MIRI - Home Sweet Home

After all the travelling, it is good to be back in Miri. There is some truth in the saying that 'Home is where the heart is'. ..no matter if one lives in a shack,a mansion ,a flat or a house,if it is yours,it belongs to you,then it becomes a part of you. Ever since I was born in 1959,I only left Miri for about 5 years before I returned to base again,got married and thank goodness,settled down in Miri again. D likes Kuching because he spent most of his earlier years there,studied there and most of all,Kuching is only 4 hours drive to Samu, his home sweet home...hence that's the reason why he's getting the apartment. He ever thought of relocating to Kuching in our earlier years of marriage..now that we're entering our 27 years of married life together,maybe..we stay put in Miri. Keep my fingers crossed.

Let me write about life in Lutong first: As earliest as I can remember, my family and I lived and stayed at a semi detached wooden lodge built by SHELL for its employees. Our lodge was situated at the empty land facing the present Good Shepherd Church,Lutong. The present carpark for Good Shepherd Church was our playground,where we played soldiers with 'lastic' & buah cherry as the pellets. There were12 semi detached lodges on that plot of land.The lodge had 2 rooms,a verandah,one bathroom & a kitchen. Some time,when my dad's relatives from Kapit & my mum's relatives from Kanowit came,on transit,before continuing on with their 'bejalai', the verandah was used as the sleeping area. The verandah was nicely decorated with 'selabit' - olden days version of the knapsack made from rattan/rottan when relatives from Kapit came. Our lodge was in the middle of the other lodges;the other family that stayed next door was a nurse called Mdm Kathy Lau,a nurse at the Lutong Clinic,who's married to an Iban called Noel Bunchol, a Customs man. After Indai Ann moved back to Sibu(she gave birth to a baby girl called Ann there), it was James Empungan & family that stayed there. Within the vicinity of the 12 lodges, the families that stayed there were,Kadet & family(related to Tunku Bujang,the ex-Governor),the Nanta (Daisy Nanta,Rebecca & Allen Crock),the Lim Ban Joo ( Janet, Jennica,Jessen,Sparrow Lim ,Esther),the Chempian(Evelyn,Julia,Nancy,), Sonny Lack (Rubu Lack),the Koh (Edward Koh,Richard Koh,Patricia Koh), the Kepol (Sadiah,Dabek of the Petronas Kiosk at RPR Batu 6),the Joseph Bilal ( Bonny,Doris aka Puteri),a kadazan family,Anthony Lajuta,a chinese family( one daughter was called Anne).
In those days, the lodges provided by the company indicated what job group the employees held. There was the labour post catergory (liba pos,ko bala indai-indai kami suba),clerical work catergory,Grade 1,Triple S..something like that. The labour post personnel lived around the present Carigali main office,Kampung Tulang area. Those a little bit higher up lived around the present site of Kelab Shell Lutong.(has changed its name to Kelab Petroliam??). In my days,it was called the Machinda Club. Those,whose fathers held better job groups stayed at the Grade 1 houses,somewhere behind the Lutong Recreation Club,the rumah tinggi (tall houses) and the houses where Rumah Harapan inmates were housed once. When my dad got promoted,we moved to the red detached house which had 3 rooms,next to Rumah Harapan. I think that red house was also part of Rumah Harapan. The Roman Catholic Church,St. Christopher's Church,Lutong was just a 'stone throw' away from where we stayed. Of course,the highest job grade personnel were entitled to stay at Piasau,as it was called then.I t was only in later years,I would say,in the 80s that there's Piasau Camp to distinguish it from Piasau Link,Piasau Jaya,Piasau Utara & so forth. It used to be just Piasau,where the orang putih or pangkat orang putih stayed.
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