A Birthday Party
By gofb-adm on Tuesday, December 29th, 2020 in Planter's Diary, Issue 4 - 2020 No Comments
By gofb-adm on Tuesday, December 29th, 2020 in Planter's Diary, Issue 4 - 2020 No Comments
Leslie Davidson, Tungud Estate’s startup Manager, wondered whether a birthday party should be held to mark the first year of development of Sabah’s commercial oil palm estate. He sounded out his friend Tom Prentice, Chairman of Harrisons and Crosfield, Sabah’s premier trading company.
From 1925 to 1955 Harrisons had been the sole owner of every forest tree in the territory – Cinderella’s resources which had never seen the light of day outside Sabah. The London shareholders possibly had no idea they owned such bounty.
A hardworking product of Edinburgh’s public schools, Tom had been appointed chairman of the company’s 10 branches in Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah. He was charged by his London office to further the development of its agencies, which included Straits Steamships and British Overseas Airways; the universally-popular Lister engines; Carrier air-conditioners, and endless items of construction materials, paint, industrial chemicals and even bathroom furniture, all made in Britain.
Sabah, on the other hand, had been devastated by General MacArthur’s softening-up raids before the American forces retook it from Japanese invaders. Its wooden shoplots and houses had been destroyed by bombing; and there was no commercial deep-sea port, veneer mill, plywood mill, timber drying plant or a Forest Department timber laboratory.
But its timber business had begun to thaw out of its ice age by demands from the cause of all the trouble – Japan and its former colony, Korea. The thaw started with a 1955 government decision to break Harrisons’s timber monopoly. Nine new licences were issued and exports permitted for the first time of round timber logs. This was no concern of Unilever’s and certainly not of Leslie’s.
From his year-old attap-and-kajang Labuk riverside quarters Leslie understood that a birthday party might be worth the effort, provided that at least two other interested parties could be shown that oil palm could be grown on former tobacco plantation or rubber land – and accommodate the British government’s demand to “grow more food for Britain”. But what would be Leslie’s sales pitch?
On Unilever’s arrival, Tom had offered to act as their managing agent; every plantation company throughout the Far East with head offices in London – except one – used agency houses to manage their investments. The use of local expertise made good sense. The agent for Unilever’s oil palm in Johore was the Guthrie Corporation.
Harrisons’ investments in Borneo included its branch offices distributed along the coastal towns of the three territories; an expanding domestic timber business and 400 ha of high-quality rubber in Sandakan. Leslie declined Tom’s invitation with thanks, despite their similar backgrounds, the one from Aberdeen, the other from Edinburgh.
But what about other unknowns? Throughout Borneo, oil palm had by 1960 just reached preliminary evaluation – the nearest precedents were the modest 24,000 ha in Malaya compared with 2 million ha of rubber. Where now in Sabah was land available for oil palm?
Due to the lack of roads to the interior, any new sites would be confined to the coastline. Mosytn Estate’s experimental oil palm planting on medium rainfall, fertile volcanic soils was served by its own deep-water port in Kunak, 30km from the plantation. It had been in use since 1920; requiring only a tank farm.
Tungud’s lands, although flat and swampy, had been farmed between 1895 and 1918 by The New London Tobacco Company. What was good for tobacco, a notoriously fickle crop, was very likely good for oil palm, as extensively demonstrated by Dutch planters in Sumatra’s coastal provinces.
How to move palm oil from Tungud to Sandakan? Leslie’s preliminary notes had mentioned dracones; giant rubber tubes of palm oil pulled by ocean-going tug from the plantation to the bulking installation; the very mention of which drew giggles from Unilever’s head office staff.
How to store palm oil until ready for shipment? Unilever offered to carry out the works for the Public Works Department. Its director, stretching to his fullest height, snorted: “Leslie, kindly put in a bid alongside other consultants; we’ll soon find out who knows what they’re talking about.”
How to ship palm oil from Sandakan when the harbour bar depth was a mere 7 metres at low tide? The Sandakan ships’ pilot advised dredging an extra 5 metres in depth, which would allow a tanker draught of 10 metres. All the dredged material could reclaim a site for a bulking installation.
