Challenge yourself to succeed

Khoo Yeoh Gan Hong knew both my wife and I

Khoo Yeoh Gan Hong (born May 1928, died January 2025) was one of those larger-than-life figures who left an indelible mark on everyone who knew him. A staunch member of The Old Frees' Association (OFA), he made it a point to attend the annual dinner on the 21st of October whenever possible, even well into his nineties. This nonagenarian's last appearance at the OFA annual dinner was just last year. Invited onto the stage by the management committee to join in the cake-cutting ceremony alongside past presidents and the guest of honour, he gamely accepted despite his unsteady gait, supported by a cane.

True to form, after being helped down from the stage, he surprised everyone by breaking into an impromptu speech, leaving the guest of honour stranded at the rostrum, waiting for this grand, then-96-year-old gentleman to finish. And finish he did—with a flourish, reciting a pantun to the delight of the audience:

Tenang tenang air di laut, 

Sampan koleh mudik ke Tanjung, 

Hati terkenang mulut tersebut, 

Budi yang baik rasa nak junjung.

Khoo's connection to Scouting began in 1940 when he joined as a Wolf Cub at Westlands School. After the Second World War, he continued his studies at Penang Free School, where he joined the Hamilton Scout Troop and remained until 1948. That same year, he was one of six Scouts selected to attend the Scout Jamboree in Melbourne, Australia—a trip he always described as the adventure of a lifetime. 

His dedication to scouting influenced his career choices. He applied to join the teaching profession primarily to continue his scouting journey as a Scoutmaster. In 1950, he became a teacher at Westlands School, where he also served as Scoutmaster. His passion and perseverance were rewarded in 1952 when he was selected for the Malayan Teachers’ Training College (MTTC) in Kirkby, Liverpool.

While in England, Khoo seized the opportunity to attend the internationally renowned Woodbadge Course at Gilwell Park near London, a rite of passage for dedicated Scoutmasters. In 1961, when Khoo returned to Kirkby for another training course, he attended the Training the Team Course at Gilwell Park, earning the distinction of Assistant Leader Trainer. He often credited his time at Gilwell for teaching him resourcefulness, leadership and the importance of earning respect to lead effectively.

His passion for youth development and Scouting led him to rise through the ranks, eventually serving as the president of the Penang State Youth Council and later as the Penang State Scout Commissioner. His contributions to youth leadership and Scouting left a lasting legacy in the community. In 2018, Khoo achieved yet another milestone when he was recognised as the oldest Scouter to receive the Bintang Kesetiaan Mutiara during the World Scouts Day award ceremony at the Ixora Hotel in Penang. It was a fitting tribute to his unwavering dedication to Scouting and youth leadership.

My wife had known him since the 1990s, when he was an appointed trainer of the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers. However, I only got to know him personally in 2011 while co-editing Fidelis, the commemorative coffee table book for The Old Frees' Association. Knowing he was one of the association’s most senior members, I reached out to see if he might contribute to the book. True to his generous nature, he shared handwritten notes about his trip to the Scout Jamboree and asked me to clean up his story for publication. Later, he was effusive in his praise for my efforts. In truth, I did the minimal because I wasn't prepared to deviate much from his story. However, at every OFA annual dinner, he would proudly tell those around him, “This is the man who wrote my biography,” much to my mild embarrassment.

Sadly, such moments will no longer be a part of future gatherings. Khoo Yeoh Gan Hong passed away on the 20th of January at the remarkable age of 97. His presence, wit and spirit will be dearly missed.

As a tribute to Khoo Yeoh Gan Hong, I reproduce this story from Fidelis in 2012. I have made further refinements to it.

Challenge yourself to succeed

My life challenges began with the amazing trip to the Pan-Pacific Scout Jamboree in Australia from December 1948 to February 1949. As Troop Leader of First Penang (Hamilton), I had earned a place in the Penang Contingent. This was to be my proudest moment but towards the end of the year I was dropped when the officials realised that the boat would be leaving before the Cambridge Examinations would be over. I was aghast. I had paid my Jamboree fees and then was told that I could not go. To make matters worse, they forgot to refund me!

So there I was, grappling with the difficulties and difficult decisions of life: balancing the dilemma of studying to pass my examinations while brooding about literally missing the boat, saddled with the lack of a passport and also essentially, no funds.

I was in despair. Sometime later in a chance meeting with Mrs Seow Siew Jin, mother of Rodney Seow who was a fellow Scout in the Troop, became a turning point. Having related my predicament to her, expecting her sympathies, she simply asked, “Who said you cannot go?” 

