I felt a deep sense of betrayal
WE WERE staying in a holiday cottage in Lynton, the quintessentially small English village in Devon, the setting of the great classic, Lorna Doone, by R.D. Blackmore, first published in 1869. We had run out of milk for breakfast, and so my wife, little daughter and I got into our rented Morris Traveller for the short drive to our favourite local grocery. My wife went into the store while we waited in the car. No sooner had she entered the shop than out she came, in shock, to tell me that race riots had broken out in Kuala Lumpur.
The lady who owned the shop had, in the week or so we were there, got to know us a little and knew we were from Malaysia. Her first words on seeing my wife were, “Your country is burning!” My wife replied, “You must be thinking of Vietnam, surely.” In 1969, the war in Vietnam was still on. She then pointed to the stacks of The London Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Manchester Guardian and the rest of the British dailies, all with their screaming headlines. That settled any lingering doubts we might have had, and I bought every newspaper I could lay my hands on.
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