Future of Sabah
For the anniversary festivities, Leslie proposed a badminton match – while learning the plantation business at Kluang he had represented Johore at badminton – followed by a satay party at the riverside community centre in Tungud. This was the fish and vegetable market by day and badminton court by night, weather permitting.
The guests arrived at the Tungud jetty by afternoon. The potential investors included Tom, whose Malayan branch owned two oil palm plantations and a brand-new research station at Banting; and River Estates’ Datuk Guy Barrett.
The popular and gregarious Beluran District Officer, Tan Sri OKK Mohammed Yassin (‘Miyasin’) joined the party after hearing his court cases for the day. On arrival, he announced that he was about to go to Britain on study leave to cram up on colonial law and legal English. Within a few years, he became Sabah’s Yang Di-Pertua Negara.
Leslie took us on a tour of the first-year clearing. Standing in the back of the tractor and trailer, he showed us the oil palm nursery, the first village site, an obvious airstrip site and the proposed factory site.
The evening was warm but remained dry. The ‘birthday special’ badminton match was exciting. Leslie had been invited to challenge Tungud’s reigning singles champion, the Bugis excavator driver Mohammadia Lanto. Leslie was well fired-up with a powerful attacking game and a forehand smash. He was earning points with apparent ease when it became clear that Mohammadia was playing a waiting game, content to return every backline lob while awaiting a slowdown of Leslie’s footwork. Mohammadia was clearly very fit.
Both players drew breath for hot satay. Leslie’s former amah Juriah, now my cook, looked after the charcoal grill. Play then resumed inconclusively for another 15 minutes. Leslie could see spectator interest waning and after his service, called it a day. It had been an exciting sparring match. “To be resumed,” the players agreed.
Now we discovered why Leslie had convened the party. He asked: “How many more birthday parties will we see? Just how long will it be before Sabah is granted Independence, I wonder?”
It was an innocent enough question that day. No hint of any discussion had reached the newspapers about Independence for the three Borneo territories – Sabah, Brunei and Sarawak – save that Donald Stephens had dropped an editorial hint in his North Borneo Times. He wondered whether ‘Merdeka’ was the real reason for Malaya’s recently speeded-up pace of development.
Leslie took the bull by the horns, asking Tom: “How much longer before Independence?” Tom had clearly given the matter no thought, but not about to be caught napping, airily replied: “Twenty years!”
Leslie then looked at Barrett; who with a flash of his shy smile, ventured “Twelve years!”
In turn, Miyasin said: “Well, the British government has thought about it as I mentioned when I arrived, even if the Malayan government has not. I have just received my marching orders. Nobody seems to have any idea, but good luck to whatever may happen!”
Leslie and I had recently been subject to the winds of change in west Africa and had discussed the problem in passing; we had both privately concluded without a shred of evidence: “Four or five years.”
As newcomers, we were not expected to air our views. In the event we were proved hopelessly out of touch. Tungud Estate saw out exactly two more birthdays and one month before Sabah was handed over to Malaysia.
Tungud Estate, or rather Pamol (Sabah) Sdn Bhd as it had become, remained Malaysia’s last colonial plantation company with the sole exception of Perak’s United Plantations Bhd. Even the almost 100-year tenure of Harrisons and Crosfield was taken over – almost a management buyout – by Malaysian interests.
Moray K Graham
Retired Planter
By gofb-adm on Friday, December 6th, 2019 in Planter's Diary, Issue 4 - 2019 No Comments
By 1957, most of the cocoa on the world’s export market was being grown by smallholders in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. Cadburys, Bournville and Birmingham were high on the list of buyers. However post-colonial political activity in Ghana began to interrupt supplies.
Read more »By gofb-adm on Tuesday, September 24th, 2019 in Planter's Diary, Issue 3 -2019 No Comments
The Malaysian Oil Palm Growers Council (MPOGC) meetings were held twice a month in Kuala Lumpur. Tan Sri Borge Bek-Nielsen was expected to chair the meetings if he was in Malaysia. For him, time was of the essence. So, he would choose to fly in United Plantations’ (UP) well-maintained but rather spartan Piper Cub, rather than drive.
