television either such as Astro or Hypp.TV.

We only had RTM, which was not the best option for entertainment back then, as it was primarily an information station.

But lucky for us Penangites, we had Radio RAAF. Its frequency was limited to Penang and parts of Kedah.

But as a music–loving teenager, I was introduced to the world of Australian bands such as Little River Band, Sherbet, INXS, Men At Work and of course, John Paul Young, with his monster hit Love Is In The Air.

The announcers were all amateurs, mostly family members of the Australian servicemen, and often their presentation was flat, even monotonous, but the music repertoire was up-to-date.

Come Saturday night, it was Party Time, which came on air at 9pm and lasted till past midnight.

The deejays entertained requests we sent in by snail mail. And we could buy ready-made postcards where the address of the radio station was printed.

To this day, I can still recall the call sign for each programme that simply began with, “This is Radio R, double A, F…”

In 1989: RAAF Wing Commander Ross Fox climbing up a Hornet fighter aircraft as RAAF maintenance staff conduct pre-flight checks

The Australia air base in Butterworth certainly left an impact on many Penangites because they became very much a part of the local community.

With its thriving port, Penangites had long been exposed to foreign presence, but to have Australians in the neighbourhood emphasised how cosmopolitan the state was in the early years.

For the servicemen and their families, the preferred neighbourhoods were Fettes Park, Hillside and Tanjung Bungah, where they stayed mostly in rented homes.

These areas were walking distance to public beaches, which must have brought back memories of their homes Down Under. The Pulau Tikus market was also just 20 minutes away by car, where they did most of their shopping.

Fettes Park in Tanjung Tokong was and still is a middle-class housing area, with mostly English educated residents.

It is named after the municipal engineer of George Town, JD Fettes, who played a major role in the building of Guillemard Reservoir above Fettes Park.

The Fettes Park neighbourhood is bordered by Jalan Tanjung Tokong to the east, Mount Erskine to the south and Vale of Tempe to the north.

Tanjung Bungah or sometimes spelt Tanjong Bunga, is a suburban route to the tourist belt of Batu Ferringhi, a name which some said was derived from Portuguese, to mean the spot where the foreigners landed.

Tanjung Tokong, which one must pass through on the way to the seaside resorts, used to be an old fishing village.

Near the UDA low-cost flats, there is the Tua Pek Kong temple. This is probably the reason why the village was named Tokong.

This temple is famous to this day because of the annual Chneah Hoay (flame-watching) ceremony held on the eve of Chap Goh Meh, where the deity would predict the economic outlook for the country.

Residential: An aerial view of Tanjung Bungah now.

So it was around these locations that thousands of servicemen and their families found their home away from home.

Their story began in 1957 when the Royal Air Force, which was part of the British defence plan, closed the base in Butterworth and transferred ownership to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

The RAAF stationed numerous Australian fighters and bomber squadrons there.

These planes were to play a crucial, but supportive role during the Emergency as well as the Confrontation with Indonesia.

It was reported that in 1964, its Sabre jets responded to Indonesian jet fighters heading towards Malaysian airspace but the latter turned back before crossing the international air space.

The RAAF personnel were generally well-behaved, unlike the rowdier American marines, who also dropped by Penang as part of their rest and recreation entitlement back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

For the Australians, when they were off duty, they could be seen in George Town, wearing their trademark shorts and stockings which were pulled up to their knees.

Their favourite eating spot was the Eden Restaurant in Hutton Lane, which served western set meals at reasonable prices, while their watering hole was the Hong Kong Bar in Chulia Street, which was something of an institution in Penang until the RAAF closed its base in 1988.

The servicemen would leave pictures, badges, momentoes and plaques as a reminder of their days at the bar.

By then, Penang already has a decent-sized supermarket — Cold Storage in Penang Road, which catered to these Australians and Westerners, who wanted fresh food and meat products.

Not far from the Cold Storage supermarket was a snack bar which served western and Chinese food and the most famous ice-cream then, Magnolia.

My late uncle Simon Leow, who used to frequent the eatery, got me my first job there in 1978 after Form Five.

I was supposed to be a bartender and waiter. I did not last very long because I spent more on food than the meagre wage that I earned.

The only consolation was that I tried the entire range of ice-cream.

It was here that I made my first milkshake, and my first banana split. But I had to split from the scene soon enough because I was really a nuisance to my fellow workers.

