Liang Batu: Memories flood in

The clinic is still standing but it has electricity and water supply

A villager I met during the visit. He remembered my mother very well

My late mother was a certified government midwife. Hajah Mahmor Ahmad was posted to a village not many knew back then called Kampung Liang Batu, with the villagers speaking with a melody that I mastered a long time ago.
It was in the early 60s and I was maybe 3 or maybe 4 back then. We were given a small sized one-bedroom government quarters, with a clinic attached to it where my mother would attend to pregnant women during daytime.
There was no piped water supply and electricity was unheard of then in the village.
Water was drawn from a well behind the clinic while at night, we used a gasoline lamp to light up the house.
No tv, just a small transistor radio for company. Life was simple then. Maybe too simple but we huddled together in the living room or the verandah.
I remember during the day,  I would be by her side predicting that this villager would get a boy or the other would get a girl and most of the my predictions came true much to the delight of the whole village.
My mother was given a transport in a form of a bicycle and she would cycle to houses of pregnant women for house calls.
Garbed in a white overall and a white cap to go with, my mother quickly made friends with the colourful characters in the village.
Among them was Pak Itam Daud, a man who owned a shotgun who threatened his enemies with "Aku tembok kau" (I will shoot you) but I don't remember anyone getting shot at.
Two of his sons were Talib and Shaari who would frequent our house to be with my eldest brother Zakaria while another was delivered by my mother.
Apparently, he owed my mother his life. The boy was breathless when he was delivered. There was a complication and the Muar hospital staff who were rushed to the village had told my mother to concentrate on his mother and left the lifeless baby alone.
But she was adamant that she could save the boy and told Pak Itam Daud to get a bottle of whiskey from a sundry shop nearby.
She then soaked the baby in the whiskey and he started to cry. The boy, Ahmad Jusoh, grew up and is now selling apam balik in Muar.
Then there was this village midwife we called Mak Ngah Gembin who also lived nearby.
I remember she had two daughters and they would frequent our house. And our next door neighbour was a rubber tapper. If I remember corectly, one of his sons married Mak Ngah Gembin's daughter.
The sundry shop beside the river was owned by a Chinese family. We would frequent the shop for groceries and one day the owner and my mother decided to play a prank on me.
He threatened to push my mother into the river and I was crying hysterically. Both of them then laughed but I was still sobbing.
The river flowed behind our house but luckily there was an undergrowth back then.
My mother would always tell us not to go to the river as it was crocodile infested anyway.
I remember then my three other siblings were sent to my uncles' houses to attend English schools in Muar town.
The other, Mariam, was taken care of by another uncle as the  couple had lost several due to illnesses.
My eldest brother who quit school at an early age stayed with us and so did my grandmother as my mother was already a single mother then.
During one of the fasting months in Liang Batu, I had a nasty cut on my forehead due to a fall. I was soaked in blood when my brother Zakaria picked me up and the scar stayed with me until now.
Once, I almost burned the whole house when I lit a whole box of matches. Luckily, a village girl who stayed with us as a nanny saw the incident and managed to put out the fire.
But I was without eyelashes and eyebrows for a long time!
And since my grandmother was staying with us, we had a steady flow of visitors from Muar.
One couple who frequented our house was my mother's cousin. the late Tan Sri Kadir Yusof, the country's first Law minister and his wife Tan Sri Fatimah Hashim, the country's first woman minister.
He would bring copies of the Straits Times and showed us pictures of him in the newspaper.
My first love with the newspaper.
I remember looking forward to school holidays when my three siblings would come home.
My brother Dolah used to bring me small figurines of the popular TV show Combat and we would play together.
At night, under the dim light from gasoline lamp, we would sit by the verandah listening music from a small transistor radio. Around us was total darkness but we were not afraid.
It was also in Liang Batu that my mother found her second love. Haji Musip Md Adin was a cabbie from Bukit Kepong, a village which was made popular by an incident where a band of communist had attacked the police station in the 50s.
She became his second wife and bore a child, my youngest sister Shidah.
The timeline in this article may not be accurate but the incidents and memories etched in me for the longest time.
I went back to the village several years ago and found nothing much has changed. Except maybe bigger houses with big cars lined up in the compound. Technology as caught up with them.
They are now connected via Whatsapp and Facebook. But the village remain laid back. The clinic is still there and a mansion was built next to it. Life certainly has changed.