Read more »By gofb-adm on Monday, June 24th, 2019 in Planter's Diary, Issue 2 - 2019 No Comments
Borge Bek-Nielsen’s first boss, Axel Lindquist, was accustomed to fly a British built two-seater Auster J2 high wing monoplane from United Plantations’ Ulu Bernam Estate. He would fly to meetings at the company’s headquarters at Jendarata and for weekends to Penang. Each venue was less than half an hour’s flying time from Ulu Bernam. Ipoh, the capital of Perak, was an hour away, and the bright lights of Kuala Lumpur might be up to two hours away during the rainy season.
When Bek had completed his palm oil mill training at Ulu Bernam and after he had sat for the Steam Certificate, Axel taught him how to fly. Five years later, he bought his first aircraft, a fully aerobatic Bellanca Citabria. It was the one-time property of a member of the Penang Aero Club – a serving US Colonel in the Vietnam War who, on being offered promotion to command a US Pacific Island airbase, offered his hobby-horse for sale.
Within five years of Bek starting work at Ulu Bernam, a plantation in Kedah signalled its need for a palm oil mill. By any form of late 1950s reckoning, Gebr. Stork’s oil palm mill monopoly from Amsterdam was a questionable match for ‘Made at Ulu Bernam’ know-how; even Stork’s very mill buildings were supplied from Holland. Then Malaya had no domestic commercial alternatives to Gebr. Storks’ time-proven, reliable palm oil mills.
Bek hired a part-time draughtsman to work for him on mill design at Ulu Bernam. His motto, ‘Made at Ulu Bernam’, moved up a notch to ‘Designed and made at Ulu Bernam’. He found a civil engineering contractor, Mr Lee Fook Sum of Capital Engineering, Klang. He was willing to prefabricate all-steel buildings in his yard, as well as carry out the on-site civil engineering work required for building and machinery foundations. Together, they found workmen who were trained in the shipping industry, and railway and workshop machinery installation.
Bek undertook to design the larger items of palm oil mill mechanical inventory items, including the water purification system, fresh fruit bunch ramp, horizontal sterilisers, elevators, conveyors, pressing station, palm oil separation, water and oil tanks and the nut plant. He continued to make use of Stork fruit digesters, Stork automatic oil recovery presses, Stork palm oil sludge centrifuges (some of which are still in use 60 years later!) and Stork nutcrackers.
The contracts were duly signed and Bek’s first mill construction was set in motion. He made it a point to pay an afternoon visit to the Kedah plantation site once or twice a week to monitor the physical progress. Every now and again, a mini-crisis would loom; fittings supplied didn’t match their foundations or a support girder went missing somewhere along the supply line.
Shocking end
Came the day – actually one fine afternoon – when Bek requested a test run at the new mill. He was watching some adjustments being carried out when the patter of rain reminded him of his schedule. He set off from the Kedah airfield within half an hour, only to find that a thunderstorm had developed along his route back to Ulu Bernam.
His only course was to fly southwards along the Kedah coast in the fading evening light. The storm passed while he was – by his aircraft clock – only a few minutes out from Ulu Bernam, but he was obliged to locate his airstrip from an unfamiliar direction.
It was almost dark. He flew across a new rubber replanting site on the coastal flats – across which a bicycle lamp was steadily making its way. A straight road appeared behind the cyclist. Bek made a U-turn in the Citabria and landed on the road behind the worker.
He jumped out to ask one surprised Indian man of his actual whereabouts. The man explained. In a flash he remembered – a rubber replanting site less than 10 miles cross-country from Ulu Bernam. Good. Now all he needed to do was buzz the Ulu Bernam mill and wait for the Land Rover to light up the other end of his airfield with two sets of runway indicators; it had all been done before.
But first there was the small matter of departure. He requested the awestruck Indian man to cycle to the other end of the field and stand with his kerosene lamp in the centre of the road. Done. Good.
He locked the parking brake and turned over the Lycoming engine. In a few moments, the hot machine was running smoothly. Sitting on his briefcase, he could just make out the wavering kerosene lamp over the top of the engine cowling; he locked his door panel, turned on the landing light, opened the throttle fully and released the brake. The Citabria rolled smoothly down the road and Bek eased the stick forward to raise the tail wheel. The lamp down the road wavered as his speed was building up.