Leow, obviously wanted me to learn the hard way that it was better that I concentrated on schooling rather than entertain any foolish thoughts of entering the workforce at an early age.

For Australian families, who had just arrived in Penang, the RAAF Club was their oasis.

Temporary accommodation would be provided to these new arrivals until they find their homes in Fettes Park, Tanjung Tokong and Tanjung Bungah — these were their three favourite spots although the base was on the other side of the channel.

Their social lives revolved around the RAAF Club — where sporting and social events were held. It was open only to RAAF personnel and Malaysians working with them.

The term sarong party girl — a derogatory term used in Malaysia and Singapore to describe a local woman, who exclusively dates white men — was not commonly used then.

But the presence of these Aussies was bound to see romance blossom with the local women.

A neighbour of mine at Jalan Kampung Melayu married a RAAF officer, whose children would often drop by my house.

These Australians left behind many friends among Penangites. The Radio RAAF played Everytime You Go Away as its farewell song, before signing off for good.

Maybe the relationship between Penang and Australia was fated in some ways. After all, Captain Francis Light founded Penang while his son, William Light, founded Adelaide.

Old and new: Cathay, also known as the Choong Lye Hock Theatre,
stood as a cinema for more than 35 years, but today, it houses a Mydin
supermarket (pic below).

FOR just 40sen, many of us got to buy a third-class ticket to watch a movie. A third-class ticket meant sitting on the first three rows of a cinema with our necks craned to focus on the giant screen in front.

And you can imagine the discomfort if you were seated on the extreme left or right of the first row.

In some cinemas, the class distinction was further aggravated by the wooden third-class seats as cushioned seats were only for first and second class, as well as balcony seats also known as “upstairs”.

One cannot but feel that cinema operators wanted to punish us for just being too poor or too cheapskate.

Welcome to the 1960s and 1970s — when going to the movies was a real treat, a weekend reward from your parents.

Remember, those were the days when most families were big, and it would be extremely expensive to buy first class or balcony seats for the entire family, unless you are well-to-do.

Unlike today’s cineplexes, the seating arrangement was divided into first, second and third classes, and ticket prices varied accordingly. The most expensive tickets were for the “upstairs” seats, where there was even a side entrance to the cinema bar.

Like the English theatre, there would be an interval or break midway into the movies, for the cinema-goers to buy drinks.

In some cinemas, a woman would walk around the aisles selling ice-cream, which was really quite amazing, considering how strict modern cineplexes are about food consumption in cinema halls.

Another unique touch to cinema-going back then, was the ticket inspector who would come by once the show has started. With torchlight in hand, they would make sure that you are sitting where you should be.

Well, when the show is not packed, it is quite common for the third-class patrons to quietly move to first class.

Back in those days, most of the children would go to the movies, especially the evening shows, with sweaters as they were not accustomed to air-conditioning.

But some cinemas in Penang, even until the late 1970s, did not even have air-conditioning, and only used giant fans to cool the premises, which must be hard to imagine today!

World of flying swordsmen: Federal Cinema in Datuk Keramat Road used to show the latest kung fu and sword-fighting
flicks from Hong Kong.

The cinema experience was a real outing and we would all be seated way before the show started because we enjoyed the spotlights beaming different colours onto the huge velvet curtain, which would start to part once the movie projector came on.

The first cinema in Penang was the Majestic Theatre, which opened in 1926. It was also named after its owner, the late Khoo Sian Ewe, who was the doyen of the Chinese business community.

It was the first cinema in Penang to screen sound movies, or talkies, in the 1930s. According to reports, it was also known to the locals as the Shanghai Sound Movie Theatre.

The cinemas in those days had an air of grandeur with their distinctive architecture. Every cinema was different, unlike today when you recognise the cinema hall in a cineplex, located in a mall, by a number.

Growing up in Penang, there was plenty to choose from.

Besides the Lido and Globe cinemas at the New World Park at Swatow Lane, which has now become a food court, the English movies would usually be screened at the Cathay and Odeon cinemas along Penang Road.

A movie I remembered watching at the Cathay cinema was Mackenna’s Gold, a 1969 western starring Gregory Peck and Telly Savalas, where the greedy characters shot themselves to death in their mad scramble for gold. The theme song, Old Turkey Buzzard, by Jose Feliciano was a hit.

Cathay, also known as the Choong Lye Hock Theatre, stood as a cinema for more than 35 years, but today, it houses a Mydin supermarket.

