Memories of Malaya - 11. What the Dickens-lah!

My father continues his Memories of Malaya series, with more recollections of the joys of reading during his childhood.

He writes:

When we grew a little older my Mother would borrow books from the Kuala Lumpur Public Library which was well stocked with books of detective stories, mystery stories and books for teenagers.

The library was started by the British expatriates and it catered for the lonely planters in their rubber plantations and miners in their tin mines where the nearest neighbour could be some distance away. Most of them did not go in for literature. There were some books of literature which were for the civil servants. The books my Mother borrowed were by Enid Blyton: her famous five series which we found thrilling and “unputdownable” as the Americans say. Then we graduated to reading “Children of the New Forest” by Captain Marryat, Treasure Island (the abridged version) 20,000 leagues Under the Sea, etc.

Then there were the memorable few months when the whole family minus my Mother read Charles Dickens’ “David Copperfield.” All four of us brothers would sit around a table each with a copy of the book. The four of us read the book together. Our ages ranged from ten, my youngest brother, eleven, twelve and thirteen, myself. So although my youngest brother was only ten he was going through the same exercise as myself. In fact this brother also joined us in the Chinese lessons when the tutor came to the house to teach all of us at the same time. This early start for my youngest brother meant that he grew up to be extremely able scholastically and I’m proud to say he topped the country in the Cambridge School Certificate in both the “O” and “A” levels.

My Father would be lying on a kind of sofa-bed holding his own copy of the book. Each of us would take turns to read a page or two from it. The reading would usually start about 9.00 pm after we have had dinner and it went on until eleven or so until my Father got tired when we would stop. We enjoyed the reading sometime but I became irritable when I became sleepy but we did not stop until my Father said so. We became fond of the characters like Mr Peggotty and Betsy Trotwood, the eccentric aunt who treated David Copperfield with kindness. I tended to identify Mr Murdoch, David’s stepfather, with my Father because they were both equally harsh and strict as my Father was with us sometimes. My Father would make us stop to look up in the dictionary if we could not give an accurate meaning of a word. I must say that my vocabulary was very much improved from these reading sessions.

I still remember learning the words “simultaneously” which appears in the first paragraph at the beginning of the book and “vicissitude” which is a chapter heading. We became so fond of the eccentric aunt that we name our two dogs, one “Betsy” and the other “Trotty” for Trotwood. Father would always tell us to enjoy the English language. When we finished the book my Father wanted to start it all over again but fortunately for some reason, I cannot remember, this second reading was not pursued.