At the same time, General Templer complained to the Colonial Office about what he considered to be the biased reporting about the Malayan Emergency by Louis Heren, the Singapore correspondent of the London Times, who had pointed out in one of his articles that the improvement in the security situation following General Templer’s arrival at Malaya in February 1952 was not entirely due to Templer’s efforts and had largely come about because of a change of policy by the Communist Party of Malaya which had been decided on before Templer’s arrival. Although Templer pressed for Heren’s removal from Singapore by the London Times, the Editor of the London Times, Sir William Haley, refused to do so and Heren remained
where he was.

As it happens, my own career was affected by the publishing of And The Rain My Drink, and in 1953, although I did not agree with the views expressed in the book, I decided to resign from the Malayan Police Special Branch as a matter of principle at what I considered the undemocratic way in which the British colonial government tried to have it withdrawn by the publishers, especially as in the Malayan Emergency we were fighting for democracy against Communism which stifled free speech. When I submitted my resignation, G.C. Madoc, then Director of the Malayan Special Branch, and W. Carbonell, the Commissioner of Police, flew down from Kuala Lumpur to see me in Johore Bahru in an attempt to get me to change my mind but I said I intended to stand by my principles.

This is the untold story of the background to the writing of And The Rain My Drink.

(Dr) Leon Comber

4

Foreword by Kirpal Singh

As most readers of this remarkable novel (the categorization is difficult given the nature of this extraordinary narration of events that actually took place, with ‘real’ people being thinly disguised as leading characters and with the author herself appearing as herself!) point out, its title is intriguing and right from the start hints at larger-than-life evocations and profundities. The title comes, from a poem which has, as its basis, a fundamental commitment to seeing ‘justice’ and ‘equality’ being established as a way of life, as normative rather than just remaining remote ideals, talked about by many, truly aspired by a few and really only pursued by those very few individuals prepared to sacrifice themselves in the process.