FT275


We were on our way to Penang – the most Chinese of Malaysia’s states – when word reached us that Ion Will, a founding member of the Gang of Fort, had died (see Necrolog, FT274:24–25). My wife Sam and I try to spend a few days on the island whenever we are in Malaysia, but this was an uncanny coincidence, as we first came here on our honeymoon 34 years earl­ier, at Ion’s insistence. He also recomm­ended we stay in a small Chinese-run back-packers’ hotel on Chulia Street. It had seen better days, but we didn’t mind; being woken in the early hours by the call to prayer from the nearby Kapitan Keling mosque, or sharing a mouldy shower-room with the rat that peered out of the drain seemed so… exotic!