My eldest brother, Chun Sang, the only Chinese-educated one among my brothers, made sure that I had a balanced entertainment.

So regularly on Sundays, he would take me on his motorcycle to Federal Cinema, along Datuk Keramat Road, to watch the latest kung fu and sword-fighting flicks from Hong Kong. In those days, they all spoke Mandarin even though the movies were made in Hong Kong.

He opened me up to the amazing world of flying swordsmen with the likes of Wang Yu, David Chiang, Ti Lung, Chen Kuan Tai, Fu Sheng and Lo Lieh.

I was then in primary school, and like the rest of the world, I was swept away by the movies of the legendary Bruce Lee with his unique martial arts skills.

But while I did not mind the action movies, I cringed and protested each time my brother took me to watch the Taiwanese romance movies of Chin Han, Chen Chen, Lin Fong Chiao (the wife of Jackie Chan) and Tien Niu.

These days, when you go to the movies, your choice of knick-knacks is limited by what is sold officially at the cineplex.

But at the Federal, for example, we could have either lok lok (small bits of food on skewers), steamed groundnuts, sotong bakar or barbecued meat buns.

At every cinema, there will always be an Indian man with his tray of salted peanuts and yellow kacang putih.

One item which the cinema-going generation of those days will surely remember is the kuaci or sunflower seeds.

Everyone just ate it throughout the movie, and the shells were simply scattered all over the floor. Which is why there is a long break in between shows as the cleaners have to come in to clear up.

With all the leftover food, the occasional one or two rats running across our feet in the middle of a show was not something strange! Finding a chewing gum stuck on the floor, annoying as it may be, was also common.

The toilets were located in the cinema itself, often towards the front third-class section, so one could actually go and take a quick toilet break.

But as children, we were terrified to go to the toilet alone in the middle of a show. The toilet, with its row of urinals, was huge. Often, we just hold it in, especially if we were watching a horror movie!

My parents widened my mind further by taking me to watch my first Hindi movie — Haathi Mere Saathi (Elephant, My Friend) — about a man who was forced to choose his love for his elephant friends and his wife. It starred Rajesh Khanna Tanuja.

This movie was shown at the Royal cinema at Maxwell Road and to this day, still probably holds the record for being one of the longest-running movies ever shown in local cinemas. It touched the heart of every Penangite, no matter what race, and everyone would have watched it more than once, often leaving in tears because the ending was so sad.

My father, Wong Soon Cheong, who was born in Kuah, Langkawi, laid the foundation for my love of Malay movies, and the works of the legendary P. Ramlee, himself a Penangite. And the one cinema that showed mainly Malay movies was the Paramount at Prangin Road.

As I write this article, I could see that we were really spoilt for choice back then and these were some of the cinemas I recall.

The Capitol, Paramount, Royal and Eastern have all been demolished to make way for new developments. At the New World Park, there were the Lido and the Globe, the latter being a semi-open cinema, which allowed those who did not buy tickets to watch the movie from outside.

Then, of course, there were Odeon cinema (still open) in Penang Road, the Rex cinema (now a home furnishing store) in Burmah Road, the Star cinema (now a lighting shop) in Datuk Keramat Road, the Capitol cinema also at Penang Road, the Gala cinema (defunct) in Aboo Siti Lane, the Majestic cinema (abandoned) in Phee Choon Road, the Sun cinema (discotheque) off Campbell Street, the Metro cinema (now the office of Sculpture at Work) in Perak Road, Movieland (demolished) next to City Bayview Hotel, the Wembly cinema (demolished) in Noordin Street, the Kok Pin cinema (a supermarket now) and the Choong Nam cinema (now a church) in Ayer Itam.

By the Gama Supermarket, which is where Penang Road, Datuk Keramat Road and Brick Kiln Road meet, there used to be an open patch of land where the giant-sized posters promoting the movies were placed. This stretch has now been renamed Jalan Gurdwara after the Sikh temple located in its vicinity.

By the time I was in school, with my parents being more generous with my allowance, I became more addicted to movies.

In the late 1970s, when John Travolta’s Saturday Night Fever reached Penang, I skipped school to make sure I was the first in the queue to buy a ticket. Many young people watched the movies countless times at the Rex cinema just to learn the dance steps.

It was also the era of the Hui Brothers — Sam, Michael and Ricky — with their wacky sense of humour, portraying the struggling lives of the working class in Hong Kong, in their comedy blockbusters made between 1974 and 1981.

