大象传媒

1942 14th June

Miss Phyllis awakened with gifts. Quite a bit of excitement. I gave her a pair of my silk stockings, it was a chance to repay her a little for all she did for me when I was sick with dysentry. She really did more than anyone could expect and was so good trotting in and out with food and drinks and no tray to carry things on. She was a real brick.
We had tinned pears on breakfast rice ( a gift from Dutch in House 9), another surprise. Ration only eggs and smelly cabbage. Hope the eggs are better than yesterday when when six out of nine were bad. We were presented with a whole tin of corned beef by No.9 and so had a lovely lunch of corned beef, red beans, soup and potatoes. How very tasty. I felt like licking my lips like a cat afterwards.

July 26th
Got cocnut from the shop so we could have cocnut milk cooked with rice, raw to eat, grated on our rice, in soups and puddings and cakes. Miss Briggs says we shall soon smell like Tamils. Nasty thought.

August 13th
Mrs. Weir's birthday. We did and operetta. Mrs. Mac, Miss Briggs, Shelagh and myself were gypsies. Everyone said it was good and it was certainly fun. I'm afraid we had not rehearsed sufficiently but no one expected a polished performance and I think from the cast's point of view we enjoyed it more, we hadn't time to get tired of it. Miss Briggs was the daughter of Zillaq, Shelagh was the lover, Mrs Mac the mother, Trina and I was the father Aaron Earl of Exilia. Miss Briggs found coconut toffee after the party which had been forgotten. After all her efforts this afternoon making it this was a bit 'ard.

29th June
We had 'Rules for Internees' read to us in English. Not to smoke nor drink. Communal cooking, no other fires, to take care of our health it 'our own' concern!! Not to escape, not to write uncensored letters! Not to gamble our clothes or money away! Well at least we got a laugh.

21st July
After water carrying the count made too many so some of us had to hide to make it right!

22nd July
At Tengko we were told if we do not exhitit comradeship and order they will cease to regard us as a 'oremost nation' and give us things.

22nd November
Spent morning de-bugging my net. Phyllis sold her watch for 100 guilders to an officer who came in with 'Toothache@. I hope she won't regret it. Peanut sauce from Phyllis to celebrate her good fortune, she also insists on paying an extra 10c a week into house to buy onions.

28th November
Terrible 'Susah' as 'General Ross' expected tomorrow. A lot of oomph-oomphing. We are told to clear drains, seep roads clear up gardens etc. all in a flutter. When the sentry yelled at Phyllis at about 4 p.m. she sweetly replied in Malay 'tomorrow' and turned into the houise where at he followed furiously with fixed bayonet, much to the agitation of Marie and Cookie (Miss Cullen). He yelled and shouted at them in the absence of Phyllis and of course they did not realise what it was all about. Eventually the doctor dealt nobly with the situation and walked the sentry out.

1943
2nd January
Dixie Armstrong, who goes haywire on occaisions, started on her mother ad June Bournhill last night and all the family had to be hastily moved. There's always bad language and a carry on there. Dixie once called our Phyllis a 'bloody prostitute'. Poor innocent Phyllis! She was upset at the time but we laughed about it since.

11th January
The wood ration was like a rugger scrum, it put everyone in a bad temper. It's been getting worse and worse lately despite various methods which have been tried. This time three from each house stood on numbers painted on the road and at a given signal rushed at the wood. Forty-two fighting pushing females, it was disgusting. To crown it all Ann Livingstone lectured us, as a garage afterwards, saying that we had not kept the rules. My goodness I'm afraid I let fly, being bruised and exhausted in the struggle, I was in no fit state to listen to that. She added insult to injury by giving eight of our selected pieces to a house which had not sent anyone to the scrum. We were all simply mad with her.

22nd February
Party for Margaret's birthday. I prepared the programme and we had several rehearals. In fact we had lots of fun rehearsing the 'Drunkard Legacy' in which Phyllis tried vainly several times to hang herself. We did that in dumb show, also the 'Crystal Gazer' and 'The Waxworks'. Everything seemed to go quite well and we hope we've retrieved our characters after the last fiasco. It lasted one and a half hours and we had to stop at 10:00p.m. Everyone apparently enjoyed all the fooling.

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