Another humorous incident about the Father of the Nation in the NST yesterday:

All Tunku wanted was ‘to mandi’, not Mandy

Reading a reprint of the Aug 26, 1957 edition of ‘The Straits Times’, Sit Hin Kin was reminded of a humorous incident involving Tunku

Reading a reprint of the Aug 26, 1957 edition of ‘The Straits Times’, Sit Hin Kin was reminded of a humorous incident involving Tunku

KUALA LUMPUR: Sit Hin Kin is a great admirer of the Tunku. And like so many people who were acquainted with Tunku Abdul Rahman, he has a humorous story to tell about our first prime minister.

The 71-year-old was reminded of a quirky incident that occurred in London when he came across an article with the headline “Templer (I want bath) flies in” in the reprint of the Aug 26, 1957 edition of The Straits Times.

“In the 1960s, the Tunku visited England at the height of the Christine Keeler scandal. She was a high society call girl, having an affair with the then British war minister, John Profumo, and a Russian naval attache at the same time. She had a good friend named Mandy Rice.

“When our good Tunku arrived at London Airport, our high commissioner asked him what he wanted to do first. The Tunku replied: ‘First, I want mandi.’

“The British reception party stiffened, the polite smiles frozen on their faces. They thought the Tunku wanted Mandy Rice,” he laughed.

Sit, the executive chairman of oil and gas firm Petro-Mekong Corp Sdn Bhd, said he was excited when the New Straits Times distributed reprints of the Aug 26, 1957 to Sept 1, 1957 editions of The Straits Times.The newspapers, reprinted to mark the 50th anniversary of independence, brought back a “flood of memories, especially the advertisements”, said Sit. Pointing to the Gammeters Ltd watch advertisement in one of the old newspapers, he recalled: “I fell in love with the Eterna-Matic watch when I saw it on display in Singapore in 1955. It was the one and only watch that wound and ran on ball bearings. But at $200, I couldn’t afford it,” he said.And by the time he had saved up enough for the watch years later, it was nowhere to be found.

Ten years ago, he chanced upon one in Singapore and purchased it for S$2,000, he said, proudly showing off his rather simple Eterna-Matic.

Sit added that he missed the spirit of unity of the old days.

“Back then, for example, we recognised that our Muslim friends did not eat pork and our Hindu friends did not eat beef. So we separated the food at the table but not the people.

“Today, both people and food have gone into separate corners, and that is very sad.”