Largie Castle, A Rifled Nest Day 70

Angus noticed the difference between the more relaxed British Malayans and the formal Singaporeans

When my daughter Julia and I visited the Smoke House in July 2010, we were appointed a room with wood panelling, gate-leg table, candelabra electric lights, crimson furnishings, brass fire implements and a four-poster bed. However, all was not what it seemed; the beds were unaired, the food, although promulgated as English fare, was not properly so. Strangely, just as in Angus’s time, second-hand golf balls were on sale at reception. Outside, in the flower bed were abundant blooms, as if a collection of garden-centre house plants had been plonked in it: poinsettias, busy lizzies, and other plants that would only thrive in a house or conservatory at home.

The bogus well mentioned by Angus had a palm tree growing in it, and the summer-house was crammed with excess furniture. On the roadside next to the hotel was a British telephone kiosk, an attraction for Asian visitors, who like to photograph each other standing next to it.

Invasion On his way back to Singapore, Angus stopped at Kuala Lumpur to stay with his cousin, Clare Langworthy, married to H. B. Langworthy, the Deputy Commissioner of the Federal Malayan States Police.

During the Japanese invasion of Malaya, the couple were evacuated on the SS Duchess of Bedford and arrived safely in the UK on April 4 1942. Langworthy returned to Malaya in 1945, after the end of the war, and became Commissioner of the Malayan Union Police until the formation of the Federation of Malaya on February 1 1948, whereupon he retired.

Clare (born in 1900) was the youngest of three sisters, the eldest being Ivy Greenfield. Myrtle was the middle sibling and their brother, Anthony, the youngest of them all. Since the sisters all lived in Malaya at the time when Angus served in the 2nd battalion, he became acquainted with them.

The Langworthys lived in a select area of Kuala Lumpur, in a roomy colonial bungalow. Built in a manner that kept its occupants as cool as possible, it possessed an open-air courtyard in the building’s centre. There was little need, therefore, for Angus to stay at either the Station or Eastern Hotels, situated on a hillside near the minarets of the railway station.

Today, both hotel structures still stand: the first functions as a hostelry, part of which is recognisable as the old stables; the Eastern is a ruined husk, its exterior walls coated in flaking green paint.

The expatriate community in Malaya worked and played hard, their social life revolving around the club, the Royal Selangor (or ‘Spotted Dog’) on the Padang. Had Angus stayed in a hotel rather than a private house, he might have been invited into this exclusive precinct by a member, but only because he was a responsible young army officer and came from a pukka social background. Junior officers and other ranks were not permitted.

At that time, 18,000 Europeans, many of Scottish descent, lived in Malaya, some from well-established families who had lived there since the 19th Century; others were rubber planters and tin miners, a number of whom would join the Federal Malay States Volunteer Force to defend the country against the Japanese.

Sophisticated Perhaps his hosts arranged for Angus to meet some Scots; there were even a handful who had served in the Argylls before turning to civilian life. Kuala Lumpur was the capital of the Federated Malay States and therefore different from the Straits Settlements. It was a new city but had a strong colonial bureaucracy.

Angus noticed the difference between the more relaxed British Malayans and the formal Singaporeans. The latter were concerned with trade; they held the seats of power of the commercial companies and had a more sophisticated lifestyle than the rural, isolated Europeans on the mainland.

Kuala Lumpur today is different: the streets are filled with women in the hijab. Above the sound of traffic you can discern the amplified Muslim call to prayer. Streets have been renamed – the former King’s Road, where the town hall is situated, now has a Muslim name.

Although the mayor of Kuala Lumpur wishes to rid the city of its architectural past, some buildings still remain, like ghosts of the former imperial power. Nowhere is this more obviously demonstrated than at the Coliseum Café, one of the few colonial places not demolished in the past 10 years. Dark and dingy, its entrance swing-doors suggest a Wild West saloon bar: the lighting is dim, the white tablecloths and napkins grubby.

A diminutive, white-coated waiter, nicknamed Captain Morgan, welcomed us; many of his colleagues, only recently retired, began serving there before the war. The café still produces similar fare to that consumed in Angus’s day, although strict Muslim dietary rules are observed.

A throwback to colonial times, the menu is aimed at homesick soldiers, planters and tin miners: pancakes, ice cream, crème caramel, steak, chips, fish, sliced white bread, HP sauce, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, and a selection of alcoholic drinks.

Adjacent to the café is the Coliseum Theatre where, during the 1920s and 1930s, planters watched performances of London hits and, on a balcony outside, actors stood to be viewed and applauded.

Evidence Entertainment and applause were soon to become a feature of the past. It was obvious from Angus’s last letter that he believed a Japanese attack was imminent. “By the time you receive this letter we will know whether or not Japan has decided to commit national suicide.” Was Angus so sure of the allied forces’ superiority or could it have been his way of concealing his fear?

Certainly the remark echoed the attitude of Ian Stewart and other officers in Malaya Command. “I do hope, Sir, you are not getting too strong in Malaya because if so the Japanese may never attempt a landing,” said Stewart. There was a common, somewhat racist, assumption that the Japanese, like the Italians, were inefficient warmongers.

The problem was that military intelligence was unable to obtain much evidence on the Japanese military machine. Most people believed that this eastern power had little chance of success because of its isolation from Europe, its failure to defeat China, and the fact that its economy was in tatters.

Churchill believed that the US, with its Pacific fleet, would be the ultimate deterrent against a Japanese attack on Malaya.

More tomorrow