Bless This School-St Gabriel's School

Bless This School-St Gabriel’s School
Lintang Bob Yong

I decided to pay a visit to our beloved school this Easter Sunday. Since I left in 1957 after having sat for the Senior Cambridge School Certificate, I had not set foot on it. Time flies, isn’t it. It is now more than half a century ago and I can feel the nostalgia in me when I come face to face with our school.
Searching the whereabouts of our school came as a surprise to me because I spent an hour trying to locate it. I had to stop and ask for directions from three passersby and a police station. I was born and bred in Pudu area and it shocked me to admit that I felt like a total stranger in my home town and our school which had been my sanctuary during my teenager’s years.
I was naive to believe that the area would remain unchanged since I left. The area was then simply known as Kampung Pandan (a place for rubbish dumping) and our school is located on this site. Now fifty years on, many housing estates have sprung up and the area has many new names such as Pandan Indah and Taman Maluri; and perhaps a few more names that I have not heard of.
It was a sheer joy when I saw the name of our school and I found myself standing at the school gate eagerly waiting to get in. I took a quick look at the surrounding and notice that the school’s precinct was clustered with tall buildings and the presence of a few other schools. It was a complete different picture that I had in mind. I remember well that the school was built on a filled up mining land for which I could see yonder. The field annexed to the main school building was barren and we used to play football in that sand filled waste land.
Our school did not look like the one I used to be with. The class room which we used to study was on the second floor; the one and only class room on top of other class rooms. It was hot, but we could see the entire waste land from our windows. The lone structure of this single building block which now has out buildings attaching to it look more like squatter houses to me. The colour of this particular block which was white then is now painted brown. I am sad to say that our school appears run-down.
It was hard indeed for me to experience this drastic change since I had many fond memories of our school. However, my sadness turned to joy when I saw the old rugged bronze school bell was still proudly hung to the stand and I think to myself it must have been as old as me. This is the same bell that was used for our fire drill in the primary school while we were temporally housed at Pudu English Girl’s School. The faithful school bell has served its purpose and I am glad it has been appreciated and taken care of by the school authority. This symbolic school bell must be kept intact to remind us of the poor and humble beginning of our school.
As I bid farewell to our school, I felt proud of the fact that the main building block of our school was the result of our school building fund campaign, in which the students contributed weekly out of the pocket monies given to them by their poor parents.