TRIBUTE ABDUL - Perdana Library

Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra AI-Haj
Some Personal Glimpses
(JAMES F. AUGUSTIN)
Although a statesman of international stature Tunku
Abdul Rahman is at heart very much a human being. To me,
through the years, he has always been the same likeable,
slightly shy, fun-loving boy whom I first met at Alor Star
in 1918 when he came home from the Penang Free School
for the holidays.
Then, as now, the Tunku liked friends and believed that
it was a social duty to make the lives of others pleasant. As
his guests he brought to Alor Star a party of schoolmates.
They played soccer against the Government English School
(now, the Sultan Abdul Hamid College) and took on
Mr. J. S. W. Arthur's XI at hockey.
The Tunku did the honours royally. Among other acts
of hospitality he took his visitors for drives round the town
in the Sultan's horse-drawn coach, and the whole group which
included some of the local boys and I, posed for a photograph
in front of the Balai Besar, with the Tunku as the central
figure. It was at this time that preparations were being made
to send him to a public school in England.
Ten years before this the Tunku had had his first taste
of schooling. He was only four and the Government English
School had been opened by the late Mr. Mohamed Jskandar.
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