Those were our growing-up years as teenagers and taking a girl out on a date meant taking her to watch a movie. It was best and most affordable, if not the healthiest way, to meet members of the opposite sex.

Interestingly enough, men and women were segregated at the ticket counters and the men would always try to get the women to buy tickets for them, provided they did not exceed their quota of four tickets.

The women’s queue was always shorter but I am sure some of the men just wanted to pick up girls by asking for this favour.

And it was also a time when X-rated movies were allowed to be shown. We were too young to be admitted but we could remember the uncles from our neighbourhood looking rather sheepish as they queued up for tickets.

But was it the good old times? I am not sure. The cineplexes are cleaner now, the sound system is better and the seats more comfortable. If you pay more, you even get a blanket with a reclining seat and a cup of soft drink and popcorn.

Gone are the “carpets” of kuaci shells on the floor and scurrying rats are only memories of the past.

The smokers, which we had to tolerate back then, have finally disappeared but are replaced by people who talk or send SMSes on their mobile phones.

And with today’s online booking, who could have imagined that there was a time when scalpers selling over-priced tickets did roaring business each time a blockbuster was screened?

Vibrant: King’s Street is home to Penang’s Little India.

FATE works in mysterious ways. I joined The Star as a rookie reporter after finishing Sixth Form in 1980. We were called cub reporters then.

Being accepted into The Star, which had by then emerged as a major player in the English media, was a dream come true as I loved the English language and had a knack for writing.

The salary was paltry and unlike the college students of today, whose parents buy them a car even before they earn their first ringgit, my first mode of transport was the trusty Honda 70 motorcycle, known affectionately by all Penangites as the kapcai. I had to take care of the monthly loan instalments myself.

The Star’s headquarters was a three-storey building in Pitt Street, which has since been renamed Jalan Mesjid Kapitan Keling. It may not be considered big by today’s standards, but it was a grand building with an old-fashioned lift, which was fitted with grilles.

Captain Francis Light named the road Pitt Street after former British Prime Minister William Pitt The Younger. A British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Pitt became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24. He left office in 1801 but returned to the post two years later, and died in 1806.

He was known as The Younger to distinguish from his father, William Pitt the Elder, who was also a Prime Minister.

Readers of today who have seen the movie Amazing Grace will get a peek into his life through the story of his friend William Wilberforce, who fought hard to abolish the slave trade in the UK.

Today, as the name denotes, the road has been named after the famous mosque built in the 19th century by Indian Muslim traders in George Town.

Clan house: The Toi Shan building in King’s Street, Penang. The temple (left) and ancestral hall (right) underwent renovation works.

The Star’s smoke-filled newsroom then, filled with the clickety-clack sound of the typewriters — almost an antique machine now — was intoxicating for me. I fell in love with the place.

I was interviewed by the chief editor H’ng Hung Yong, who had degrees in law and political from Oxford and Harvard respectively. A scholar and an intellectual, he was certainly the man who turned The Star from a regional newspaper into a mass-circulation national daily.

The other iconic figure who was at the same interview was the late Khor Cheang Kee, whose son Martin Khor, continues to write a weekly column in The Star each Monday.

There were other interesting figures. The late Oh Kee Tiang, a bald-headed news editor cut a frightening figure as he would throw a badly-written news report at the offending reporter. He was the huge-sized discipline master, with the rotan, we all remembered as students then.

Then, there was chief reporter Anna Cheah, who was my idea of the hard-nosed reporter, as portrayed in the comic character Brenda Starr.

Anna was a striking figure, in fact, a leggy head-turner, who seemed to know everyone in town. But she was loud, chain smokes and someone you do not want to mess with.

But I was drawn into The Star building, certainly one of the most stately buildings in Penang, in many ways. It had a history of being a kind of opium and liquor distribution centre.

It was, for some strange reasons, known as the Opium and Spirit Farm Offices, which was in charge of a system of government tenders for a variety of enterprises from gambling to tobacco.

The British colonial government had the monopoly of this trade by controlling, regulating and “privatising” it to the highest bidder.

Stronghold: The Star’s office in Pitt Street in 1974.

It was such a lucrative business that the trade raised half of the total annual revenue of the Straits Settlement government, according to Khoo Salma Nasution.

