MCOBA Offside

Mr Gawthorne,Cik Fatimah (wife of AbuZakaria another Kolet teacher) the Matron ( a former nurse in the UK and whose husband was the doctor at the KK DistrictHospital),Mr Howell (the Headmaster), Mr Morley (the KP Resident Master who took over from MrWilson aka AnthonyBurgess), Miss Louis and Mrs Vivekananda with the King's Pavilion boys of 1955.
Mr Wilson was still a teacher at Kolet but whether he opted to leave the post of KP Resident-Master or was asked to by the Headmaster to do so was anybody's guess. However three things were surely true viz (i) that he and the Headmaster mutually disliked each other (ii) that he refused to dine weekly with the KP boys, which was part of his duty as KP Resident Master. That happened after he slipped at the staircase while descending from his quarter one Thursday evening in 1954, as many Tarinaga 61 thoroughbreds could confirm and (iii)that his wife also was odd, eg. she would cheer and support any team that played against the Kolet team, ask Omaq 'Tikuih' (ex-DG of PWD)who is in the picture (6th from left second row, behind the teachers, and slightly in front of RHizan)to confirm.
Miss Louis and Cik Fatimah were teachers of the Std II while Mr Gawthorne and Mrs Vivekananda (whose husband was also a Kolet teacher) taught the Std 4A. Mr Gawthorne was transferred to teach the SMC classes at Westlands Primary School, Penang when Kolet became a full secondary school. There he was nicknamed "Gayan" by his Malay pupils who didnot know yet the right pronunciation for 'giant'.

Among those identifiable in the photograph are Raja Hizan,Yusuf 'Tua', Ahmad Ibrahim, SamratMekah,Omar'Tikuih',Salleh'Charlie',ZaghlulHanafiah,AHamid'Hidung',AMalikManan.
This photo is of the only class ever Std II pupils of Kolet + one class of Std 4A. Std 4B pupils were housed at the Prep. School, as their 'space' in KP was taken up by the Std II pupils.
Among those who were in Std 4B were ARahmanHamzah,AmaluddinRose and RashidiRamlan aka 'Right' who later returned to Kolet as Headmaster.Their teacher at Prep School were Mr Partridge and Che Lazim.
The Prefects i/c of the KP then were SZAbidinWafa,ARazakBahaman and ARahimAki.When there was a typhoid epidemic,in 1955, the first two Prefects mentioned went down with it and got admitted to the Hospital. The KP boys were quite happy as they were the more 'garang' among the three. A replacement Prefect, AAzizHussein was sent to look after the KP boys, to reinforce ARahimAki.
KPBoys used to march to the BigSchool three or four times weekly, once every Friday morning after the weekly inspection to attend the Assembly at 9 am at the Flagstaff, again after dinner on Saturdays to watch the weekly filmshows at the DiningHall as the Hargreaves Hall was not ready for use until after mid-1955 and yet another occassion was to attend extra-mural activities such as the WolfCubPack meetings on every Wednesday afternoon and a frequent fourth occassion would be around 430pm to cheer the Kolet team playing friendly matches.
During the Tarinaga batch year of 1954, KP boys marched smartly because they were drilled by the then Headboy-cum-CadetSgt Ibrahim MZ Ariffin aka 'Berahim Musang'. It was nice to observe that all traffic, busses,taxis, motorcars/motorcycles, trishaws (langcas) would stop voluntarily for them to march through the KP-BigSchool route. Frequently the marching boys were harrassed by other children and youths mimicking or mocking their march-leader's shouts of 'Left-right-left-right-left' with their own 'Lep-pai-lep-pai-lep, makan pisang buang kulit...', especially coming from the usual crowd at the KKBazaar near the Clocktower.