…that one day I will go back to Plymouth, England.
I was sent there on a three-month course in 1994 (September – December) with some fourteen or fifteen other participants – basically, there was one from each state and I was the one selected to go from Sarawak…
The lady, second from right, is Norizan Bapoo, now Datuk Hajjah and if I’m not mistaken, holding the post of the Assistant or Director-General of Education, Malaysia.
It was not a big place then…but it was a city by virtue of the fact that it had a cathedral. This photograph was taken at the Plymouth Hoe with my friend, Rohimmi. The last I heard he was lecturing at the Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and I guess he is still there right now.
Among my fondest memories would, of course, be the karaoke nights at the pubs in the city. They had this mobile karaoke whereby the dj and his equipment would move from one pub to another – a different one each night. It was so much fun and I certainly made a lot of friends there. There was this guy, Tony, who would sing “Mandy” every time; I wonder if he’s the same guy as the one in this video clip…
Don’t tell me he’s still singing that same song after all these years. LOL!!!
My final night in Plymouth was at this pub called The Good Companions. The dj said some nice things like it would probably be a very long time before someone like me would pass their way again, how I never sang the same song twice unlike the locals who would “sing the same f**king songs every night”…and when I sang my last song in Plymouth, “The Rose”, everybody lit their lighters and waved their arms in the air like it was some rock concert or something like that. That certainly was a moment to cherish for a lifetime.
Well, I left a pair of shoes there and somebody was telling me that there is this belief that when you go away from a place and you leave your shoes behind, you will return to that place sometime in the future. Let’s hope that this is true…
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 