Movies TLS style - Peh Her Sing and Fire from the Projector

I believe all of us at Tanjong Lobang School enjoyed our days watching movies as much as people of any age, any period and any place.

The school had its own hall for movies screened from an old style projector. A very memorable movie I saw was Great Expectations. And indeed that movie also impacted many of the other students fanning their desires to do well in future. Besides the actors influenced us school boys so much so that we talked and walked like them. In the same way, each time we boys went to a western movie, we would come out of the Miri Theatre walking and talking like John Wayne, imagining that we had a great gun at our belt, and shooting down imaginary bad guys. Movies were great and they were important in our lives!

When the Information Department brought a movie to be shown in our school, we would look forward to it. These information documentaries were great black and white films which made us very patriotic. No one paid more attention from the beginning to the end than the young ones in the primary classes in 1959,1960 and 1961. We from the Ulu had never seen anything like moving pictures before. We learned about malaria eradication, importance of the Information Service,etc.

Many good movies besides the Information Service films, were shown in our school hall for the whole of my education in the school. That is ,1959 to 1967.

One incident was spectacular.

Our most loyal projectionist was Peh Her Sing from Lawas and he had an assistant, my dear friend, Abu Bakar Matasan.

Every one would be there, students, teachers, families of the cooks, matron, Pak Cik Hamdan, the gardeners and even the Principal. The coming together of all these was in fact a great social event in the school. Senior students who were having blossoming romances would be quite obvious at such times.

One evening we noticed with great happiness that two of our teachers were showing more than friendly interests in each other. They came for one such school movie and students of course were giving them sideway glances. It was fun seeing people falling in love.

The projector was switched on, the movie rolled and the mood of the hall was estactic! The movie was good, and as usual the kids were clapping when the parts becaming exciting.

Then suddenly, there was a shout,"Fire!"

The whole audience was in an uproar. Benches were kicked, kids started crying, and mothers were screaming.

I was pushed into a bush being one of the lighter built students. A few others were also falling around me by the small drain.

When the commotion died down, we were given the understanding that there was indeed smoke coming out of the projector. And Abu was the one who shouted "Fire!", perhaps a little too fast.

And then, we learned to our dismay that our teacher had left our lovely young lady teacher behind in the stampede. He must have taken off too quickly, leaving "Miss" a little distance behind or he might have lost his grip on her when others pushed him forward.

What followed was a cooling off period and we were very sad about it. To this day, we would never know what really happened.

Perhaps some of my fellow students would have other sides of the story.

But as a projectionist, Peh Her Sing was indispensable. How we loved him.