Her words hit me like a lightning bolt. For the first time it dawned on me that I had allowed myself to be consumed with self-pity. I was already accepting defeat without searching for an alternative solution to my problem. This was not the Free School Spirit I had been imbued with. My years at Penang Free School would have counted for nothing if I did not try to rise above the challenge. I should not be talking about failure before I had even considered alternatives. This invaluable lesson of perseverance and resilience in the face of adversity remains with me till today. 

The moment I acknowledged that there was indeed a solution somewhere sparked off the whole machinery of re-discovering myself and me finally making it to the Jamboree. No money? Why, go raise new funds for the journey. The boat would leave before my examinations could end? Well, go find another ship to Australia! By challenging my mindset and embracing the problem, I quickly discovered my potential for leadership and resourcefulness. Today, I still remember the very many benefactors – Heah Joo Seang among them – who believed in me and went the extra mile to make my “Mission Impossible” possible. 

That I succeeded despite all the odds became a mini saga. I have to be grateful to the playing fields of Penang Free School for shaping me, developing my leadership and organisational skills. This is my life lesson that I wish to share with my fellow Old Frees and the present pupils of Penang Free School. In the depths of despair, there is always hope. Never give up but continue to challenge yourself, and success will follow. 

A 64-year-old puzzle

Did I say "a day well spent in Kuala Lumpur" yesterday? I most certainly did. Right after the conclusion of the Dr Wu Lien-Teh award ceremony at the University Malaya, my fellow travellers from Penang - Anwar Fazal and Hor Chee Peng - together with Ronald Quay who's from Kuala Lumpur, made our way to the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club (KLGCC) to meet up with someone I had gotten to know about nine days earlier and whom the others in my group didn't know anything about him at all!

Almost 12 years ago when I got into The Dr Wu Lien-Teh Society as a committee member, I saw two pictures on Wu Lien-Teh's funeral in January 1960. The first was of the hearse leaving his residence in Chor Sin Kheng Road. The vehicle was flanked on both sides by a group of Scouts from Penang Free School. Short of it being a State funeral, representatives of the PFS Scouts, Cadets, School Prefects, teachers and the Headmaster, the two Boards of Governors and Trustees had turned up in force to give the Grand Old Free a memorable final send-off. It was quite unprecedented and possibly, only Dr Lim Chong Eu's state funeral in 2010 could surpass the spectacle as the latter also had the PFS School Band turning up to lead the funeral procession.

The second picture from the funeral was supposed to show the grieving family members walking behind the hearse. This could well be the best angle for the photographer but alas, the mourners couldn't be seen clearly because just as the camera's shutter was pressed, one of the PFS Boy Scouts had moved into the frame in tandem with the hearse and almost entirely blocked off the grieving party. I can only imagine the photographer grinding his teeth and cursing his luck when he subsequently discovered that this was the best of his efforts! Despite this mishap, I suppose getting this picture of the partially blocked Wu family was still better than having no picture taken at all. But I'm surprised that no other picture of Wu Lien-Teh's funeral had surfaced publicly anywhere else. Surely the photographer had developed more than two pictures?

In the 12 years since knowing of the existence of these two pictures, I am even more surprised that everyone had simply accepted these pictures at their face value. Nobody I knew was curious enough to ask who was this PFS Scout in the picture! I must admit that it never crossed my mind either. Not until last month anyway. After I had met with a group of visitors from China, it struck me that, hey, who was this Boy Scout? On first May, I decided to pose this question in The Old Frees' Association's facebook page. I asked if anyone knew or recognised this young Scout from 64 years ago. This Scout looked like 16 years old in 1960. It was a long shot, of course, because the youngster could now be around 80 years old in 2024.

The results weren't immediate. It took six days before I received a positive reply from a lead. And in the natural course of my inquisitiveness, I was soon chatting through Whatsapp with John Wong Peng Chong. He hadn't seen this picture before but yes, he confirmed that the Boy Scout was him. And he was exactly 80 years old. He said Wu Lien-Teh was still a big name when he was at Penang Free School, and he considered it a big honour to have been one of the Scouts representing the School at the funeral. He recalled that from Chor Sin Kheng Road, the cortege turned right at the junction with Ayer Itam Road. Curious onlookers lined the route until the procession dispersed. But because this funeral was 64 years ago, John's memory of the rest of the occasion was hazy.  

