It was 1948. Cliff Standley was working in the Singapore Police Force but several of his friends were living and working in southern Johor in places like Ulu Choh (near Gelang Patah) and Pekan Nanas on the way to Pontian, places that are a respectable motorbike ride from Johor Bahru now that we have good roads. Back in 1948 of course the roads were completely different and the hazards were not limited to the quality of the roads. At night it you never knew which posed the bigger threat, Wild animals crossing the road or Communist bandits who were trying to take over after the retreat of the Japanese.
Obviously nobody travelled at night because it was inherently dangerous (not to mention the curfew). It seems however that this piece of information hadn't reached Cliff Standley who not only took to travelling to meet his friends but often did it at night. Either on a bicycle or later on his Harley Davidson.
The other day he was recounting one of his rides. He had travelled from Singapore to visit a friend, Norman Maris, a Yorkshireman from Hull who was a police leutenant at the Ulu Choh waterworks. Norman had become a Muslim but for some reason he seemed to have eschewed the lovely curries and "lemak" (coconut milk) based food of the Malays and was living an ascetic life with simple dishes like rice and corned beef. Cliff, who by then had become used to the joys of the local cuisine, was getting a bit fed up with the unexciting fare, and so, he called his friend Terry Metcalfe who was living at Pekan Nanas to arrange to stay the night there instead, telling him that he was still hungry after the sorry rice dishes that he had been offered.
Pekan Nenas was, and still is, a town known for its pineapple plantations and Terry Metcalfe was the security officer there. Terry advised Cliff to wait for the next day but, impetuous as always, Cliff climbed on his bicycle and headed off into the dead of night.
Knowing well that his warning would go unheeded, Terry put the word out, so when Cliff arrived on his Raleigh Record Ace he was greeted by a huge crowd eager to see the European who was crazy enough to ride through the jungle in the middle of a curfew.
After the exercise of the night before, Cliff slept late and woke to the delightful smell of curry coming from the kitchen. Thinking that his luck had changed, Cliff made his way downstairs happy that his exertions had been worthwhile. On the table in the dining room a wonderful curry lunch was laid out for all to enjoy. Unfortunately Terry had got hold of the wrong end of the stick and thought that Cliff didn't like the local food and had got his cook to prepare fish and chips specially for Cliff who, to this day can still smell that curry that he had to forego because politeness forbade him to explain that his host had misunderstood him.
Into the wire
As we all know, from the movies, a regular schedule can make you vulnerable if you are the target of unwanted attentions. The police used to run a security convoy by truck weekly from Johor Bahru to Pontian, a route that went past Ulu Choh and Pekan Nanas. On one occasion, Cliff and a friend were returning by Motorbike from one of their trips to visit Terry Metcalfe at Pekan Nenas when they rode into a wire that the bandits had stretched across the road as part of a trap for the convoy that was due soon. The wire got entangled with the front wheel. Expecting to be shot at any time, they worked desperately to clear the the wire from the front wheel. After what seemed like an eternity they finally managed to clear it and get on their way. To this day, Cliff wonders why they were not shot. Did the bandits assume that no europeans would be stupid enough to ride in the dark along a quite road? Had they been mistaken for kampong folk - or were the bandits simply trying not raise the alarm?