“The holders of the lucrative monopoly in turn farmed out licences for the preparation and sale of opium to sub-contractors, who then retailed the product at two to three times the cost of the raw Indian import. From these enormous profits, the ‘farmer’ had to provide the preventive measures against smuggling and illegal distribution,” she wrote.

Members of the syndicate extended their prosperity through inter-marriage, in an era when multiple wives and broods of children allowed ample opportunities for the elite families to be united, she added.

This building was built in 1906 at a cost of 48,767 Straits Dollars and rented out to the contractors for 900 Straits Dollars a month.

“It served as a godown and dispensary for candu or cooked opium and samsu, an alcohol distilled from rice and sugar, “ wrote Khoo, but by then the anti-opium movement also gained more support from the public.

In the 1970s, The Star building was also used by the late tycoon Loh Boon Siew as a Honda showroom. In fact, it was the first Malaysian Honda showroom in the country.

He had noticed the popularity of the Honda Super Cub motorcycles on a trip to Japan and quickly convinced its creator Soichiro Honda to market the motorcycles in Malaysia. Boon Siew was appointed the sole distributor and he brought in the first 50 units, according to reports.

The late tycoon went on to play a role in the development of The Star when he came in as a shareholder.

As fate would have it, I was born just behind The Star building at King’s Street or Penang’s Little India. The address on my birth certificate, which stated “89, King’s Street” no longer exists, but there are still older residents who recalled a midwife’s clinic along the road.

Still standing: Jalan Mesjid Kapitan Keling is named after the Kapitan Keling Mosque. This pictures shows the landmark before it was restored.

King’s Street was at one time called “The Street of Boatmen” by the Indians because southern Indian Muslim sailors and stevendores were said to live along the road, although there are also many Chinese clan association buildings representing the Hakka, Hokkien and Cantonese.

Of interest is the Wu Ti Meow temple of the Toi San association, which to dedicated to Guan Gong, a war general from the epic Romance of The Three Kingdoms.

“The signboard over the temple entrance was written by Leong Ting Fen, a central government officer in China, who worked as a teacher and calligrapher while in exile in the 1890s for criticising the Prime Minister.

“After the Boxer Rebellion, he regained imperial favour with the Empress Dowager and was appointed a tutor to Puyi, the last emperor of China,” according to Khoo Salma’s book Streets of George Town.

Six months after I began work as a reporter, I had to resign to enrol at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia to study political science and history, but my heart never left The Star.

A day after I finished my final paper in 1984, I rejoined the newspaper at Pitt Street, where Ng Poh Tip was then the Penang editor. “Miss Ng” as I called her then, and even now, was a respectable journalist who had just returned from a stint at Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.

It was clear even back then that Ng, who has a Masters degree in political science, was being groomed for a bigger role and she rose to become the first woman Group Chief Editor (GCE) in The Star. She is a kind-hearted woman who cut a matron-like figure, and she accepted me back into The Star without even a formal interview.

Lucky for me, both H’ng and Ng were former students of St Xavier’s Institution, and certainly the old students’ network, which seemed vital at that time, must have helped.

Interestingly enough, after Ng, two Xaverians — Datuk Wong Sulong and Michael Aeria — occupied the GCE position until I formally took over in 2008.

I met many interesting people as colleagues and interns during my six years in Penang, and one of them was Khoo Salma who joined the newspaper as a reporter. She went on to become an author and publisher of books about Penang’s history, which is why she has become an important source of information for this column.

Betty Chew, the wife of Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, was also an intern at the Penang office as a student from Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Betty also did an internship at the Malacca office of Utusan Malaysia. As fate would have it, she would hang out at The Star’s Malacca office which was nearby to the State government buildings. It was in that office that our then Malacca bureau chief M. Veera Pandiyan introduced her to Guan Eng, who was also a regular visitor to office.

My life at the original The Star building ended in 1990 when I was summoned by the national news editor Nizam Mohamed to help in the coverage of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

The main office of The Star had shifted to KL by then. I asked Nizam which hotel I would be staying in while I was in KL, but he was evasive and non-commital.

As it turned out, when I reported to him in KL, he handed me a letter stating that I had been transferred with immediate effect.

There was no mention of a pay rise to meet the cost of living in a city nor was there was even a transfer allowance to help me settle down. But I am certainly where I am now because of this interesting twist of fate.

