This map is to help you find your way through the region. The centre of the district is Kulim. The estate is called BMR. It lies to the east of Kulim. Serdang is not marked and it is on the south side. The main industrial crop is Rubber. The whole region has undergone a tremendous change since the early days. Kulim is now the hub of many industries including the manufacture of IBM parts.



Imaging the dim past__ British administration period
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The Japanese Military Administration came to an abrupt end when it surrendered on the 15th of August 1945. This ushered a new phase in the history of the country. For several weeks before the arrival of the Allied Forces, the Malayan Peoples’ anti Japanese Army (MPAJA) took the opportunity to emerge from the jungle. In their new green uniform and their three star-cap they went on a rampage arresting and killing the traitors who co-operated with the Japanese. As soon as the British and Indian troops arrived the British Military Administration (BMA) was established and the ugly phase was put to an end..
We were transferred back to BMR to find the former house being occupied by two families and we were left with one room to ourselves. The illegal occupants were evicted within days. While we were there we helped mum to sell home made cakes to keep ourselves occupied. What dad did to regain the confidence of the British administrators and to move back into active service remains a mystery. Before we were properly settled we were uprooted again. This time we found ourselves transferred to Sungai Patani. It was here where we saw the Japanese prisoners of war at close quarters being made to clean up the environment and to repair sewage pipes.
No sooner had we settled down we were move to Ipoh. We were there for six months. Dad got me and Gilbert admitted into St. Michael’s Institution in the middle of the year and we had some difficulty because the classes were chockablock. I was put in standard three.
Dad was given a choice between going to Christmas Island or Badenock Estate (between Kuala Ketil and Baling -- see map)-- some distance away from Kulim, towards the northeast. He chose the latter. Since we had to continue with our education mum decided to settle in Kulim. Life became more stable and the first thing we did was to go back to school to resume our education which was very chequered.

Imaging the dim past ----- turbulent times continued
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The feeling of insecurity was always with us. Rumours of imminent trouble remained rife. On this night we were hurriedly ushered into one of the buildings under construction to hide. The adults had wind that something was about to happen. It was late and the night was dark. Suddenly a shrill scream was heard in the distance. Then another. Half an hour later the victims, a couple of Chinese ahmas (servants) were brought to the house to be treated for stab wounds and burnt marks. They had been attacked by robbers.
Many months after that incident and soon after Evelyn’s birth we were transferred to Serdang some distance south of the administrative centre, Kulim. Dad must have been recalled to join the workforce.. We were too young to know the details. We remained in Serdang till the end of the Japanese occupation. Dad was away from home most of the time. His visits were few and far between. Nevertheless we remained in contact. One of the jobs mum had to do for him was to transport rolls of copper wires from another estate. We left very early one morning on a bullock cart with me at the driver’s seat. It took us a whole day to complete the job. On another visit he came home with a sack slung over his back. The content was made up of bundles of Japanese currency. They were not worth much.
Mum was very resourceful. She hired a plot of sawah (wetland )for growing rice . We had a constant supply of vegetable and tapioca including sweet potatoes from the garden next to the house. We also kept chickens and a solitary piglet which I had to kill for food. I was the only one who could undertake to do all the killing especially of chickens. Our living conditions were quite comfortable.
On one occasion we went for a swim in the river not far from the house. Kitty gave a loud scream to let us know that she had caught a fish. As she tried to lift it above the water she realized that it a snake. Shock horror, she threw it away and made for the river bank.
The three of us, Florence, Gilbert and me were the only ones who attended a Malay school a short distance from home. The short cut to school took us through a thick belukar (secondary forest) . We learnt Malay and Japanese and several other basic subjects. I always sat at the back of the class. Whenever we had mental sums I was one of those who could give the correct answer. The teacher would ask us to go to the front and slap the faces of all those who failed to provide the correct solution. It was common practice and widely accepted.
I was quite fluent in Japanese and I remember having a conversation with a soldier who came to the house to ask for an egg. He thought I spoke well.
Rev. Father Vendargon who later became a bishop visited us two or three times from Sungai Petani. His main means of transportation throughout the state of Kedah was his bicycle. He would stay with us for the night, serve mass the next morning and leave for another visit to his perishoners.
James was born in Serdang towards the end of the occupation.