Without warning, his left-hand undercarriage fell away; the propeller hit the road with a ‘whop’ and a terrible snap. Bek was thrown against the cabin roof and the Citabria slid with a hiss into the roadside drain. He somehow found his briefcase and managed to scramble clear.
The Indian man reappeared out of the gloom. “Tuan,” he said, “you rolled off to one side of the centerfield bridge.”
Bek said: “What to do. Too late now. Fifty ringgit to cycle me back opposite to Ulu Bernam, please?”
My God, half a month’s wages to cycle a white man back home. Just wait till he could tell his friends on his return! Bek set off on the back of the old bicycle, the first time he’d done that since he was at school. The journey took over an hour.
The Bernam River ferry attendant, dozing in his cabin on the side of the Sungei Samak, jumped up as surprised as if he had seen a ghost. He burst into roars of laughter at the Indian man’s explanation of the aircraft landing in the gloaming on the rubber replanting road; then later ditching into the roadside drain. Bek accepted a hastily-made hot drink from the ferryman’s wife before setting off on the five-minute journey across the river.
Muthu, Bek’s cook, cried when he heard about the lucky escape and wanted to call a Malay pawang to interpret the omens. Some Ulu Bernam mill staff rushed over to the house. Bek normally never drank by himself but, when he finally sank into his accustomed chair, he was hit by the shakes. It took him fully 10 minutes to settle down, after which he took stock of what had happened.
He told himself: “Well, better count that as ‘a couple of my nine lives’ used up. Still a handful to go!”
The next morning Ralph Grut, General Manager at Jendarata confirmed it: “Bek, next time please try your luck only once. Twice is pushing it!”
Moray K Graham
Retired Planter
By gofb-adm on Sunday, March 31st, 2019 in Issue 1 - 2019, Planter's Diary No Comments
By 1951, Borge Bek-Nielsen (Bek) had completed his engineering degree in Denmark and military service, and was reviewing job prospects. His application to United Plantations (UP) at Ulu Bernam Estate in Perak, caught the eye of Chief Engineer Axel Linquist.
UP had palm oil mills in Ulu Bernam and Jendarata Estate in Teluk Intan, Perak. These were two of 18 palm oil mills in then Malaya. All of them used machinery – and sometimes engineers – supplied by the marine engineering firm Gebr. Stork Apparatenfabriek of Amsterdam, Holland. After World War I, Stork had diversified into the design and manufacture of palm oil mills, many of which were sited along rivers for ease of transporting produce.
Stork’s offshoot expanded rapidly to become a global monopoly. Its customer relations were handled by Jan Olie, a big, genial Dutchman with a great flair for salesmanship. There were no competitors. The world’s big five plantation companies – United Fruit-Central America; Socfin- West Africa; Harrisons and Crosfield; Guthrie; and Barlows-Southeast Asia – were captured one by one.
Unilever Group in West Africa, the Belgian Congo and Malaya was the world’s largest user of crude palm oil – mainly for its soap factories – and provided its own engineering services. But the times were ready for change. UP’s decision to enter the palm oil machinery market was prompted by the retirement of Linquist. His successor as Chief Engineer was Bek, who promptly coined the slogan ‘Made at Ulu Bernam’.
The first company to commission Bek to design and build a palm oil mill was in Kedah. If he left Ulu Bernam by 4pm in his two-seater Citabria plane, he could inspect progress on the ground and return before dark. He designed and erected his second mill near Port Klang with the help of Danish palm oil engineer Worm Sorensen.
Dick Walsh, Senior Assistant at Harrisons and Crosfield’s Sungei Samak Estate, lived on the opposite side of the Bernam River from Bek’s house. Dick resigned from Sungei Samak in 1961 to pioneer an oil palm plantation investment at Tomanggong Estate on Sabah’s Segama River. He sought Bek’s help to build a palm oil mill.
Access to Tomanggong Estate from Sandakan harbour was an overnight journey through the Trusan Duyong, by sea across the delta of the Kinabatangan River, and then up the Segama River. Alternatively, a daily afternoon flight by Borneo Airways Twin Pioneer via Jesselton-Sandakan-Lahad Datu, followed by a short drive to the upper Segama River, allowed one to go down the river for three hours before reaching Tomanggong Estate.
