Professor Tim Bunnell shares how his fascination with tales of Malay seamen in the UK led to the making of the film Pulang
DENNIS CHUA
THE soon-to-be-screened movie Pulang, inspired by Primeworks Studios chief executive officer Datuk Ahmad Izham Omar’s search for his long-lost grandfather, had the immediate attention of academic Tim Bunnell. The professor of geography at the National University of Singapore (NUS) strongly identified with Ahmad Izham’s “family search” for he, too, longed to find out more about his late grandfather who became a sailor.
“Alas I didn’t get to learn more about my own grandfather as he passed away before I had a chance to ask him about that period in his life. As a result, all I know about his sailing days is that he was at sea for two years ...he left Liverpool after completing army duty in Burma (now Myanmar) in World War Two,” said Bunnell, 45, in a recent interview.
FILMIC BEGINNINGS
Bunnell, who is interested in urban studies and migration around Southeast Asia, was inspired to find out about Malay sailors who went to Liverpool, after watching Hishamuddin Rais’ satirical comedy, Dari Jemapoh Ke Manchester, in 2001. “I was doing postdoctoral research on the Multimedia Super Corridor project at that time, but found time to watch this film in Kuala Lumpur.
“What fascinated me about that film was, a main character talked about his grandfather being a sailor who went to the UK and sent him a postcard from Liverpool,” he said, adding that he pursued his doctorate at Nottingham University. Bunnell later asked Hishamuddin about Malay sailors in the UK, and he responded that many of them settled there in the 1940s, after the World War Two.
“This led to me doing research on them, between 2003 and 2014, and the end result was my book titled From World City To The World In One City: Liverpool Through Malay Lives,” he said.
FROM CARDIFF TO LIVERPOOL
Bunnell learnt, through his research, that Malay sailors who settled in the UK were initially concentrated in the Welsh capital Cardiff prior to World War Two. “Liverpool and London were the UK’s main ports before World War Two but the biggest concentration of Malays was in Cardiff before the War.”
Bunnell, who hails from Cheshire, learnt that there were more than 100 Malay sailors in Liverpool in the 1950s most of whom came from the former Straits Settlements colonies namely Singapore, Penang and Melaka.
“There were only 20 or so seafarers left when I first began my research, most had already passed away by then” he said, adding that he saw the grave of Ahmad Izham’s grandfather Othman in the sailors’ cemetery.”
SEEKING OUT SAILORS?
Bunnell did research while based in Liverpool during his sabbatical leave and was initially assisted by London-based Malaysian journalist Zaharah Othman. She helped him get in touch with Malaysian students in Liverpool, who organised gatherings of the sailors’ families. “I’m especially grateful to Zaharah and Sharidah Sharif who was living in Liverpool at that time while doing postgraduate studies in Hope University.
It was Sharidah who introduced me to many of the sailors’ families.” In 2008, Ahmad Izham approached him for help in finding Othman’s grave. “I shared my research, the subject of my book, with him, and he was delighted. He told me that his father Omar, who had studied in Britain, had gone to meet Othman four decades earlier,” said Bunnell, who also interviewed Omar for his book. When Ahmad Izham chose to make a film about his grandfather two years ago,
he and scriptwriter Mira Mustaffa found “a goldmine of information” for their story in Bunnell’s book.
PIONEERING PEOPLE
They recently invited him to watch their finished product, and he was impressed. Everything which was described in the book — the ships, ports and cities — were true to the photos of them. Ahmad Izham and Mira, he said, had a great eye for detail, right down to the apparel of Melakans and British in those days. Their end result was a powerful, moving and inspiring story. Bunnell mentioned that Othman’s hometown, Serkam in southeast Melaka, contributed a lot of the Malay diaspora in Liverpool.
Many of the sailors came from humble fishermen’s families and joined among others the Straits Steamship Company, which ferried goods and people around Southeast Asia. Some the sailors were of Bugis descent, and Bugis were known for being brave seafarers. Bunnell, who has been lecturing in the
NUS since 1999, plans to do research on the Malay diaspora in Cardiff at the end of World War One next.
“Some of them were caught up in the Cardiff Riots of 1919, when British sailors who joined the army, returned home unhappy to see many ‘foreigners’ taking up their jobs,” he said. Pulang is Bunnell’s first involvement in a Malaysian film project, but he hopes it will not be his last. “If any Malaysian or Singaporean filmmaker seeks my help to come up with historical films about pioneering people in the region, I’d be ready to lend him or her a helping hand.”