I grew up in a small house built on a rented plot of land along Harrington Road (now known as Jalan Istana). My father had the house constructed after moving to Jesselton from Beaufort, shortly after marrying my mother. At the time, the rent for the land was 8 dollars a month.
The house was modest in both design and size, built in a typical rectangular layout. A single bedroom measuring approximately 12 feet by 15 feet, occupied one end of the house. Next to it was the living room, slightly larger at approximately 15 feet by 15 feet. The walls were made of 6-inch-wide, 3/4-inch-thick timber planks nailed vertically side by side. The flooring was also timber. Separating the bedroom from the living room was a simple cloth curtain, a common substitute for doors in those days.
Beyond the living area was the kitchen-cum-dining space, built about five steps lower than the main floor. The kitchen had a bare dirt floor and was adjacent to a small enclosed bathroom. The entire house was topped with an attap roof.
Just outside, about four feet from the bedroom end of the house, stood a detached hut measuring 10 feet by 10 feet. This was occupied by my paternal grandfather.
Our home had no electricity, no piped water, and no gas stove. Water was "piped" from a nearby creek using split bamboo channels that carried water directly to the bathroom. The water flowed continuously into a metal tank, which had originally been used to store petrol or diesel. However, during dry spell, the creek would run dry. When that happened, we had to dig into the creek bed to tap into underground water. But since the water level was lower than the house, it couldn't flow through the bamboo duct. We had to manually fetch it using buckets suspended from both ends of a wooden pole balanced on our shoulders.
There were times when digging into the creek bed yielded no water. In such cases, we had to walk more than a kilometre to find alternative sources - usually deep wells located at the foot of nearby hills. Because carrying water from such distances was exhausting, we often took our dirty laundry with us to do the washing and bathing at the source itself. Only a small amount of water - just enough for cooking and drinking - was brought back to the house in buckets.
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Lighting in the house was limited and only available from around 6pm to 10pm each evening. Our sole source of illumination was a kerosene lantern, lit at dusk and hung in an opening between the living room and the kitchen. By its glow, the children would gather around the dining table to complete their homework shortly after dinner. In another corner of the living room stood the sewing machine, where my father would sit and do extra tailoring work to earn a little more and help supplement the family income.
The lantern remained lit until my father decided it was time to sleep - usually around 10pm - at which time it was extinguished. In the bedroom, a dim kerosene lamp provided minimal lighting. With no entertainment options liked a radio or television, the children were typically in bed well before the night drew to a close.
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Firewood was the only source of fuel we used for cooking and boiling water. I remember that one of the main tasks during the school breaks was gathering firewood from the nearby hill. We had to collect enough to last for 2 to 3 months, which was no easy task. First, we chopped down sizable trees and trimmed off any unwanted branches and leaves. Then, came the hard part - dragging or carrying the logs back to the home compound. Once there, we cut them into 2-foot lengths and split them into smaller pieces using a parang or an axe. After allowing them to dry thoroughly, we stacked them neatly in preparation for use.
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As the years went by and my younger brothers and sister joined the family, an additional room was built at the back of the house to accommodate our growing household. I lived in this house for over 21 years until we finally moved to a new place in 1972. One thing that stands out most in my memory is the complete absence of theft or break-ins. We could leave the house with the door unlocked, and the whole family could be out without a worry. Those were truly different times!
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