THE BOOK LAUNCH @
BRITISH COUNCIL, KUALA LUMPUR

On October 8^th, 2025, I was privileged to hear a journalist, an editor, an award-winning creative writer and a columnist, all rolled into one, spoke with such humour and substance at a book launch held at the British Council in Kuala Lumpur. I was completely entertained by the humour he injected throughout his speech and the claps and laughter never stopped. TS JJ, short for Tan Sri Johan Jaafar, a man of extensive experience in the media world, gave a most encouraging speech at the book launch of “Those were the Days”. Nine writers of the book came together with British Council to organise a book launch. The book was a documentation of the experiences in the 1970s by nine ex-graduates of Loughborough University of Technology, UK.

TS JJ holds many positions on many councils and committees. On May 28, 2024, he was appointed as an independent Non-Executive Director of Star. Among many positions held, one was as Group Chief Editor of Utusan Melayu (M) Berhad from 1992-1998. He was made Chairman of Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka from 2006 to 2010. He was the 12^th recipient of the National Journalism Laureate Award (Tokoh Wartawan Negara).

TS JJ, in his book launch speech, confessed he had never heard of the name, Loughborough , even though he was a student of Nottingham, UK. I do agree many had difficulty pronouncing the name. I was one of them. But TS JJ took it a step further by stretching the pronounciation throughout the first quarter of his speech in a deliberate malapropism.

The name “Loughborough “ derives from the Anglo Saxon word “burgh” meaning a town and probably, a personal name which became Lough.

This book, according to TS JJ, is about friendship. It is about students living abroad who have friends to replace their loved ones at home. As the synopsis explains, this book is about a collection of essays representing “
an interesting potpourri of emotions, a delayed outpouring of memories and personal experiences growing up in a society completely different from their own.”

Ladies Man Dato’ Ghazali bukan main lagi tepuk tangan utk kita semua…ha ha 😀

Tan Sri Johan Jaafar , the speaker at our book launch and our Book Committee chairman, Rahmanudin.

81 years old Dato Ghazali – full of life, one guest at the book launch at British Council.

“Book Launch

Those Were the Days:

Reminiscing Life Experiences of Loughborough University in

the 1970s by Nine Malaysian Graduates“

Edited by Askiah Adam, Husna Kassim and A Ghaffur Ramli

Published by HK Publishing, 2024

8^th October 2025

British Council, Jalan Ampang

Speech by TAN SRI JOHAN JAAFFAR

Loughborough? I found out that it is just 26.5 kilometres away from where I was in 1991, the better known Nottingham City. Or to put in imperial perspective, hardly 16.5 miles south. The truth is, during my one and a half year stay at Nottingham, I have never been there – to Leicester further south, yes, to Derby in the east yes, or even to Sheffield in the north and Boston and Spalding in the west. Even during my days traversing the entire British Isle many years later, I did not visit Loughborough.

No offence there, pleaseI was going through Engel’s England, Thirty-Nine Counties, One Capital and One Man by Mathew Engel, probably the funniest, wittiest and atrociously frank book on the land of the English, but I couldn’t find Loughborough in the index. Yes, he wrote about Leicestershire and mentioned Melton Mowbray, once the fox hunting capital of the world and Ashby-de-la-Zouch and even Bosworth Field – but no mention of Loughborough!

How could he!.

And I was going through the horribly interesting – frank and brutal – You Are Awful: But I Like you: Travels Through Unloved Brittain by Tim Moore. He went through places that people didn’t go – the bleakest of towns, the shonkiest hotels, the scariest pubs, even the silliest sea zoos. He was at the least interesting points in Britain, the most dismal place in Scotland (twice crowned as such) and tested horrific local cuisines. Again, no mention of Loughborough. Perhaps in this case a blessing in disguise.

But still, how could he!

Loughborough I was told is better known as home to John Taylor Co Bell Foundry, touted to be the largest bell foundry in the world? If you are curious about what they manufacture – bells, yes those things – from where the ear-splitting sounds from cathedrals are heard. They are world experts in bell-making, restoration and tower-services, relating to what else, bells according to Wikipedia. They cast many famous bells, including the largest one at St Paul Cathedral, London, weighing a staggering 17,002 kilograms. Now you know about the reputation of Loughborough in the annals of bell history.

So, imagine my excitement when I was shoved this book,
Those Were the Days:
Reminiscing Life Experiences at Loughborough University in the 1970s By Nine Malaysian Graduates.
It is about life in Loughborough told by Malaysians who were there 50 years ago. You can’t blame me for being curious. I read the book and I liked it. And here I am, standing in front of you, talking about this interesting book by those who have lots of interesting anecdotes to tell.

