The Burning of the British Pound

Late grandpa was attending to his mandore duty when his co-mandore called him. In rubber estates, they have a very unique way of communicating. Each person who wants to call out will do so in a sing song manner, throwing his/her voice as far as possible – sounds a little like birds. Only once grandpa demonstrated the technique to me, yes, sound actually can travel over a distance.

So, the co-mandore called grandpa who was working in another part of the rubber estate using his primitive technology and when grandpa arrived at the estate office (I think, the rubber estate was owned by Harrisons Plantations then), he was told that the Japanese had landed in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Kota Bharu is the border town between Malaya and Thailand (used to be known as Siam). The Japanese entered using bicycles, mind you! A little bit of history – as Japanese conquered countries across Asia, the Siam King had made a deal -His Majesty had agreed for Japanese to pass through in return for not occupying Siam. Thus, the Japanese never occupied Siam/Thailand.

The co-mandore told him that their white man boss had asked them to empty the safe in the estate office and burn all the British currency they had kept there. In the olden days, the safes were built into the wall, crossed with a heavy iron plank, held in place by two huge padlocks. Each key would be held by one person, that was their risk mitigation. If he safe needed to be opened, both key bearers need to be present.

However, on that day, the co-mandore had both keys and both, grandpa and he started emptying the safe. Apparently, there were bundles and bundles of British currency in that safe. While grandpa started a fire, his co-mandore started removing the currency notes. Not all the notes were thrown into the bonfire. As grandpa watched, the other man started stuffing the currency notes into his pockets! Late grandpa was a loyal employee who followed instructions to the T.

His friend’s actions baffled him. Why, he asked. `Look here, anna (brother), the white Bosses have all ran away to Singapore. They will go back to England from there. No one is going to save us. One day the Japanese will go away, then we can use this money,’ he said as he stuffed more notes into his pockets. Grandpa just watched. After burning as much as they could and having stuffed enough in his pocket, the co-mandore and grandpa returned to their homes.

In hindsight, looks like the co-mandore did the smart thing, not right, but smart. The Japanese occupation ended in 1945 after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed and when the British returned, their currency was back in circulation. Grandpa said, the last he heard, his co-mandore had used the money he stashed away to set up a farm and rear cows somewhere in the southern part of the Peninsular. And grandpa? The loyal employee was poor as ever and I remember him showing me one note that he had kept all those years. I asked him – grandpa, why did you take just one? You should have taken more so that we will also be rich now. To that he answered, `I didn’t think it was right to steal from the hand that fed me.’ Yes, gramps, it was not right, and you did the right thing.