On a flight between London Stanstead and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia I came across an interesting article that was very much an insight. The article describes a part of the life of Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, after independence from Britain in 1957. Tunku Abdul Rahman spent a few years in Britain studying at Cambridge University.
The writer of the article - Mansor Puteh, interviewed the Prime Minister back in 1989. He recalls when talking about his time in Cambridge, England there was some emotion shown by the Prime Minster, or as he was better known - "Tunku". Puteh is actually Tunku Abdul Rahman's brother in law and thus was able to spend much time in his company.
This particular article relates the experience of Mansor and his nephew traveling to England to follow in the footsteps of Tunku. They arrived at Stanstead Airport (the same airport I left from) and proceeded to Cambridge to begin the "journey". Tunku spent his time at St Catherine's College, Cambridge so Mansor visited one of his lodgings in Grange Road near to the college.
Strangely as it may seem, Tunku was not encouraged to live on the university campus. He was seen to be "different" than the typical Cambridge University student and did not "seem" to fit in. That was at least until the British advisor to Malaya was invited by the Sultan of Kedah (Tunku's father) to relate to the Dean of the university that Tunku was in actual fact a Prince in Malaysia.
The university Dean was totally shocked and proclaimed that of course he could live on campus but Tunku himself turned down the opportunity and chose to remain living off campus instead.
Tunku died at the age of 87 in 1990. The author of the article - Mansor Puteh, is a reputed Malaysian film maker and writer. He is at the moment working on a film entitled Malaysian Snow which focuses on the lives of a few Malaysian students studying in the UK. You can read the full article written by Puteh in the "Travel 3 Sixty" brochure.
The writer of the article - Mansor Puteh, interviewed the Prime Minister back in 1989. He recalls when talking about his time in Cambridge, England there was some emotion shown by the Prime Minster, or as he was better known - "Tunku". Puteh is actually Tunku Abdul Rahman's brother in law and thus was able to spend much time in his company.
This particular article relates the experience of Mansor and his nephew traveling to England to follow in the footsteps of Tunku. They arrived at Stanstead Airport (the same airport I left from) and proceeded to Cambridge to begin the "journey". Tunku spent his time at St Catherine's College, Cambridge so Mansor visited one of his lodgings in Grange Road near to the college.
Strangely as it may seem, Tunku was not encouraged to live on the university campus. He was seen to be "different" than the typical Cambridge University student and did not "seem" to fit in. That was at least until the British advisor to Malaya was invited by the Sultan of Kedah (Tunku's father) to relate to the Dean of the university that Tunku was in actual fact a Prince in Malaysia.
The university Dean was totally shocked and proclaimed that of course he could live on campus but Tunku himself turned down the opportunity and chose to remain living off campus instead.
Tunku died at the age of 87 in 1990. The author of the article - Mansor Puteh, is a reputed Malaysian film maker and writer. He is at the moment working on a film entitled Malaysian Snow which focuses on the lives of a few Malaysian students studying in the UK. You can read the full article written by Puteh in the "Travel 3 Sixty" brochure.
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