Jean was born in Malaya 1921, but her parents were English. She went back to England to go to school. When she was nineteen years old, she went back to Malaya to work as a shorthand typist and live in Kuala Lumpur. In 1941, the Second World War began. The Japanese invaded Malaya. Because of the risk to be taken as prisoners, the English people in Kuala Lumpur took refuge. Jean did not do that, but went to her friends: the family Holland, to help them to make the journey south. They tried to escape first by car and later by boat, but it did not work out: they were too late, and the Japanese made them prisoners, together with about sixty other peoples. They had to stay under the veranda of the account office. The men had to go to a prison camp, so only women and children were left in the account office. The circumstances were very bad; the food was not good and they had to sleep on the ground without any blanket. Therefore, diseases like dysentery and malaria attacked them. After thirty-five days the first child died.
At the end of six weeks the captain of the Japanese told the women and children that they had to go to Singapore to go to an prison-camp, because in the meanwhile the Japanese had captured that town also. They should walk to Kuala Lumpur; from there they should be able to go by train to Singapore.
They started to walk. First they walked to Ayer Penchis; it was a long and hot journey. The next day they walked to Asahan. Everyone became weaker and weaker. An old lady, Mrs Collard died there. Jean was the only one who could talk Malay and she got it done that the women and children could stay a day. They rested and bullied Mrs Collard.
They heard from the Japanese that they could not get a train in Kuala Lumpur. So they were forced to walk further to Klang in order to take a boat. In Klang, they heard that there were no ships. There where twenty-nine women and children left. They stay eleven days in Klang.
The major ordered them to walk to Port Dickson; there might be a boat. There they did not find a boat. The commander said that they had to walk to Serembar and get a train there. When they arrived, they discovered that there was no train. They walked on in the direction of Singapore. On the way a captain sad, that they could not go to Singapore because there were too many prisoners. On the...

lively 21 december 2004 @ 18:22 uur t zou makkelijk zijn als r iemand was die per hoofdstuk een samenvatting maakt want dat moeten wij namelijk op school doen!! gr annabel