The recent obituary of Anthony Brooke, the last White Rajah, reminded me of a story my father used to tell me as a child. Luckily, although ancient, he is still alive, and he recounted it for me today. The Brookes became the Rajah's of Sarawak in North Borneo, Malaya in 1841 . By the time we went to live in Sarawak in 1963, the Brookes had been replaced by British colonial governors. My parents dined several times at their residence, above, and we went there to children's parties. On one occasion the acting governor came to dinner at our house on the opposite side of the Sarawak River.
My father had given instructions to our minders that my brother and I should be well-behaved and out of sight upon the governor's arrival. We duly complied, but I remember viewing the arrival from the staircase on the upper floor of the gigantic sprawling house in which we lived. It was the custom in those days that the gun was fired from the Istana at 8 o'clock to signal that the governor was sitting down for dinner. When I was informed of the impending occasion, I asked my father, "But who will fire the gun?". He relayed the story to the governor, and this was the ice breaker that he recounts to this day.
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