First of all, I am honoured to be here, to be part of this auspicious event. It has been an incredibly interesting experience going through the 12 narratives, 11 actually, the last one “Jasamu DiKenang” is more about the appraisal for the government policy that enabled Malay students to study abroad, including all of them.

I am a writer myself, and an orang surat khabar lama , an old newspaperman, literally, who lived on writing – creative works or otherwise. Many of you may find writing a laborious endeavour. But for us writers and journalists, with deadline looming, pressure from bosses and blank spaces to fill in, it is all about survival – to write or to get fired.

It is amazing that a number of those who contributed for this book are probably penning serious writing for the first time. I read in the book that the idea to compile these essays was mooted in 2023 by Datin Mardhiah and inspired by Husna Kassim’s announcement of her sixth book. Norhayati Mustapha initiated the formation of a chatgroup,
“Lboro Writers” reaching out to Alumni members from 1974-1979. The rest as we know it, is history.

I must congratulate them all, for the outcome is interesting, and more importantly readable. I would like to think that this is a work in progress – there are hundreds if not thousands of graduates of Loughborough University from Malaysia, I am sure there are more than nine individuals who are capable of recording the experience.

“To be a well-favoured man is a gift of fortune, but to write and read comes by nature,” Shakespeare famous said.

Not that simple Mr Shakespeare. But yes, I believe, we are all writers by nature, that part of us that want to tell a story, a narrative, an anecdote. We all have stories to tell. You don’t need to be prime minister, a celebrity or a legend to write a book. Ordinary people can write extraordinary books. Probably some of you have heard of the late Frank McCourt. He was a teacher and he wrote about himself. A memoir of an ordinary man who happened to be a teacher. Angela’s Ashes which was published in 1996 sold millions of copies. You think a teacher from Limerick, Ireland had little to tell? Just read Angela’s Ashes. Not only that, but Angela’s Ashes started an entirely new genre in memoir writing – the so-labelled “misery memoirs.”

That reminds me of a former teacher I used to meet at Taman Jaya, Petaling Jaya. He surprised me one day in 2009 when he gave me a book he just published, Big Lungs and Other Stories. It was a memoir of sorts. His name was Harry Chin who hailed from Kuala Lipis, Pahang. Like Frank McCourt, Harry was nobody. His own daughter Chen Su-Ai wrote in the foreword, that the book “is not about the extraordinary events of a superman.” Harry himself admitted the book was his humble attempt to “to put together a few stories and vignettes.”

That is the catch, “a few stories and vignettes.”

This book is about all that and more. It is not just about experiences – personal or collectively – of students, in their formative years – living in faraway land going through culture shocks, new realities and alien environment, but about the joy and challenges of living in foreign land. Those were the days, now 50 years have passed – but the memories linger on. There are many interesting stories in the book, but I’ll refrain from repeating them here, for it is best that you folks read and savour them yourselves. Just to give you a glimpse of what to expect, imagine a couple unknowingly living in the same flat with a prostitute. That is good enough reason to read this collection of essays.

Husna Kassim in her Introduction reflects on the world of the English in the English Midlands back in the 70s. She mentioned the houses, the gardens, the people, the food that represent “English traditions.” It brings back my own encounter with such values and traditions when I was attached to a world famous publishing firm for a few months in London back in the late 70s, In the City people speak funny I found out. Most of them don’t speak the way I was taught to speak when I was studying in an English school since 1960 – Queen’s English or BBC English. Some speak like Sir Alex Furgeson the legendary manager of Manchester United Football Club (MUFC). I have perfected the art of deciphering funny
speak back
then. Imagine the English spoken by English speakers from all over the British Empire and the Americas. I began to believe at the time our English was better than most.

I reckon that was about the same time as Husna and her friends were in Loughborough. And like Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire where Loughborough is, weird English was notorious. I cannot imagine how young Malaysian students had to deal with Loughborough English back then.

I learned my things about English stoicism, they are the calmnest chaps in times of crisis. What the German bombs did in World War 2 “inconvenienced” them. I saw that myself amidst occasional IRA bombings in London in the 70s. Londoners simply carry on with their lives. Nothing embodies the real London than its underground trains – The Tube – all 11 lines, 269 stations and 645 kilometres of tracks. Old, creaking, occasionally dirty, but working.

It was interesting for me, at the time, watching how “Englishness” was posited in a firm that make up of all nationalities the world over and of course, those who were introducing themselves as Welsh, Scots and Irish. I learned a lot about being British and being English, Welsh, Scots or Irish in a firm like that. I imagine identity contestation was as furious back then, as it is now.

