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Apart from a short break cause by the Japanese Occupation, HSBM went on to challenge and, very often, soundly beat not only its immediate rivals in the rarefield confines of the Peninsula for more than half a century.

HSBM would have never amounted to much if it had been just another British colonial institution to educate the natives among a motley gathering of rice farmers, rubber tappers, civil servants and petty traders. Undoubtedly, the vision of the founding father, E La M. Stowell, to mould the newly established school along the strict but slightly elitist lines of the English public school model has much to do with the nurturing of the school’s character. But, surely, the amazing thing is that this no doubt well intentioned aspiration was left in the somewhat unusual charge of a small band of valiant locals and it is entirely to credit their that we have become what we are today. Looking back at old photographs of the School, it is almost incredible that the men who had gathered in the town’s photo studio for a historical group picture in 1927 were to be ultimately responsible for all that the school came to be known for especially in the quality of men that it produced. Even more, when one reads the almost unbelievably personal reminisces of some of the select few of this elite pioneering staff members in the Golden Anniversary edition of The Bukit, none of us will be able to deny the utter sincerity and total dedication of these early teachers.

Most old boys of the pre-Merdeka years will never be able to forget the names of these archetypal Malayan gentlemen of that period when, as a Malay, Chinese or Indian or Eurasian in what was then British Malaya, they were all caught in a fascinating dilemma. Themselves thoroughly schooled in the British educational tradition and yet ethically not entirely detribalised, one remembers them as neatly attired in stiffly starched, usually white, long-sleeved shirts and trousers with their de rigueur ties. It was this core of pioneer teachers whose names are now just a memory that was the backbone of the School’s rise to fame from a backwater such as Province Wellesley. As we observe the seventy fifth anniversary then, we ought to be acutely aware of their absence today as they have almost all to a man faded away with the passing of time and we’re left only with our fond memories of them, if we were so fortunate as to have ever been under their charge. For the rest of the Old Boys of today, it would be a most inspiring experience to seek out that 1977 edition of The Bukit and just imbibe the simple and yet noble virtues of the lives of these great former teachers of ours who mostly lived in their modest but cosy homes between No 81A to No 81L of Teachers’ Quarters.