Mill designed in Malaysia
Bek needed to assess the proposed mill requirements through a personal site review. One morning in 1964, he arrived in Jesselton from Kuala Lumpur in time to catch the Borneo Airways’ flight to Lahad Datu. The northeast monsoon was blowing hard down Sabah’s east coast. The weather had somewhat delayed the airline’s schedules, so it was almost dark before he set off downriver.
Tomanggong’s best passenger canoe crew faced rain squalls sweeping up the river. At one point, the canoe rounded a bend to be confronted by a family of wild boar swimming across the river. A passenger grabbed a piglet’s ear and dragged it aboard the canoe. The bowman’s torch reflected continuously off driftwood in the river.
Bek’s fingers grew numb from gripping the side of the canoe as it swerved on its way downstream. The rain didn’t let up. From his seat, Bek periodically bailed the bilge of the canoe’s centre section. He leaned forward out of the canopy to enquire “Berapa jauh lagi, encik?” to be told “Tidak jauh lagi, tuan” and the endless wet journey continued.
At the next bend of the river, the canoe was turned under a large fig tree to answer urgent requests for a relief stop. Everyone stretched stiff limbs. Shortly after, as if by the turn of a switch, the rain died away. Bek’s watch registered almost 10pm. Its luminous paint had all but given up the struggle. The bowman shivered but ventured, “Lima minute lagi, tuan”.
Ghostly shapes of riverside shacks, some with small lamps flickering, showed up in the light of the bowman’s powerful torch. The boat performed a U-turn to tie up at a simple jetty. Passengers scrambled out with wet suitcases and words of thanks. The bowman shook the fuel tank – which swished reassuringly – saying “Satu minute lagi, tuan” before casting off again.
The canoe rounded a final bend, towards a Petromax pressure lamp lighting up a jetty. A figure stood there under an umbrella. The piglet woke up and squealed. “What have you got there, Bek?” called Dick. “Your dinner,” replied Bek. “Next time, can you please make sure I arrive in daylight…”
The next morning, Bek toured Tomanggong’s undulating site comprising fertile volcanic tuff. He collected data on the number of staff and workers’ houses to be served by the mill’s water supply; the electricity and workshop facilities to service the land and tugboat transport services; and the number of palm oil storage tanks required. The situation was not unlike that of a brand-new Ulu Bernam Estate.
Bek’s Tomanggong mill layout would have allowed 5-a-side football to be played around the process floor. It is still there. Bek’s next two factories, at Sabahpalm Estate on the Labuk River and Lai Fook Kim Estate at the Sandakan Peninsula Scheme, were built around modest floor areas.
The Segama mill was Malaysia’s first to be built around two Usine de Wecker, Luxemburg winepresses. These were modified by Bek at Ulu Bernam to double the oil palm fruit throughput of the predecessors, Stork’s 4.5-ton FFB/hour automatic press.
Vickers Hoskins of Perth, Western Australia, provided the smoke tube boilers at half the price of Stork. A Singapore foundry provided the cast steel steriliser dished ends; British factories the compound steam alternator by Belliss Morcom; Switzerland the three-phase gear-motors which powered every machine; Sweden the oil clarification and sludge centrifuges; and Germany the Demag hoists. The Malaysian designed and built palm oil mill had arrived.
The day that Tomanggong’s mill entered service in 1969, Stork closed its Harrisons and Crosfield agency offices, never to sell another boiler, steriliser, automatic press or nutcracker in Malaysia.
In the early 1970s, Bek took over as General Manager of UP from fellow-Danes Ole and Mette Svenssen. He moved into Ole’s newly-completed bungalow at Jendarata Estate, across the road from the UP corporate offices.
He devoted time over the next two decades to design and build another 30 palm oil mills. These included three for UP in Perak. The first was at Seri Pelangi, Bidor, and the final pair – twins, each with a capacity of 100 tons FFB/hour – at UIE, the former Gula Perak, in Tanjung Malim. A replacement unit, six times larger than the original, was built at Ladang Basir, the renamed Ulu Bernam Estate.
‘Made at Ulu Bernam’ – and Malaysia’s first palm oil mill engineer – had come of age!
Moray K Graham
Retired Planter
