In early 1981, I was studying for my GCE A-levels at Aston College in Wrexham, North Wales in the UK. I cannot recall how many Malaysian students were enrolled there at the time, but if I was to make an estimate, I would say upwards of 40 persons.
Wrexham is not a big town. Prior to arriving in the United Kingdom, I've never heard of the place before. I vaguely knew that Wales is a separate country within the UK but it totally surprised me that the Welsh speak and write in an entirely different language. I lived in Wrexham for about a year and have pleasant memories of my stay there. The slight regret that I have is in not making an attempt to understand a bit more of Welsh.
Aston College no longer exists, having been merged with a few other colleges in North Wales and later upgraded to a university in 2008. A search on Google Maps indicates that my former A-level college is now known as
Wrexham Glyndwr University. I also tried to search for the house that I stayed in the final term of my studies but since I could not remember the street name, the search was fruitless. What I can recall was that it was quite a walking distance away from the college, perhaps around 30 minutes at leisurely pace.
The house was an end unit of a row of a 2-storey terrace block, probably built in the 1960s. Although an old building (even at that time), the house was adequately renovated to serve as student accommodation. Each floor had been separated so as to make two different units (which they refer to as a flat). Each flat had central heating, a small kitchen and a bathroom. I stayed at the top unit with my coursemate named
Yaacub Mohamed whom I know from our MRSM Kuantan days. The ground floor unit was rented by a friend name
Khairil Faizi who previously studied at MRSM Seremban. I cannot remember who Khairil's housemate was.
Anyway, what triggered this post was memory of an event that was posted by a mutual friend of Khairil and me on his Facebook page. This mutual friend is
Sofian Abdul Rahman or better known as
Boe, who also formerly studied at MRSM Seremban. Boe was doing his A-levels at London at the time and had come to Wrexham to visit his friends. He slept over at Khairil's flat. Late one evening I went downstairs to see that Khairil and Boe were deeply concentrating in a game of Scrabble. As I watched them play, I noted that the scores were close. Towards the end of the game, Boe played a high-scoring word that would've made him the winner. Khairil vehemently protested that there was no such word. Boe laughingly said there is. The argument went back and forth and got a bit heated. Boe then looked at me and said, '
Tak percaya tanya Fadhil.'
At that time, my vocabulary was still weak and I could not give Boe the confirmation he was seeking. But I had a thick dictionary upstairs in my room so I offered to run up and check. Boe gave a surprising response. No need, he said... I concede that there is no such word. Which meant he lost the game. At that young age, I witnessed a true example of how to gracefully concede so as not to upset the feelings of your bro.
When I related this memory to Khairil recently (as a comment on Boe's Facebook post), he replied that Boe is that sort of friend. He values friendship above feud.
I still recall the word that Boe tried to play because I later checked and found that it is valid. I'm pretty certain neither of them remembers that. Maybe one day I'll tell them...
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| Me and housemate Yaacub. Wrexham 1981 |