The Star’s building in Jalan Mesjid Kapitan Keling has continued to live on. Last year, as the newspaper celebrated its 40th anniversary, the pre-war building was given a new lease of life. Beautifully renovated, it is now set to be the home of the Penang Phiharmonic Orchestra.

The Star’s Penang headquarters is now at Bayan Lepas but we continue to maintain a city office on the ground floor while the orchestra will have free use of the top floor for five years.

It has been about 29 years since I became part of The Star family but it will be the early years in the Penang office, where it all began, that will have a lasting memory for me.

Magnificent: The 30.2m-high bronze statue of the Goddess of Mercy adds grandeur to the Kek Lok Si temple in Air Itam.

MENTION Air Itam and what comes to mind is the famed Kek Lok Si temple, the Penang Hill railway, the State Mosque or Masjid Negeri, nutmegs and laksa asam.

The Kek Lok Si has become even grander with its 30.2m-high bronze Goddess of Mercy statue, making it the largest Buddhist temple in the region.

The same cannot be said about Penang Hill, which has lost much of its ambience and even cool breeze, while the funicular railway breaks down too many times.

I was born at 89, King’s Street in George Town, but was fortunate enough to grow up in a new 1960s suburb in Jalan Kampung Melayu, Air Itam.

My father, who made a small fortune from the rubber boom, bought a double-storey terrace house at the once leafy neighbourhood.There were plenty of swaying coconut trees and even rambutan trees, which grew in the compounds of our neighbours, for the plucking.

But the best part of my teenage years in Kampung Melayu was spending time at a river nearby which was abundant with peacock fish, or more precisely guppies, and also the occasional catfish or two.

Every Penangite is aware that the catfish that we love in our curries are the sea variety while those from the rivers tend to have a muddy taste.

Little change: The over-congested Air Itam market area is almost the same as it was decades ago.

But for teenagers, hunting catfish in the river can be quite an adventure. All you needed was a stick with a pointed end and as you walk along the river, you look out for one in the nooks and crannies and take a stab at it. This was when the principle of refraction in water that we learned in Science class came in handy.

Of course, one had to be extra careful and watch out for snakes in the water.

Although Air Itam means black water, the tributary that ran through Kampung Melayu was clear and clean. My parents did not worry about me suffering from skin problems.

Although they feared that we would get bitten by snakes, they were just as excited to see what my brothers and I collected from the river.

My parents, now in their 80s, still live in the house they bought. The coconut and rambutan trees are gone though.

Dr Faridah Abdul Rashid, who wrote a book on Malay doctors in early Malaya and Singapore, said Kampung Melayu “is possibly the only British-created Malay reserve on Penang island, and which had survived till today”.

Quoting local historian Abdur Razzaq Lubis, she wrote that in 1933, the Penang Malay Association (Persatuan Melayu Pulau Pinang) submitted a memorandum to the Colonial Office in London, for the creation of a Malay reserve in Air Itam.

“The memorandum was drafted by Dr Kamil Mohamed Arif, Captain Mohamad Nor Mohamad and Captain Syed Salleh Alsagoff. A piece of land in Air Hitam costing RM40,000 was purchased for the purpose and the settlement became known as Kampung Melayu, Air Itam, the one and only Malay reserve in the Straits Settlement.”

But there are more historic gems. The mausoleum of Sheikh Omar Bashir is in Kampung Melayu but many, including residents, would not be aware of its location, let alone its signifance.

Nestled among some kampung houses, the mausoleum of Sheik Omar Basheer is a Moorish-style shrine with a white exterior.

Popular: Nasi kandar Kampung Melayu is easily the country’s best.

Sheik Omar Basheer Al-Khalidi was a highly regarded imam at the Acheen Street Mosque and trusted by the British during the famous Penang riot in 1867.

It had been written that the head of Malay families were made to swear in front of Sheik Omar Basheer that they did not support the secret societies of Hai San and Ghee Hin in 1867.

According to the Streets of George Town, he settled in Kampung Melayu at the invitation of his sufi disciple Syed Hassan Al-Haru, the founder of the original Air Itam mosque. Syed Hassan had inherited the land from his adopted father, who worked with Captain Francis Light.

Not far from Kampung Melayu are the foothills of Penang Hill, where Light set out the island’s agriculture hub, growing vegetables, flowers, nutmeg and pepper.

In fact, Australian-based historian Marcus Langdon has even claimed that the first botanic garden was set up in the middle of Air Itam valley in 1794.

