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Headline: Book recounts Borneo mission
Date Posted: 9/9/2004
STEPHEN Holley was looking for adventure when he landed in warravaged Borneo in 1945 with the army’s special forces.
It was the last days of the Japanese occupation and Allied aircraft were pounding enemy positions across the steamy, jungle covered island.
How Mr Holley helped re build the country and the weird and wonderful experiences he encountered later as a colonial civil servant are told in a fascinating book written by the 84 year old Abthorpe man.
A White Headhunter in Borneo chronicles his time as an administrative officer based in the north of the British colony (now known as Sabah) until he left in 1964 after independence.
He was responsible for a district the size of Yorkshire comprising a sparse population of indigenous tribesmen, Chinese, Indians and Malays.
He recalled: "The place had been bombed to splinters by the allies and people had suffered terribly at the hands of the Japanese.
"We had to establish law and order, get schools started again, repair roads and bridges and plant crops. Accommodation was very basic. We lived in leaf houses with no running water or electricity and cooking was on open fires."
Headhunting had been a common practice on the island for years. One of Mr Holley’s more macabre tasks was to return heads severed by Dyak tribesmen to the families of the deceased.
On one occasion he recalls a man entered his office and identified the head of his brother in a cardboard box. Mr Holley said: “When the man started to cry, I offered my sympathies only to be told by his interpreter he was wailing because the gold teeth had been stolen!"
Sanitary arrangements were primitive on his travels. On one occasion he visited a Dyak longhouse in the rainforest and had to answer a call of nature. As he squatted on the slatted floor he was surrounded by a group of snapping black pigs. Abandoning his dignity his shout for help was answered by a seven year old girl, who showed him how to wield a stout stick!
In 1947 he married Dinah Harper, a secretary working for the Foreign Office and they had three children, all brought up in Borneo.
When North Borneo became independent from Britain in July 1963 and joined the Malaysian Federation, Mr Holley was one of the signatories of the treaty alongside British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Foreign Minister Duncan Sandys.
After leaving Sabah in 1964 he took a job back in Britain as general manager of Washington New Town Development Corporation. He was awarded a CBE in 1979 for his work in the north east.
He retired in 1980 and came to live in south Northants, where he settled down to pursue his interest in writing Other books he has written include an account of the building of Washington new town and a humorous novel called Entente Cordiale.
He added: "Borneo has been a tremendous success. It’s a country of mixed races who live together in great harmony. The British were welcomed by the people after the Japanese invasion and we are still much appreciated there."
@ Copies of the book, priced £10, can be obtained from Wappenham Post Office and by writing to Mr Holley at Forge Cottage, The Green, Abthorpe, Northants.
by Mark Pendred
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