As coincidence would have it, I had agreed back in February to join some of my fellow committee members from The Dr Wu Lien-Teh Society at an award ceremony in Kuala Lumpur last Wednesday. The timing was just perfect. I quickly informed the Secretary-General and the President of my efforts to track down the PFS Boy Scout, and he had been located in Kuala Lumpur. Would they like to meet him? Everyone said yes. Would John Wong be agreeable to meet us? He said yes too. So we decided to meet at the KLGCC where almost two hours passed by only too quickly for John, Anwar Fazal, myself, Ronald and Peng. As we headed home from Kuala Lumpur later, the one thought that went through my mind was that, yes, this was another piece of the Wu Lien-Teh jigsaw puzzle found. Finally, we had resolved the identity of the Penang Free School Boy Scout at the funeral of Dr Wu Lien-Teh on 25 January 1960. Definitely, a day well spent in Kuala Lumpur!

Soapbox derby in the 70s

I came across these old pictures from a contact print. Obviously taken in the late 1970s. I was at Gurney Drive with two of my ex-colleagues from Ban Hin Lee Bank and we were taking pictures of a Scout soapbox derby. Many schools were involved and the organisers managed to close off a portion of Gurney Drive for the races. It will be almost impossible to pull this off now. At that time, I was using a Canon A1 film camera with a f1.4 50mm standard lens, not one of the multitudes of digital cameras we see now. Anyway, I noticed now that the PFS Scouts were also participating. I wonder whether they do such activities nowadays.

A scouting conundrum

When you search on the Internet, the same one-line information of "an experimental Boy Scouts troop formed by the YMCA Penang in 1908" is repeated ad nauseum as if there isn't any new information to add about the Scout movement's beginnings. Even the official Scouts Association of Malaysia doesn't say more. This is simply some data that has been accepted by the Scouting community in Malaysia as an historical fact without need to question or researched further, full stop. Isn't anyone inquisitive enough to try and find out more?

The formation of this experimental Boy Scouts troop didn't happen by accident. In February of 1908, Robert Baden-Powell had called on all boys to enrol themselves as Peace Scouts, a fascinating organisation with secret signs and war songs. (1) 

The Revd George Frederick Pykett (b. 1864, d. 1932), who was already the principal of the Anglo-Chinese School, would have played a huge role in getting this experimental troop together at the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Penang, which he had set up in 1905. So it came to pass that Scouting became an activity of the YMCA Penang and it complemented their St John Ambulance First Aid classes. At that time, the YMCA operated from premises in Logan Road which was reputedly vast enough to hold a football field (2). Where in Logan Road was this premises though? I don't know exactly although I've been told that it was close enough to the field at Westlands School when this latter school came into existence in 1935.

Little is known about the early activities of the experimental troop but there is this picture (see below) which showed a group of Boys Scouts at the YMCA in Logan Road. At the back of the picture was an attestation by Goh Guan Ho (b. 1891, d. 1969) before a Justice of the Peace in 1966 that the picture was taken in July 1908. 

Goh Guan Ho was born in Singapore. (3) It is known that he had his early education at the Anglo-Chinese School in Singapore in 1904 where he won a General Progress prize in Standard VII (4) but by 1907, his family had relocated to Penang. While studying at the Anglo-Chinese School in Penang, he had won the first prize in the Penang Chamber of Commerce examination in 1907. That same year, he passed the First Aid examinations held by the St John Ambulance Corps and had then joined the Penang Chinese Volunteer Corps. In 1908 when this Boy Scouts picture was taken, Goh Guan Ho was the Head Boy of the Anglo-Chinese School in Penang. (5) Later in his life, he was President of the Penang Bar Committee and Advisor of the YMCA among many other positions he held publicly. He began his political career in 1954 and was elected to the Municipal Council on an Alliance ticket. Three years later when George Town was granted city status by Queen Elizabeth II, he became the first Mayor. However in  1959, he was defeated by the Socialist Front candidate, Tan Phock Kin, in the Federal election. Goh died in November 1969, three years after making his attestation regarding the Boy Scouts picture. (6) You may wonder why I ramble at length about him. Why not? He was the central character in this story; he was also a respected personality in Penang. Besides, there's a road that's named after him: Goh Guan Ho Road is very near to Rifle Range. 

But let's get back to the two images at the end of this story. There's a controversy whether the information on its reverse side is accurate or not. While Goh Guan Ho said that it was taken on the YMCA ground in Logan Road in July 1908. a Scout historian in Singapore by the name of Wan Meng Hao was disputing this.

When this picture first appeared on a blog story by Yeoh Suan Choo in July 2018, she was contacted by Wan Meng Hao two years later who claimed that the "scouting photos were taken in Singapore, not Penang. Sorry but the certifications by the JP in 1966 are wrong. Mr Goh was residing at that time in Singapore, not Penang." 