He said Irish botanist Christopher Smith set up a small garden on a 10.5ha plot in the valley, adding that Smith later set up another garden in Sungai Keluang in Bayan Lepas on a 158ha site.

Langdon, who specialises in Penang’s early history under the East India Company from 1786 to 1858, said Smith chose Penang to be the nursery for thousands of nutmeg and clove plants brought in from the Molucca Island (Maluku Islands) in Indonesia over a six-year period.

“The responsibility of breaking the monopoly of the Dutch on the highly valuable nutmegs and cloves, as well as delivering a new source of revenue to the East India Company fell almost solely on Christopher Smith,” he reportedly said.

According to reports on the Internet, the Maluku Islands, located between Sulawesi and New Guinea, were commonly referred to as Spice Islands and was once the only source of mace and nutmeg.

The Penang Botanic Gardens in Jalan Kebun Bunga were established in 1884 from an old quarry site under the supervision of Charles Curtis, who became its first superintendent.

Today, I still make it a point to visit my parents in Kampung Melayu, at least once every month, making my food pilgrimage to my favourite eating spots.

Topping the list has to be the country’s best nasi kandar stall at the low-cost flats, the Teochew braised duck rice at the annex of the Air Itam wet market and, of course, the duck roll rice noodles or koay chiap at the Wah Meng café, near the Paya Terubong bridge, where the best coffee is served.

An elderly couple still sell curry mee, where the aroma-rich soup is kept boiling over hot charcoal, and their customers have to sit on stools.

At the Reservoir Garden-Air Itam road junction, where the Keat Seng coffeeshop still exists, I remember the char koay teow came with crab meat and bamboo mussels, besides prawns and cockles! Of course, no one cooks like this any more.

But there are plenty of historical facts that will be lost if we do not share them with the next generation. Near the market, opposite the police station, it used to be a tram stop. In 1906, trams connected the General Post Office in George Town and Air Itam, with eight cars operating.

The trams were replaced in 1935 by trolley buses, which operated through the war years until they were replaced by diesel buses, according to reports.

The late tycoon, Lim Goh Tong, had his earliest break when he was given a contract in the construction of the Ayer Itam dam, the first time where a local contractor was given a project of such magnitude.

The old Air Itam market area remains almost as it used to be decades ago with the vegetable sellers fighting any plans to move them away from this over-congested area.

Not bad for a small village that once consisted only of attap-roofed homes, which were razed to the ground in 1934 on Chinese New Year’s Eve.

And as fate would have it, my wife is also from Air Itam. She grew up at a simple zinc-roofed home opposite the police station and going home for Chinese New Year, thankfully, has never been a difficult issue, as with many couples who come from different states.

Readers write

Reader Klang Boy emailed: “I often go to Padang Brown, where the food stalls, are located. The best popiah and Chinese-style pasembor, I swear, are there but can you shed some light on who is Brown? I also see a memorial there.

Histori cal figure: The memorial dedicated to David Brown in Padang Datuk Kramat, which is known as Padang Brown to the older Penangites.

Chun Wai: To younger Penangites, the playing field opposite Convent Datuk Kramat is simply Padang Datuk Kramat, named after an ascetic of Tamil and possibly Acehnese origin, of the 18th century, according to history books. To the Chinese, the area is called kam mah hui or orange groves. But older Penangites call the field Padang Brown, after David Brown, who was a business partner of Captain Francis Light. The other partner was James Scott. Brown was a lawyer from Edinburgh before making his way to Penang. As the largest landowner in Penang in his time, he had property in Glugor. He was rich enough to donate his land for the construction of the Snake Temple and Sungai Glugor Mosque, according to Khoo Salma Nasution.

Reader George Loh said he is a regular visitor to Kimberley Street but has no idea who is this man.

Chun Wai: The road is named after the Earl of Kimberley, who was Secretary of State for the Colonies in the 1870s. In short, he was a very powerful British official. To the local Hokkiens, the road is called sua thow kay or Swatow, a port city in Guangdong, southern China. It is very much part of Chinatown with its predominantly Chinese working-class population. Some of the best street food can be found there.

Reader James Kay wants to know more about Macalister, after whom another road is named.

Chun Wai: The road is in honour of Colonel Norman Macalister, who was the Colonel Commander of the Artillery Department and a close friend of Captain Francis Light. Another influential British official, he went on to become a Governor of Penang from 1807 to 1811.