Imaging the dim past ---- turbulent times
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The Japanese occupation lasted three years and eight months. They were turbulent times. Our education was in complete abeyance. Dad did not have a permanent job. And we moved house a least twice. It was a real struggle to stay alive.
We were at the estate when the Japanese came. Each time the planes flew overhead the whole family would dash into the bathroom to seek shelter just in case they dropped their load of bombs. At one stage we went deeper into the plantation for safety and remained there for only a couple of days because it offered no solution.
Dad was still with the home guard and when he realized that the British had bolted he dropped his gear -- his uniform, his truncheon, and his gun into the pit latrine. He decided it was suicidal to face the enemy all by himself. He made mum sew the rising sun to fly over the roof. Two days later the place was swarming with Japanese, groups of them riding through the estate on bikes. This was followed by a lull.
We had not seen any enemy soldier for a couple of days. Dad decided to have a calf slaughtered to sell for food. The sale was brisk -----but towards four pm a group of soldiers appeared. They ordered the meat to be put into a metal container and made dad carry it as they marched away pointing a bayonet at dad‘s back. We had no idea where they took him to and when he failed to return late that evening we thought the worst had happened. He got back very late in the night and related how he escaped the worst punishment. When he was being interrogated by the soldiers he spoke in Chinese. This put the Commandant at ease and dad was released . Dad was good at Hockkien as he spoke the dialect all the time.
Days went by and to earn some income dad started a small business selling mostly daily essentials. He would cycle through the rubber estates taking the shortest route to Penang to purchase the consumables. He took me along with him on one of his trips and we crossed the channel to Penang by a sampan. He would never fail to include, among the items bought, a few books from the secondhand bookshops for us to read.
We kept a small flock of goats and mum grew vegetables in the garden next to the house. One day one of the kids died and the four of us held a funeral service which included a short procession accompanied by the banging of drum and the clashing of metal can lids to precede the burial.
We would involve ourselves in play acting to occupy our time beside helping to manage the stall. I have to relate this incident because it had a tragic ending. We played at soldiering. We would march along four feet deep trench located not far from the house. Florence was at the end of the line. Suddenly we heard a loud scream. We turned round to find her screaming in pain. She had stepped on a broken bottle and was bleeding profusely. We called out for help and dad came. He carried her back to the house and sewed up the cut on her ankle with a piece of string and a sewing needle. She recovered within a few days.

Imaging the dim past ___ 1941

1941 saw me attending school at St Xavier’s Penang . The only reason why I had to go all the way to Penang , 24 or so miles away, was because there was no similar institution closer to home and even if there was one I had to have somewhere to board. Penang was a excellent solution because I could stay with my Aunt at Datok Kramat , it was the same school my dad went to and the school was within reach by a rickshaw. I was seven plus and I was very independent and a bit precocious.
In the interim dad had completed his course of studies to qualify him as a first grade dresser or nurse if you prefer to call him that. Actually he was more than a nurse (male nurse) because he had to look into the administration of the whole hospital of two large wards (male and female) capable of housing at least thirty patients. Admission was free for the estate labourers
I have been tutored by dad at home and that made my transition to school very uncomplicated. What I did at school I have no recollection whatsoever. I remember the things I did out of school hours more vividly. At weekends we would go to the pictures in the afternoon or hire bikes for a ride round the locality . I remember this incident very clearly. I was riding a small bike behind the tin smelter. I was with a friend We had gone up a steep ramp and on the descent I turned left into a side street and I was shocked to see a rickshaw in front of me,. I panicked and as I did not have much room to steer the bike out of its way I rammed right into it. Luckily no one was injured.
Sometimes I liked to have breakfast of rice and curry. I would go to a hawker stall run by an Indian muslim and ask for 5 cents worth of rice with lots of curry gravy. (lima sen nasi quah banyak-banyak). It was cheap in those days.
Mum would visit me frequently throughout that year and in December she took me home for the holidays but on the 17th of December Penang fell into the hands of the Japanese after a short spell of air attacks.

Imaging the dim past ___ early stage

19 July 1933 is a very significant date as far as I am concerned. It was the day I took my first huge gasp of air and that has kept me going ever since. I remained unaware of the things around me for quite a long time till I was about five and what I am about to reveal was unfolded to me by my parents, mostly mum. That first breath of fresh air took place at Kandang Kerbau Hospital in Singapore. How and why my parents went that far south remains a mystery to me.
Dad left for Batavia soon after my birth to visit his aunt. She was Dutch. Dad didn’t feel at home in Java. The lifestyle was strange to him and he didn’t like the way the Javanese were treated. Segregation kept the Whites apart from the common people. At the cinemas the first class was reserved for the whites. He decided to leave before the sixth month of his stay. From the day of our reunion we never heard from Batavia again.
We moved back to Penang after the sixth month . It was there where the two of them grew up. Dad was under the care of a certain Doctor Smith and later grew up in the orphanage at St Xavier’s .
I believe he met mum when he started working at the Penang general hospital.
The depression of the 19thirties was on and jobs were difficult to find. His first appointment as a hospital assistant in a Rubber Estate hospital, not far from the island, came in the nick of time. I grew up there and was soon joined by my siblings in a short period of four years. Dad had a motorbike and the three of us, mum dad and me, went everywhere at every opportunity on the bike with me riding on the tank and mum the pillion rider.
I started school at St Xavier’s institution when I was seven and I lived with my Aunt in Penang till the end of that year, when world war ll started.

