THIS IS MY LIFE - 20

20 – THE SALVATION ARMY CENTENARY IN LONDON

Prior to all the changes we had in Kuching I received news that Captain Goh Siong Kheng and I were chosen to represent the Singapore and Malaya Command at the Centenary Congress in London in June 1965. Therefore, not long after our arrival to Penang Boys’ Home I left by Quantas Airways, stopping briefly at Bangkok and Rome. My husband managed very well looking after 50 boys beside our own two children. Gladys Poh Ai was five years old and Stephen Thean Hock was three. I asked our kids what they would like me to bring home for them. Our daughter requested a check book and our son some ice-cream!

Captain Goh had gone on ahead because she also attended the International College for Officers to which my husband had been two years earlier. Most of the overseas delegates to the congress stayed at the International Training College at Denmark Hill. I was in a cadet’s room. a small cubicle, in House 8. It was really cold, especially at night. My teeth literally chatted! The Williamson sisters from New Zealand gave me a hot water bottle, but I was too scared to use it in case it burst on me! An innocent abroad indeed!

Major Cecil Watts came to the college and took me to Sutton where he was stationed with Mrs. Watts. They gave me a rose in a red vase which I treasured for years. Major & Mrs. Arthur Hall, former corps officers of Singapore Central and Divisional Officer, had invited Captain Goh and myself to visit their corps in Sunderland Milfield to take part in their corps meetings on the one free Sunday we had before the centennial celebrations. They sent us two train tickets but for some personal reasons she did not go. So a Captain Miller from Kinston, Jamaica who was another delegate to the ICO, went with me by British Rail.

It was all very exciting to attend such a big event. A fellow Shepherd from Indonesia, Captain Ong Beng Chiang (later named Lilian Adiwinoto and rose to be a Commissioner) asked me to take care of another officer, Captain Roos Mundung who later became Mrs. Commissioner Tondi. We were both scheduled to give our testimony at the Youth Rally in Wembley. Another of my duties was to read the Bible in the Sunday Evening Salvation Meeting in the Royal Albert Hall when General Frederick Coutts’ message was based on the story of blind Bartimeus recorded in Mark’s Gospel.
To catch the P & O boat back to the Far East and beyond, Captain Goh and I were among fifty or so Salvationists, who travelled on the Himalaya.

We left before the end of the celebrations, but we had our own meetings on board! Everyday of the three week journey we had some form of meeting. The majority of the group were from Australia and New Zealand. A Kiwi Divisional Commander, Lt-Colonel and Mrs. Fred Searle took charge, acting as chaplains on board.

When the ship stopped at Bombay Captain Goh and I met up with Major Joseph & Mrs. Florence Jordon formerly stationed in the Ipoh Boys’ Home, now running the Red Shield Hostel. Captain Douglas & Mrs. Jean Kiff who had served in Singapore and then Malaya in various appointments in bygone years, invited Captain Goh and myself to their quarters for a meal. He was now the Financial Secretary. The whole contingent was taken around a few Army centres.

Captain Goh and I disembarked at Penang. By then there were still more than 30 Salvationists travelling further. I was immediately involved in the plans my husband and the Penang Corps Officer, Brigadier Ivy Wilson, had arranged. There was a home-cooked lunch and a visit to the island’s tourist spots, ending at the Boys’ Home. Colonel Searle asked what he could do for a project to help us. The Home had no refrigerator. On his return to New Zealand he made an appeal among his people. The second donor offered to buy one outright. Such generosity!