PRAISE THE FOUNDERS OF OUR SCHOOL     31st Issue 12th  March  2001
                                                   
Quick Takes...
This week we publish some little known facts about our school song, as well as a Victorian. Thanks, VictorianReviewer, for the enjoyable review! If any of you come across a good book, not necessarily  on Victorians, drop us a line!
Hope you will enjoy this issue and it will  give you a good start to the week!
 
Log-On...
 
www.coloring.com - Fancy doing some coloring on the net? Great for kids of all ages, including those in their forties upwards.
Start This Week Laughing...
Kids' wisdom -
 - how to have enduring love...
 
"Don't forget your wife's name, that will mess up the love." (Roger, 8)
 
-when is it ok to kiss?
 
"It's never ok to kiss a boy. They always slobber all over you. That's why I have stopped doing it." (Jean, 10)
Victorian News Clips...
AVictorian, Dato' Kington Loo, retires as Chairman and founder trustee of the WWF -
(This space is for news items on Victorians, past or present. If you come across any, please email us and we will put it up here.)
Something...
Senior citizens -
National Council of Senior Citizens' Organisations of Malaysia - It is an umbrella body for some 25 senior citizens' groups. The  total membership of affiliates is 6,000, all aged 55 and above, though some accept members as young as 45. It's declared mission is ' to advocate the development of services and policies that enhance the qulaity of life and well being of older persons' . It has just set up a day care centre for needy senior citizens at Setapak, Kl. Tel No. - 603 - 4229007 Donations are tax exempted.
Mount your soapbox, write a feature article on something you want to say, share a web site with others, or something inspirational or good with others. Email us your articles, news, jokes, photos, etc for feature in future Victorian Times -the netzine with a readership on which the sun never sets...
Let us now with thankfulness...
...we sing these words every Monday, for seven years. Yet, very few of us, I am sure, know who wrote the words, from where the tune came from, and very much less, that  VI has three different songs as a school song!
 
Unbelievable?! Yes, but it is true! Thanks to the untiring research and efforts of an old boy, Mr Chung Chee Min, we can know the answers to these and other questions we may have on the school song, as well as listen to our school song played by an orchestra, playing the classical piece from which our school song was excerpted. Click on the link below for yet another piece of incredible history!
 
Biography of a Victorian...
I was in a bookshop browsing when I came across this book - 'Story of a Psy-Warrior: Tan Sri Dr. CC Too' by Lim Cheng Leng (KMN, AMN). It turns out that Tan Sri Dr. CC Too was a Victorian! Added to that, his father, Too Choo Sun, was also a Victorian!
 
Who is Tan Sri Dr CC Too (Too Chee Chew)? Here are some glimpses from the book, written by a colleague of his.
 
He is the man credited with winning the psychological war against the communists in Malaysia, as he headed that department during those crucial years, retiring in 1983. He was born in 1920 and passed away in 1992.
 
He was in VI 1938-39. He had topped the Cambridge exams in KL. After VI, he won a scholarship to go on to Raffles College (now University of Singapore) in Singapore. His contemporaries there included Lee Kuan Yew, though they did not meet while at Raffles. Among his seniors there was Eu CY, whom he first got to know in KL, where they used to meet at Cheong Kee coffeeshop (corner of Jalan Sultan), and became good friends. He stayed in his father's house, Choo Sun Printers, a few doors away. (We never did realise the 'historic' significance of these shophouses as we walked by everyday before and after school, did we?)
 
 
Well, life is stranger, and bigger,  than movies. According to the book, these three, CC Too, Eu CY and Lee KY  were to cross each other's path again after the Second World War - with CC Too squaring off against his old friend and college mate, Eu CY, who was then on the communists' side in Singapore, and CC Too with Lee K Y on the other side. The communists did try to recruit CC Too while he was still in school, but they never did succeed. There were reasons for this, which the author expanded upon a bit.
 
In the book, there are quite a few photographs, which give good perspective to the biography. Among the photographs, is one of the National Operations Council in 1970, of which CC Too was one of the few non politicians in that council. (As an interesting fact of history, of the few  from that council as seen in that photograph still around, is Dato' Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The others, like Tun Abdul Razak, Tun Ismail, Tun Tan Siew Sin, Tun Sambanthan, etc have passed away by now.) There are many other interesting facts on the life of Tan Sri Dr CC Too in the book, and by extension the history of Malaysia, and for this it is worth a read. It is currently still available in the bookshop and retails for about RM69. The book gives a very good account of those times, with many never before seen photographs of events. The author was a collegue of the subject of the book, and also headed the department, so he is in a position to talk about the subject and the surrounding events. The book is clear and straight forward in it's narrative. If one is interested in history as a subject, there is a mine of information here, basically because it is a personal account, and many of the events, anecdotes and personalities can actually spin off into whole books themselves.
 
CC Too was an avid photographer, with his trusted Zeiss. When the Japanese surrendered in 1945 in the VI hall, he was there to take photographs! In the book, one can see the photographs he took - the Japanese, led by Lt General Ishiguro,  walking into the hall, and then in the hall, the signing of the surrender documents, and then leaving.  The VI hall, stage, wall is in the background, looking largely the same today as it was that day. To think that we were in that hall every Monday and every other day! If walls can speak...
 
If one can recall, in  the 20th  issue of the Victorian Times, there was a mention of a Victorian who had to run away from Malaysia, and here we are, we have a Victorian who could have been responsible for that! Indeed, the lives of Victorians is the life of our country, the region, and the world, as also said in  the 21st issue of the Victorian Times.
Now, would you not agree?
 
- by a VictorianReviewer
 
Footnote: CC Too was in VI in 1938-39. Before that, he was in MBS and had to go on to VI because VI was the only school with a science teacher and laboratories at that time. While at MBS, he was an excellent scholar and sportsman (Horley House).
 
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