The Malay Mail

The news that The Malay Mail has closed its print edition effectively from today brings to mind the many hours I enjoyed in the late 1960s and early 1970s to complete its word puzzle competition.

My father would diligently buy the newspaper every evening - because the newspaper was printed in Kuala Lumpur and brought up to Penang by lorry - so that we could cut out the contest forms from the back page. The clues gave rise to many possible answers which even the dictionaries couldn't resolve. Needless to say, we didn't win anything, not even the consolation prizes.

In those days, their news reports covered mainly about Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. There was hardly any news about the other parts of the country, unless the news was significant enough. My most enjoyable daily column was the one written by their editor, SH Tan. Light-hearted and frivolous, his stories were later compiled into a book, Saya Yang Tahu (SYT). SYT actually stood for Sweet Young Thing. Later, SH Tan tried to bring his brand of humour to The National Echo but he couldn't replicate his earlier success.

For a long while, The Malay Mail also ran a weekly chess column in response to my column in The Star newspaper. Until the late Lim Chong took over their column, it was edited by my cousin, Phuah Eng Chye. We always had a friendly competition over what to include in our stories. My cousin had the upper hand as he had the resources of the newspaper behind him. The teleprinter stories about chess from around the world, for example. As for me, I prided myself for my own personal sources of stories, even from overseas. One day as a joke, I even contributed a story to The Malay Mail's chess column, writing under the pseudonym, Ke Chengshan, which was how my name would have been written in pinyin.

Reading about The Malay Mail brings to mind too that the first English language newspaper in Malaysia was the Prince of Wales' Island Government Gazette that saw light in the first decade of the 19th Century. There was an article about this newspaper in the Penang Monthly of May 2010. I don't remember the story mentioning it but by 1816, ownership of the Gazette had passed to William Cox, whom some may recognise as the first Master of Penang Free School. However, his name was erroneously engraved as "J. Cox" on the School plaque in the hall.