School Life in St Paul’s during the 80s..

It’s an honour to be given this opportunity to write something on my life as a student in St Paul’s School. I felt emotional whenever I talk about my past in this great school. There was so much to talk about on these nostalgic memoirs.  Nonetheless, I shall give a brief account of my school life as it begins.,

I came from ‘Kampung Bukau’, Beaufort, a village famous for its Durians!  Situated along the Sipitang Highway (now known as Pan Borneo Highway), and is about 10 miles away from Beaufort town. 

It was about 30 years ago when I now recalled. Back to those days, the condition of the said road was still gravel, dusty, and bumpy!  Imagine only about 10 miles away, we need to take more than an hour to reach the school by bus (Bas berhenti-henti).  

So, every morning together with my other siblings, we have to wake up as early as 4.30am to catch the bus that would pick us up around 5.30am! We got to leave home early because that was the only bus plying to pick up students from Tuna Valley, Bukau, Lumadan, Batu 6, Padas Valley and Luagan.           

Once you missed this bus meaning to say you will miss class! Well, the other alternative was to impede other transports plying on the same route to get a ride. The same applied after school. Each time we have to hurry to catch our bus to go home and most of the time when we reached home it would be near evening. The worst will come by when the weather turns rainy. The road will be flooded and we could only wait for the floodwater to subside before the journey resumed. Those were the arduous days, school life was ever been for me.

I still remembered at one time when the new school term commenced in January. There was great excitement for me. This was because on the first day of school, I could wear a new pair of shoes, put on a new uniform and proudly carting a new school bag. The other anticipation was to meet up new ‘strangers’ in the class. However, a flood hampered all the jovialities. The new classroom was filthy with mud as deep as knee high! Finally, the first day back to school ended up with scooping of mud, cleaning up tables and chairs. All my new ‘barang’ became grubby for the very first day. This incident was the most unforgettable part of my memory in St. Paul’s!

Literally, I was not active in extra curricular activities but I was ever selected to be a school prefect. I did not hold the post long owing to my house distance to school being a hindrance while another factor was the transport problem. 

My beloved classmates of Form 5-1981

In 1976, when I first join the school commenced in Bridge Class, all subjects were taught in BM medium except for English and Chinese subjects. Most of my classmates were from SR Kung Ming and their BM was not very fluent. I got an advantage comparatively as I speak BM regularly in my ‘Kampung’. However, we were most fortunate to have a very good BM teacher, Cikgu Mohd Shafie, who polished the subject for us and as days went by, our BM gradually improved.

Form 5 in 1981 was a year of gaiety and hard work. While confronting SPM examinations for the final year, we had a share of fun in class too. I remembered on one instance where the frisky boys in our class came out with a queer idea to make fun on our lady English teacher. In her lesson, while she was on the way to the classroom, the whole class squatted down to hide from her. Thus, from a far distance, the classroom appeared to be vacant causing her to turn back to the staff room to check on what had happened. When she found nothing amiss, she returned to the class but we did the same trick making her puzzled on the whole episode. At last, she gave up and the day’s English lesson was over. All of us were chuckling in joy on the consequence of the trick but this absurd and stunning incident misleading a teacher was much treacherous and regrettable, as I recalled.

During my 6 years period in St Paul’s, the principal was Mr. Goh Chit Yong. Today, I would like to pay tribute to him and his team of dedicated teachers whom had taught and disciplined me. Without their kind devotion and effort, my life wouldn’t be of better today! A big ‘thank you’ and cheers to all of them! 

Finally, whenever I passed by St Paul’s School on the way to my ‘Kampung”, I would joyfully glance at the school while murmuring to myself….huh!  those were the great old days!  Nevertheless, the fond memories in this beloved St Paul’s School, Beaufort shall linger in my mind forever!

By: 

Gan Chew Yen 

(1976-1981)