"ZAHARAH, ni Pak Mat. Pak Mat nak balik dah. (Zaharah, this is Pak Mat. I am going home now.)"
That call was a ritual whenever the former British army soldier, who was a Jubilee Line of London Underground tube driver and a well-respected member of the Malay community here in London, was going back to Malaysia for his annual trip.
Without fail, he would tell me his plans, which would include a grand reunion with his former colleagues, ex-British army servicemen, back home.
Three days ago, as I listened to the funeral prayers delivered by Imam Mohamed Omar after we bade our farewell to Pak Mat in his final resting place, I kept thinking about how he had failed me this time. I never heard his cheerful voice telling me he was going.
Pak Mat's health had been declining, that I know. In the past six months, he had been spending time in a beautiful nursing home in Waltham Abbey, where he could see deer roaming outside his windows.
Once in a while, his daughter Fauziah would make a video WhatsApp call to me, and his face would light up. "Zaharah! BBC!" he would say, forgetting or choosing to forget that I had left the BBC some 30 years ago!
The night before he breathed his last, on what was the hottest day in the United Kingdom, Fauziah messaged me to say that her dad was poorly. I put it to the unusually high temperature that had even the fittest of us wilting.
But in the wee hours of the morning, Pak Mat was gone, two years after his beloved wife, Salasiah Arifin or Kak Siah, passed away.
Pak Mat and Kak Siah came into my life and shared with me a wealth of interesting stories about the old Malay community in London — the sailors who plied the high seas in merchant navy ships, the hitchhikers who were in search of adventure and found friendship in the clubhouse Kelab Melayu London at 100 Cricketfield Road and about students who used to visit and found a ready made extended family there.
The Nibong Tebal lad who joined the British army as a member of the Signal Regiment was based in Singapore during his time as a British army soldier.
When it was decided that the army was to leave Malaysia and Singapore in 1970, he decided to take the offer to try his luck in London.
"At that time, the British government had made the offer to those who would like to come to the UK. I put my hand up and my OC, Captain Tabby Atkinson, asked me to go to Tanglin and bring two passport photographs," said Pak Mat in his thick northern Malay accent that never left him till the day he died.
He left his young wife and baby daughter, Fauziah, behind with a promise to bring them here. He didn't fail them. The chartered flight took him from Paya Lebar in Singapore to Colombo, Madras, Karachi, Abu Dhabi, Istanbul, Frankfurt and finally Gatwick.
"Back then, £1 was equivalent to RM10.50!" he recalled.
He wasn't shy of working. For £1 or £2 an hour, he worked at a plastic factory in Croydon, and later when he moved to London, he worked as a storekeeper in Selfridges before landing a job with the London Transport as a tube diver.
"One Friday, the tube I was driving stopped at Edgware Road station. There was a group of Malaysian students who were going to Malaysia Hall, back then in Bryanston Square, for Friday prayers. One of them said, 'that's a Malay man driving the tube!' And his friend retorted, 'No, it cant be. That's a Gurkha!'" He laughed as he recalled eavesdropping on their conversation.
"Takkanlah orang Melayu tak boleh bawa tube! (Why can't a Malay drive the tube!)" he chipped in.
Pak Mat worked as a tube driver for 15 years until his retirement.
Together with Kak Siah, they were active members of the Kelab Melayu London, whose members were initially sailors and hitchhikers.
Along with Ustaz Jais (another old member who died some years ago), they brought changes to activities of the clubhouse by introducing religious classes, which some of the older members had been missing for a long time.
They also came up with a saving scheme to help club members raise enough money to perform the haj.
People who knew Pak Mat would testify that he was generous to a fault — donating to any cause and events for the sake of bringing the Malay community together.
Pak Mat and Kak Siah were inseparable, a devoted couple till the end. They were familiar faces at most functions organised by the Malaysian Students Department, especially during Ramadan. They never missed the annual Malaysian carnival at the Tun Abdul Razak Rubber Research Centre in Brickendonbury — that is, until ill health affected their movements.
After he recovered from a heart attack, it was Kak Siah who helped him down the stairs of Malaysia Hall where he did his Friday prayers.
When Kak Siah fell seriously ill and was in hospital until she died, he would visit her whenever he could. Sadly, the visits had to stop due to restrictions following Covid-19.
He and another member of the club had wanted a book written about Kelab Melayu London and encouraged me to compile the many interesting stories that happened there.
I remember several sessions with the late Pak Ehsan, the last president of the club, who died within a year after the building that housed Kelab Melayu London was handed back to the legal owner following years of legal wrangle.
It was Pak Mat who introduced me to the colourful character, Pak Cik Yahya Bahari, who cycled all the way from Malaysia to London. It was in his front room that I met Rokiah and Hasnah, two early female members of the clubhouse. While Kak Siah served us with endless bihun goreng or some other Malay delicacies, Pak Mat would regale us with interesting episodes and characters that he met along the way.
"He was funny and witty till the end," said Fauziah, who visited him at the nursing home regularly, bringing him his favourite food, though his appetite started to wane towards the end.
"Once, he wanted to watch the football match, but it was the TV that watched him in the end," laughed Fauziah.
Recently, during a lunch meeting with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in London, Fauziah brought a well-thumbed book by the former prime minister, The Malay Dilemma, to have it signed.
When Fauziah showed it to him, he reprimanded his daughter for scribbling in his book, until he recognised the signature.
I, for one, am going to miss Pak Mat and his stories, his calls telling me he was going home and followed by calls to tell me about his return and what he did in his beloved country.
Thank you, Pak Mat, for introducing me to the interesting world of the Malay community when I had just arrived in 1979. Perhaps one day, the book about Kelab Melayu London will materialise.