Kampung Guru – An Overview In the 50s

My thoughts of Kampung Guru is still fresh in my mind.  I can’t help talking about Kg Guru because it has direct links to Anglo Chinese School as well as St Anthony and Convent in Teluk Anson.  Most of the teachers of ACS live in Kg Guru.  Their children grew up there. One way or the other, our childhood in Kg Guru did shaped our lives.

Kampung Guru in the early 50s

Kampung Guru is situated about 3 miles away from Teluk Anson town, along Changkat Jong Road.  Most noticeable landmark while travelling on a bus from town, was the Hup Soon Bus Depot on the left which use to be my marker for me to be ready to ring the bus bell, so that my 10 cents bus trip would stop right in front of the entrance of Kg. Guru.  From the rattling sliding window of the bus I use to enjoy watching the hundreds of pigeons, that would fly off from their pigeon shed built on a tall wooden pole.  It was simply fascinating to see them flutter their wings for a short flight.  I remember how Dad use to say about the birds there. He would say "Ornithological Species of Identical plumage tend to congregate in closer proximity" with a sneer.  I think he just wanted to show off his command of the English language. He could have just said “Birds of the same feathers flock together!”  Anyway, back then, Kg Guru was basically like that. It was multiracial community living harmoniously. This was what it was like in the 50s. It was the best of times free from any creative and innovative politician.

Impressively, Kg. Guru was the first Multi-racial Cooperative housing project in Malaya!  The idea was mooted by Mr William Edward Perera, the first principal of ACS just after the war.  He together with some teachers and ex teachers of various schools in Teluk Anson, formed the cooperative in 1952.  The Coop bought a piece of rubber plantation and built Kg. Guru.  That was how it all began.

In 1953, we moved from our bookshop house in Anson Road which our family had lived since dad established his bookshop in 1925, to our banglow at No 9, Kg Guru. It was a start of our new life living in a kampong of brick bungalows with its unique round windows in a spatial landscape of greenery without fences.

I was 3 then, and we had just celebrated the coronation of Queen Elizabeth where the whole town was beautifully decorated with the Union Jacks, buntings, flags of red white and blue.  There were “God Save the Queen” everywhere. No wonder she is well saved. It must be the prayers of her subjects throughout her empire where the sun never set.

My neighbor on my right was Mr Leow Say Ying, my Oral English teacher when I was in Form 1 (His children Leow Shing Onn, Quee Onn, Chee Onn, Kam Leng and a few more I can’t remember).  On my left was the Lim family ( Lim Chong Eng, Lim Chong Huat and Molly Lim).

Talking of Mr Leow, I can never forget the day how Mercury, Leow Shing Onn’s dog bit my ear.  I was about 4 then. I must have yelled so loud and made the dog run for it’s life.  Anyway, I think the whole neighborhood rushed me to hospital. That was my first anti tetanus shot and it was more painful than the dog bite!