Sunday 20th July Cup of tea with history

David had interesting boat jobs to do today while I was free to explore some of the historic sights of Sandakan.

war memorial

tea with Sue and scones

In January 1942 the Japanese army marched through South East Asia and into Sandakan. British civilians and their families working for the British Borneo company involved in the management of agriculture and forestry were interned in POW camps for the rest of the war. One of these people was Agnes Newton Keith, an American married to the forestry commissioner. Before the war she wrote The Land Below the Wind, an account of their life in Sabah. After the war she wrote Three Came Home about her and her son and her husband's life as POWs in Kuching. I'd read the books and was keen to see their house which is now a museum.

On the way up to the house there's a memorial to the Australian army POWs and 100 steps up the hill is a pre-war house converted into an English tea room. Having walked up all those steps in the midday heat (we are British mad dogs) a cream tea was required to fuel us before the Agnes Keith house. Work and reward works well for me. David had stayed on board to finish boats jobs and missed both the museum and the tea, or rather he missed the cream tea, I don't think he missed museum. 

Agnes Newton Keith house