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| Peter Latham (left) in 1970 ( right) 2025 |
Peter Latham
is the former husband of Yeoh Saw Kin, the father of Tom and Ian Latham. Peter
and Saw Kin were both barristers in England and that’s how they met. Ian had alerted me of his visit and
proposed that I interview him. It was a very fruitful interview.
It was in
1970 when Peter first came out to Ipoh from England. He flew to Singapore via
Rome and Karachi. Saw Kin had returned earlier but he stayed back due to work.
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| Yeoh Ghim Cheow family: (seated Lto R) Yeoh Saw Kin with Tom, Chew Gaik Tiew, Lim Siew Tong, Chew Ghim Cheow, Chin Kwee Peng with Lam Tat. (standing) Yeoh Kean Cheng, P'ng Sin Aun, Peter Latham and Yeoh Kean Seong. (front row) Yeoh Lam Swee, Yeoh Lam Kheng, Yeoh Lam Ewe, Yeoh Lam Eong, Yeoh Lam Guan. |
At Singapore
he met Saw Kin’s cousin, Yeoh Kian Hian who had just started the first
ENT specialist clinic in Singapore. “He took me to meet his uncle Yeoh Ghim
Seng the Speaker of the Singapore Parliament at his house. I met his wife Winnie
Khong. She was a charming lady. We had dinner and I made small talk with Ghim
Seng. When I told him I was learning Cantonese,
Seng said only the prostitutes spoke Cantonese in Singapore”.
From
Singapore I took a taxi to Ipoh. The driver drove very fast overtaking on blind
corners. I was terrified and got the taxi to stop and got out to vomit.
I met
grandmother Lim Siew Tong. She lived in the enormous house in Jalan
Bendahara. There was big hall for entertaining and dining chairs but she used
one small part of it with a little table. She was 70 then and lived a very
frugal life with 2 or 3 servants. I found her fascinating because she was from
a middleclass family from Xiamen and had the bound feet. I didn’t communicate
with her. Yeoh Ghim Cheow was a very respectful son and used to visit every
day.
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| 2 Jalan Bendahara in 1970. Lim Siew Tong in the dining room .... |
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| ....... lived in the enormous house with 3 servants |
Yeoh Ghim Cheow had shifted out of 2 Jalan Bendahara to a new archietect designed House in Chateau Gardens. We stayed there though we spent time in Yeoh Kean Cheng’s house in Thompson Road.
Ghim Cheow told
me during the Japanese occupation he was very proud of his whiskey which
he learnt how to make by reading Encyclopedia Brittanica. It was high quality
whiskey and was very popular with the Japanese officers. The Scotch whiskey was
slightly contaminated with copper from the stills it was made in. He lined it with
tin so the whiskey would be pure. He was very proud of that fact.
An
interesting thing about Yeoh Ghim Cheow was the breadth of his business
interest. There was Kinta Rubber Works, property interest but also the Botly Securties a stock brokerage. Ghim Cheow
called it “his high class casino” as he used to joke about it saying that the
clients of Botly were middle class people in Ipoh and loved spending their time
at Botly.
Overall YGC
was a very clever man. I respected his abilities, integrity and the breath of
his interest and knowledge. But like so many clever people he had no small talk
at all as he didn’t talk trivial things. But during the war he supported the
family though Saw Kin does not know much about that period.
I mentioned
to him that Yeoh Saw Kin mentioned her grandfather, Yeoh Khuan Joo said that he
didn’t have much luck in business unless he collaborated Chew Choon Siew his
partner in business. Peter disagreed saying it was not true. “I was told that
the success of the Kinta Rubber Works was, and this maybe 2nd hand
news, the “latrine buckets” which were originally galvanised steel bucket was noisy
and rusted. It was an Englishmen who got the idea to manufacture it with rubber.
Ghim Cheow had recently bought over KRW and subsequently manufactured the buckets
using rubber. The other local authorities followed suit and buckets was a big
success and he made a fortune. The small business don’t matter as one good idea
can make the fortune. Yeoh Ghim Cheow wasn’t lucky, he was hard working.
Regarding
the house of Chew Choon Siew Peter said it had a lot of antiques. He
found it had the name of Florence written in the mosaic at the bottom of the
pool. Choon Siew also had a bungalow at Batu Ferringi which was lovely.
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| Chew Choon Siew's Ipoh house. Nb Florence' name at the bottom of the pool and marble statues from Chew Boon Juan's world tour in the early 1920's |
.JPG) |
| Peter with Chew Choon Siew at Batu Ferringi, Penang |
He recalled
the extended Chew family had 2 very nice holiday homes. One was at Penang was
called Lausanne on Penang Hill. We would take the train halfway up the hill and
walk along the parallel path to the bungalow. It had a view of George Town and
was very enchanting. The caretaker grew flowers for the market below. The other
home was at Cameron Highlands. I can’t remember the name. We stayed there and
it was looked after by the chef of the hotel nearby.
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| Peter at Lausanne, the holiday home on Penang Hill |
Peter was in
Ipoh in 2024 for Lam Swee’s mother’s funeral. He met Agnes after many years. He
recalled meeting with Monica their mum with Angeline and Agnes while introducing
us to making Popiah. This was at Ignatius fathers’ 1st house in
Thomson Road.
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| Peter cathches up with Agnes Chew and the family 2024 |
Peter and trivia: The late Yeoh Kean Cheng had an impressive musical ability. Any music or song he’d heard on the radio he could play straight away on the piano.
Cultural
differences with bathing …
1. In Ipoh
there was a porcelain tub of water in the bathroom. I would stand inside the tub, cramped
and scrub myself.
2. In England when Yeoh Lam Kheng s/o Yeoh Kean Cheang stayed with us he was baffled by the European style of bathroom. He ran a bath but stood outside and scooped the water and soaked the bathroom floor. It was hilarious. We were both baffled the first time with the different cultural bathing styles.
I am
astonished with Malaysia today. When I came in 1970 they were riding bicycles
and Indian men were riding bullock carts. Now its all different.
END
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