TMS
THE EARLY POST WAR YEARS
(Acknowledgements with gratitude to authors of TMS Annuals 1951-57 and 1974 for pictues and captions printed herewith below and in other blogs on TMS by KP HISTORY Author)
The lost years of the 2nd World War led to a scramble for English education throughout Malaya. The return of Engish teachers such a Miss Lomas of pre war years to TMS was a big boost for Primary school education . The above is one of the early staff photos on TMS in perhaps (I stand corrected) its first post war School Magazine - The Annual with Mr Ogle the Headmaster . Most of the pre war pictures are lost as the school was looted and turned into a Kampetai (Japanese Military Police) interrogation centre. A rare picture that shows its age below is a survivor from the 1937 or so era of school children performing a multi cutural dance on the padang - a forerunner of 1 Malaysia perhaps !
The rapid demand for space post war in the then new TMS building built in 1930, meant temporary use of wooden buildings that was next to the firts TMS a club pre war behind what was the present Police Station on Bahau Road (opposite the stadiumKP) for Primary 1 and 2 classes in 1948. But this was simply not enough. More wooden attap-thatched roofed buildings were built next the the Hostel in TMS (on grounds said to be the burial grounds for torture victims of the Kempetai) but by 1951 even these were insufficient. In a noble effort to provide education students teachers and people together built 4 classrooms on the rubber estate hillside opposite to TMS school hall. The picture above shows the completed block aptly named the Public Subscription Block.The block was built on the hillside after a large part of the hillside was levelled. That was done by schoolboys who instead of PT spent the morning hour cutting the hillside with cangkul (hoe) and filling in one of two wooden carts and dump the same at the far end, thus levelling the same little by little. one of the carts was an abandoned wooden hearse ! A list of donors too long to list here had some donating RM 5 and others 25 and a few 200, a princely sum those days considering that a junior teacher earned 160RM a month and a young doctor just 450RM a month.
More to come !
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