Manchester Musings

For once, I was half an hour early and that afforded me some time to buy not one but two mushroom croissants and hot steaming tea for the more than 3-hr journey to Manchester Piccadilly. The 0731 was still not ready for boarding and the early morning passengers all stood around, craning their necks looking at the departure board, waiting for the platform number.

The fare to Manchester Piccadilly was £62.00 a hefty sum that burnt a hole in my pocket. Even while most of London was still stirring in their sleep, I had already parted company with £16 for a minicab ride to the station. London is expensive, I kept telling myself.

I found a comfortable seat with only a Nigerian woman and her newborn in her sling sitting at the next table. Hubby had suggested I brought along my new laptop anyway in case I needed to finish some work and I readily agreed. By the end of the journey, I had finished about 10 games of Spider Solitaire – won four and lost six! Damn!

It seems a little strange that I had been in UK all these years and yet my journeys to Manchester only started about last year.

After the loss of the first game, I remembered the first was a visit to a friend’s house. Her mother-in-law had passed away after just a few days’ visit. Then there was the trip with my sayang mama. We stayed at a posh hotel and we were treated to Manchester Utd Vs Inter Milan. It was a very educational trip, football-wise, making my third trip, a lot easier when I watched Manchester United vs Blackburn Rovers.

But most of the time, as the train snaked its way through the British Midlands, I found my mind meandering back to the late eighties, for that was the first time that I had actually come face to face with him. It was the summer of 87, but summer in Vienna was like spring in London. And my heart was racing at the thought of meeting him in the city that inspired The Third Man, the city which evokes thoughts of the Vienna Boys Choir, grand museums, concerts and long street names such as Mariahilferstrasse.

I remember the hurried walk with one child in a pushchair and the other walking two steps at a time trying to catch up with mama who wanted to work and be a mama at the same time. My husband had called to say the man was ready to meet me and hubby would take over the children while I went to the conference room to do the interview. It wasn’t a good first meeting. He was not well and his answers were monosyllables. Rumours had it that he was nursing a flu and the good doctor was prescribed roti canai.

I was so nervous that I forgot to check the level on my tape recorder and my fumbling with the machine that the BBC provided me for the assignment left him quite unimpressed. You usually know from his facial expressions that he wasn’t impressed and after years of following him around, I can safely say, that was one unimpressed look.

One week in Vienna and the Malaysian contingent were already wilting from missing rice. And Pak Non found a restaurant – Rasa Sayang that not only served rice but also sambal tumis and kicap. He very kindly made reservations for all of us on the last day of the two-week conference so that we could all eat to our hearts’ desire. For that we were grateful.

One winter, it was in Paris. According to schedule he was to have only a 20- minute meeting with Jacque Chiraq at Élysée Palace. While he was having a tet-e-tet with the president, the temperature outside had plummeted and we stood in sub zero temperatures, our legs frozen to the ground. He emerged 40 minutes later and was driven to his hotel room where he was to brief us about his meeting. But true to form, when we finally defrosted our tongue and asked him questions, he said: Why can’t you all wait for me in Norwich tomorrow? (for that was where we were to meet him the next day). And how do you answer that?

One warm summer it was Budapest. And Budapest in summer is beautiful, with its enchanting architecture that tells stories of its rich culture and its embittered history, and gypsies playing their violins as you walk along the riverbanks running parallel to the Danube. It would have been more beautiful had it not been for work, at the end of which, he looked at the troop of hacks, looking more like fallen soldiers and asked the obvious: Aren’t you all tired of following the PM around?

Only one of us dared answer. Someone from the back of the room said: Kalau PM tak penat kami tak boleh penat, he lied.

But most of the time it would be London and once or twice in Cambridge or Oxford. Once it was during the rumoured fatal fall from riding in Argentina, and then when he was interviewed by Al-Jazeera in London, which was quite funny, actually, watching him being made up and powdered.

But yesterday, we met up again in Manchester; clued up as ever, very much focussed and very much missed. And very much Tun M.

The Somali minicab driver who had taken me to the station earlier, took me home and was very impressed that I met the man. “Ooh, you are very lucky. Everyone in my country knows him and would love to meet him”

Our doas for a quick recovery

We have always jokingly said that he will be alright because he has a doctor with him all the time. She takes care of him night and day. During trips abroad, the group of journalists covering him always had a tough time catching up with him. Sometimes he prefered to walk if one event was close to the next, and who are we to say differently, so we walked. When we arrived, he was fit and ready to start while we huffed and puffed, still searching for our note books.

Once in Budapest, it was a five day official visit and the schedule was packed and we groaned. At a press conference, at the end of a very long day, he took one look at us who looked like we had just covered wartorn Iraq and said, “Aren’t you all tired following me around?” and a very brave Datuk Khalid Mohamed of Utusan said, “Kalau perdana menteri tak penat mana kita boleh penat!”.

Then there was this time in Paris. We had earlier met him in London then rushed to Paris and waited outside the Palais de l’Elysée for a whole hour in the freezing cold while he had talks with Jacque Chirac. Our toes couldn’t feel anything anymore because of the cold and by the time we caught hold of him at his hotel, our jaws were still at different stages of defrosting and none of us could say anything. So he said, “You could have waited for me in Norwich!” which we did of course because he went on to inspect the Lotus factory .

I remember one occassion. He had just flown in from Argentina and there were rumours that he had fallen off a horse. There was already a crowd outside the place he was staying near Hyde Park Gate. I got to him late but he waited for me where we had a one to one interview and I think that was the best ever I had had with him since my first one to one with him in Vienna (which was a complete disaster!) He sat there looking suitably pink and healthy for a man his age. I sat there and silently cursed all the other journalists who had left me to face this great man alone. So I said, “ It looks like you can never leave the country. Everytime you do people start rumours about your health and the stock market plunged,”

He gave the most hearty laugh and I was told later that that opening, with his laughter and apparent good health restored confidence again in the market. It also restored my confidence in myself. Yonks ago when I had to interview him for the BBC, I was a naive, young broadcaster who was assigned to cover his two week long conference in Vienna. I was supplied a tape recorder that I was unfamiliar with and I found myself face to face with a man who was not only suffering from a slight cold but also showing signs of roti canai withdrawal symptoms. His two word answers and stern, frosty look was worst than that cold outside Palais de l’Elysée. My interview went out muffled, the tone was low. But he looked after us. Two weeks away from home is the maximum for us. By then we would have finished our supply of rendangs and maggi mee and would have been in various stages of wilting due to lack of Malaysian food. But he was our saviour. The last few days we found an Indonesian restaurant that had on offer sambal tumis udang petai! The great man booked the restaurant that night for all of us and we stuffed our face shamelessly.

Now, I hear he is unwell after suffering from a mild heart attack. He still has his loving and devoted doctor wife by his side but clearly Doc, it is a sign for you to slow down too. Our doas are with you. Have a quick recovery.