Trace and Tell your Family's Empire Stories
Introduction
Jenny Eclair is an award-winning comedian and novelist, regularly seen on the TV programme 'Grumpy Old Women'. Jenny was a 'Forces' child, born in post-colonial Malaysia while her father, Derek Hargreaves, was posted there.
Derek, now 82, was first posted to Malaya in 1952 as a lieutenant fighting the communist uprising in the jungle. Jenny wanted to retrace his footsteps and unravel his part in the Malayan Emergency, a 12-year guerrilla war fought by Malayan Chinese communists against the British.
As military strategy turned to winning over the Malayans, the Emergency was to become known as the 'Battle for Hearts and Minds'.
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The Green Howards regiment used Iban trackers in their fight against the communists. Ibans, a branch of the Dayak peoples of Borneo, were experienced trackers who were also renowned for practising headhunting.
While today the Iban are urbanised, many of the trackers used by the British in the 1950s had had little contact with westerners. According to Derek's book about the Green Howards: "It was with some reluctance that they agreed between the wars to discontinue their ancient pursuit of head hunting."
The book claims that "many of the older men still wear black tattooing on the fingers and knuckles of their right hands, signifying that they have taken a head. The Emergency was to provide plenty of opportunity for the younger men to acquire this distinction, though they were never allowed to remove the head despite being keen to do so."
The issue of removing the heads of the dead was to cause a great deal of controversy during the Emergency, as Jenny discovered.