And that reminded me of an essay in Harper’s magazine in 2009 lamenting the fact that there was a cataclysmic change in British society. The title of the piece by Theodore Dalrymple was
The Quivering Upper Lips.
The gentleman-ness of the English or British as pointed out by Husna, which was associated with certain values, etiquette and even a smirk of obnoxiousness that makes an English an English is fast disappearing. Perhaps the image of an English gentleman who has a wife, a lover and a cat and wears a tie in the kitchen and while tending the garden is the thing you see in old movies.

Dalrymple has this to say about about the lost of what he termed as “British restrain.” “Extravagance of gesture, vehemence of expression, vainglorious boastfulness, self-exposure and absence of inhibition.” Seriously, do we need boastfulness and extravagance of gesture? I wanted to believe that what Husna and fiends saw were glimpses of the best of Britain – the one portrayed with maniacal excellence and exactitude in the 1981 hit movie, Chariots of Fire.

I lived for more than a year in Nottingham, unlike Husna and friends, we have 4 children in tow, living among the blue collar populace in “cottages”, in an area known as Cecil Cottages a stone-throw from the famous Raleigh Bicycle factory. The neighbourhood was rough.

My immediate neighbour was a 70-year old man, a true-blue, literally hot-blooded Irishman who owns the only Robin car in the neighbourhood. Neighbours branded his car “The Polluter.” He seemed like an unreasonable man. The 2^nd day we moved in he threw the bulky Yellow Pages into our lawn. I introduced myself to him. He hardly looked at me and uttered the scariest words I have heard in my entire adult life, “As long as you are not Muslim or English!”

But I gained his confidence, taking care of his Robin when he was away, helping him with his chores, even cleaning his house and planting cabbages in his garden. I used get a call after 11.00 pm for his Robin was stuck in a pub somewhere downtown. And we had another neighbour, a couple who sunbathed at the slightest opportunity whenever there is sun. The Robin Man pampered my children and cried unconsolably when we bade farewell a year and a half later.

He must have thought we were good Muslims after all, though I believed we were the only Muslims he had ever encountered.

My attachment at the publishing firm in London in the late 70s and living in Nottingham as a graduate student in 1991/1992 widened my understanding about the complexities of British societies. Britain and particularly England have changed dramatically the last 50 years. Just like ours. It even had the first non-White Prime Minister albeit for a short while. But the notion of Englishness or Britishness has certainly went through dramatical changes over the last five decades. Loughborough too has changed I am sure.

But one thing remains – the memories. And the friendship moulded during those years in the land of the English. Unlike my experiences, studying and living among graduates and PhD students, the writers of these pieces were under-graduates. The bond is certainly different. Friendship meant a lot at the time. I can understand why under-graduates developed meaningful relationships over the years, the case proven by the writers of this collection of essays.

Friendship for me is a notion as elusive as truthfulness. Take it from someone who have gone through some rough times as former journalists, former editor and chairman of the largest media company. Back in 1998, at the peak of the Dr Mahathir-Anwar imbroglio, I was famously fired from my job as the Chief Editor of Utusan Melayu group. The media was cleansed of the so-labelled Anwar’s men. I got the axe in July 1998. Those were the years before social media, newspapers and TV were extremely influential. Control the press and you control the political narratives.

The stigma attached for being an Anwar’s man was horrendous. I leaned a lot about “true friendship” during those dark years. Those were the years of living dangerously for editors. I lost not only my job but many friends I have known for many years. Many avoided me like I was a leper. Perhaps like the old days, carrying a bell to announce my presence was less humiliating. But I knew political correctness at the time was defined by who you are and whom you were associated with. You were guilty simply by association. I persevered because someone gave me a good advice: Be good to everyone you meet on your way up, you are meeting the same people on the way down. I lost some friends, but I retained the best ones.

They say true friends are hard to come by, truthful friends even harder. Oscar Wilde the satirist, famously said, a man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies, but one has to be extremely careful with his choice of friends. Someone else said true love is rare, but true friendship even rarer. I like to believe that you are being defined by how many true friends you have in this world.

True friends are like diamonds, they are forever.

This book, more importantly, is about friendship. It is about students living abroad who have friends to replace their love ones at home. As the synopsis explains, this book is about collection of essays representing “an interesting potpourri of emotions, a delayed outpouring of memories and personal experiences growing up in a society completely different from their own.”

I find the book interesting, the narratives arresting and the stories compelling.

I would like to recommend it to everyone, a book worth reading. It is not just about graduates of Loughborough, but those who had the same memories of campuses they studied and lived in, anywhere in the world.

I assure you, it is a great read.

Dengan lafaz Bismillah… Saya melancarkan buku Those Were the Days: Reminiscing Life Experiences at Loughborough University in the 1970s By Nine Malaysian Graduates.