Hi everybody. I am Peggy. This was taken in Adelaide when I was still teaching. How time flies.

This is a verticle view of the same photo of Gordon published below. The distance from the house and back after circuiting the lake is approximately 3.2 km. The adventure playground is right in the centre of the picture. This is an artificial lake made to hold sewage water before it enters the Murrumbidgee River.

(double click on the photo to enlarge it)

Satellite picture of part of Gordon and the lake which we often talk about.
The main road which runs roughly from right to left is Knoke Avenue. One street next to it (towards the right) is Maddock Place. Our house is close to the end of the culdesac on the right side. Our walk takes us round the lake/pond in an anticlockwise direction.
This satellite image is copied from Google Earth.
Search for Google Earth, download the software and roam from one point to another. It is an interesting exercise. I have been able to look at E&O Hotel and the Komtar tower, Penang.
Try it.

The real stuff after it has been harvested.

This is what a cauliflower looks like. We have had them growing in the garden for a large part of the year with no sign of any cauli. We destroyed six of the plants because we thought we had got the wrong variety and decided to keep only two to find out what happens if we waited for another month. At the end of the second month we were greatly surprised to see the white solid flower. We waited another month and we were well rewarded. It was delicious too - totally free of any toxin. 

This is the back view of the house. We are now facing North. 

Peggy and her close friends. News soon spreads around as soon Peggy appears in the distance. They gather around her in wait for their feed of multigrain or sometimes rye bread. It is interesting to watch them fight for their share. The most agile ones always win handsomely. You can also tell when they have had their fair share. They just waddle away for a drink of water and quietly resume their former activities as if to say, "See you later".

Computer Art No.2

Computer art No. 4 

Computer Art No. 3

This picture was taken in December 1971 just before we left Malaysia for Australia. Do you think you can identify some of the people present. Many of you were still being carried in the arms of your beloved parents. That's how long we have been away. 

Floriade: An Exhibition of Spring Flowers in the heart of Canberra

 

 

 

Enjoy the splendour of Malaysian Orchids

 

 

 

 

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Dielenberg Family Tree (four generations)

Christian Dielenberg <<>> Unknown

William Dielenberg (Sr) <<>> Khor Joo Ee

William (jr) <<>> Peggy Tay ---- Wendy + Claire
Florence
Gilbert <<>> Kow Swee See ---- Geraldine + Lionel + Pricilla
Kathleen <<>> _____ Cheong Kok Chee Eugene
Evelyn <<>> Walter---- Read Arnold + Brendan
James <<>> _____ ____ ____Angela ----Karen + Kevin
Half Brothers (mother’s name: Toh Guat Keong)
Teddy <<>>Ng Phaik Kim(Lily)---- Ivan + Damien
Francis <<>> Ng Paic Yung Cecillia ----Kenneth + Rodney


Fourth Generation

Wendy <<>> Paul Hunt ----Sarah+ Tashy
Claire << >> David Rainsford---- Hannah+ Benjamin+Victoria
Alok Gupta---- Olivia+ Chloe
Damian <<>> Serena May-In---- Tristan Yun+ Gareth Kai
Geraldine << >> _______ Benedict
Lionel <<>> ________
Eugene <<>>Jo-Anne de Vries---- Ethan
Arnold <<>>Sandra---- Caelan Walter+ Grace Christina
Kevin <<>>_________
Pricilla <<>> Lim Soon Meng

Kenneth <<>> Shereen---- Erica

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(Please contact me should you want changes to be made because of missing names or spelling mistakes)

It is very nervous and will disappear into the water as soon as it sees any intruder close by. 

This is a rare sight. It is a cormorant. It is very shy and is easily frightened.

Views from Canberra- The Australian Capital


Aboriginal Embassy ( meeting place of aboriginal people: located in front of the old parliament building)