Some of our members in Gaya Street |
What on earth possessed us to want to do this event? During our walkabout, we stumbled upon this bronze plaque. I am sure you have walked past it many times but did you stop and read what is inscribed on it?
During World War II, Jesselton (what Kota Kinabalu was known then) was inundated by Allied bombings. All the shops in Gaya Street were decimated. After the war ended, naturally the first order of things were to rebuild Jesselton and overall, North Borneo. The principle ‘rebuilder’ was of course Britain, the British North Borneo Chartered Company (BNBCC) had surrendered their prized possession to their government because they could not afford to rebuild their colony. So now North Borneo was a Crown Colony. Must be mentioned here that the Australians helped out a lot in the rebuilding also. Anyway, on 10th September 1951, the government started building the first block of shops in Gaya Street to replace the decimated ones. Out of the ashes, Gaya Street rose like a Phoenix. So you do the numbers, the “new” first block of Gaya Street ‘celebrated’ its 60th year birthday last September 2011! Gaya Street is course older than that, perhaps 113 years old. Well, I cannot be certain about this, we are enthusiasts and not experts :P. But we are enthusiasts who actively sought out information.
We felt bad for Gaya Street, her birthday celebration was a mute one. Hence, started our quest to dig up as much historical information about Gaya Street as we humanly possible to do so. To our pleasant surprise, we encountered some ‘Towkays’ in Gaya Street who were eager to share their knowledge about the street. They were just waiting for eager ears to listen to them.
Before long, we have gathered a rather respectable materials and we asked ourselves, what are we going to do with these materials? Hey! What is NBHE all about? To discover, preserve and propagate Sabah’s history of course! So we put our game face on and started knocking on DBKK’s door(a member pointed out that KK will be celebrating its 12th year anniversary since getting her City Status), it was a long shot! Who have heard of NBHE? It was only formed in May 2011. Again to our pleasant surprise, DBKK opened its door to us.
Datin Fazar Datuk Arif and Mr Paul Lajumin, selling our event to Mayor Datuk Abidin Madingkir |
Idea sold! Datin presenting Ms Tina Kisil’s (standing right to the Mayor) book Footprints in the Paddy Fields to the Mayor. |
We have since then met a lot of people from other government agencies, I will not bore you with the details. But I leave these tasty morsels to whet your curiosity, we will launched a Coffeetable Book, our inaugural publication, which chronicle the collective memories of Gaya Street community on 11 February 2012. Our publication is quite special if I may say so, for it is unpretentious and it is unadulterated. They are thoughts and memories of people who had experience live in Gaya Street. We don’t claim them to be authoritative but we hope, these stories will drive our readers to search answers on their own. A catalyst of sort, we hope we can engage our audience and turn all Sabahans young and old, to become Sabah’s “detectives”! Reclaim our history and identity.
In connection to this, we invite the public to contribute any stories of their own or people they know to NBHE. We may publish this on the event itself or in our future publication. If you are interested, you may email us at bergaya2012@gmail.com. This is of course on voluntary basis, we are non-profit after all. Any funds we get from the sale of our work will go towards funding future programs towards the community of Sabah!
To get further updates on our event, click LIKE on our Facebook page. We will post updates along the way. Stay tuned!
myNBstamps
March 11, 2012
I am a North Borneo stamp collector. I have an envelope which was sent by a Lim Ken Fatt of Bond Street to Sweden in 1919. I have been trying to get some information on Mr Lim. I hope someone can help.
Thanks
Justin Sunam Wong
March 11, 2012
Is the name correctly spelled? Any return address? Confirm these details and I’ll try to find out for you.
myNBstamps
March 11, 2012
Lim Keng Fatt
7 Bond Street
Jesselton
British North Borneo
Many thanks
Justin Sunam Wong
March 11, 2012
I have messaged one of the old folks who lived in Gaya St even before it was called Gaya St. He survived WWII. If anyone knows who this Lim Keng Fatt is, it would be him. We’ll have to wait for him to read his message. In the meanwhile, the name Lim Keng Fatt, do sound really familiar to me. I suspect he could be involved in the Kinabalu Guerilla. The ill fated rebellion led by Albert Kwok. I could be mistaken though.
myNBstamps
March 11, 2012
Many thanks. really helpful. If you are interested in viewing this beautiful cover, here is a link to it on my blog:
http://mynorthborneostamps.blogspot.com/2012/01/most-attractive-cover-with-jesselton-r3.html
How often do you have meetings? I will be passing through KK in April.
Justin Sunam Wong
March 11, 2012
I think I’m right. Lim Keng Fatt was involved in the Kinabalu Guerilla. What you have there is a priceless artifact. Tell me when you are in town. We can arrange a get together. We are a loose grouping officially. We are just bunch of enthusiasts.
myNBstamps
March 12, 2012
I will be seeing my folks in Sandakan but I am also thinking of visiting KK for at least a day on my way back to UK. Will let you know nearer the time.
Justin Sunam Wong
March 15, 2012
Hi. Yes, confirmed that Lim Keng Fatt was involved with Kinabalu Guerilla. We are slowly making a ‘composite’ of this person. http://g8fight.blogspot.com/2012/03/kinabalu-guerillas-lim-keng-fatt.html May I have your permission to use the photos on your blog on Lim’s envelop and pic of Bond St in 1900 for this blog. Not my personal blog but this one, in which I am writing this reply.
myNBstamps
March 16, 2012
yes, you can use the image of my envelope. The photos were pulled the net. I am not aware of any copyright infringements as i was not using them for commercial purposes. But we should acknowledge source where we can.
A really big thank you to you and Bartholomew for your help. I agree this is very important historic information which I shall include in a future article to the Sarawak Journal. I hope you would not mind if I use this information.
Sarawak Journal specialises in stamps and local history of British Borneo.
Justin Sunam Wong
March 16, 2012
Yes you can. I wouldn’t put the information here if I didn’t want to share them 😛 Just credit NBHE and Barth Chua for the digging :D.