Wan Meng Hao also made reference to his book, Scouting in Singapore 1910-2000, which he had co-authored with Kevin YL Tan. The book was published by The Singapore Scout Association in 2002. It's an excellent book, by the way. On Page 13 of his book, he had also used this picture by Goh Guan Ho and captioned it as "Possibly the earliest picture of Scouts in Singapore. According to Goh Guan Ho (extreme right), this picture was taken sometime in 1909 at Fort Canning. Goh left Singapore in 1916 to study law and later moved to Penang."

Well, who was right? Goh Guan Ho as mentioned in the book or Goh Guan Ho as written behind the picture? Which Goh Guan Ho is to be believed?

I can't say much about the conflicting statements but I was thinking aloud to my friends yesterday that if this location should be Fort Canning, would it also possibly show up in present-day pictures of the Fort Canning Park? After all, if the Singapore government is very concerned about heritage conservation, they would have tried to conserve all the buildings in the Fort Canning Park today, not tear them down. Somewhere, shouldn't there be a brick building that may look similar to the one in the centre of the picture?  

So I decided to visit the Tripadvisor website. I know that on this website, visitors love to contribute pictures of their travel destinations. I located the link to the Fort Canning Park and found 1,883 pictures there. I must say that I did click through all the pictures but found no picture of buildings remotely close to the arches shown in the picture. I know this is not even sleuthing around Fort Canning personally but this is the best that I can do for the moment. Perhaps Wan Meng Hao can identify the building. It would be very helpful all around. 

Anyway, Yeoh Suan Choo had backed away from pursuing this matter further with a reply saying that she was no authority on Scouting, was not a researcher and so had to leave it to Wan Meng Hao to check out the story.

Well, I have been intrigued by these pictures for three years now - despite not being a Scout myself - and new evidence have been uncovered, thanks to the National Archives of Singapore which had placed some early copies of the Straits Echo newspaper online for people to read. That was why I was writing at length about Goh Guan Ho. In 1908, Goh Guan Ho was no longer residing in Singapore. How could he be, when he was already transferred to the Anglo-Chinese School in Penang to continue with his schooling? Furthermore, he was now the Head Boy, a respected post that placed him apart from the "rest of the boys." That's him standing on the far right in the picture. Next to him was E Roberts who was later to become the assistant general secretary of the Straits Settlements in 1910. 

Goh Guan Ho had also identified the person on the far left as George Pykett. It's a red herring as far as I am concerned. People tend to think that the George Pykett here referred to the Principal of the Anglo-Chinese School. Far from it. This George Pykett was his contemporary, one of two sons of Revd George F Pykett, the other being Dick Pykett who was also in the picture but not identified. Why do I say this? First, seeing how he had addressed the more senior E Roberts with a Mister salutation, Goh Guan Ho wouldn't be so brazen to refer to his old school headmaster simply as George Pykett. He would have added a Reverend to the name. Second, it was known that Revd George F Pykett was not in Penang from March (7) till November 1908. (8) He was on a long furlough leave to the United Kingdom and the United States. And thirdly, I had stared and stared at the picture and concluded that the fellow looked too young to be the 44-year-old Revd Pykett at that time. (Okay, that last part was a bit subjective but it was good enough for me.)  

So let me strongly suggest here on my blog that the picture was indeed of the Logan Road premises of the YMCA Penang in July 1908. The people identified by Goh Guan Ho were all part of a larger group of Penangites - except for E Roberts, Bertie Pedley, Caunter and the two Pykett siblings - and all 28 of them couldn't possibly have travelled together to Singapore just to have this picture taken. It was such a large and extraordinary group of uniformed people that the newspapers of the day in Singapore would surely have caught whiff of their arrival and wrote something about them, but there was none I could find. No, I believe Goh Guan Ho's attestation before the Justice of the Peace to be the definitive word. Unless other evidence surfaces, the Scouting movement in this part of the world would appear to have started in Penang, albeit on an experimental basis, and then spread to other parts of the peninsula, including Singapore, within the next two years. 

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NOTE: I don't normally mention the sources of my information in my blog stories but somehow, I feel it is pertinent in this case should anyone want to verify them. They are all from the National Archives of Singapore's e-newspaper section. 

(1) Straits Echo, 10 February 1908
(2) Straits Echo, 3 July 1907
(3) Biographical Dictionary of the Chinese in Malaysia, published by Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Malaya
(4) The Straits Times, 23 December 1904
(5) Straits Echo, 28 February 1908
(6) Berita Harian, 18 November 1969
(7) Straits Echo, 24 February 1908
(8) Straits Echo, 27 November 1908