Separated Lives

Abstract

The idea of periods of separation between man and wife, or parents and children, was a commonly accepted one in British families serving in the colonial system. As sons and daughters grew up from early childhood, they were frequently placed in boarding schools in England while the parents were still abroad. Whatever arrangements were made, say with the help of relatives in England, children might not see their parents for long periods. Air travel, in time, was to ease this burden of separation, but it could hardly have had much impact before the Second World War. Sometimes, too, a wife might, for one reason or another, travel abroad later than her husband, or return to Britain earlier, even though she would normally expect to be with him, where his work and career lay. The nature of the family separations which took place among British civilian expatriates in Malaya at the time of the Japanese invasion was, however, totally different in some respects. Decisions had to be made under pressure of events and, at the later stages, there were real perils for wives and children leaving Malaya. The intended destination might be Australia and not Britain, and there was no time scale to establish when reunions might take place. Even in the case of an existing arrangement with children at English boarding schools, the whole family future was liable to be affected by what happened to parents in Malaya. Ironically, it seems, some parents had booked long passages for children to come out from England and join them in Malaya at a time when the home country was in real danger and Malaya was not, as yet, seriously threatened by the pattern of war.