Hayley Jones

My family was at Butterworth from June 1980 until July 1982. I have a twin sister, Kelli and a younger brother, Brendan. We were lucky enough to live on Penang so that it was poor dad who had to make the two long ferry trips each day.

I remember feeling so sorry for the kids who lived at Butterworth who didn't get home until near 4pm when we got home at 2:45! We lived at 20 Tanjong Bunga Rd, just around the corner from our very good friend Karen Svensson. Apparently there is now a huge hotel complex across the road. I don't recall going to the beach there more than a couple of times because it wasn't as nice as Batu Ferringi.

We spent a lot of time at the pool at the Casuarina hotel with our friends Lisa and Jodie Dern and their mum, Janet. We also spent a lot of time at the Penang Swimming club. My family were among the founding members of the Penang Little Athletics club which was started up by Jane and Errol White. We initially started on the school oval where the 100m had a bend in it. We were soon able to move to a local school in town which had a much bigger oval. We had a 200m round track, so we had to go around twice for the 400m but at least the 100m was straight!

One of the things I loved most about RAAF School was the annual sports carnival. It was always very exciting and lots of team spirit. I also remember looking forward each week (fortnight?) to the arrival of the comic man from Sheriff's. I think Kelli's and my favourites were "Tammy", "Misty" and "Jinty" and Brendan used to get a soccer one that I quite liked reading too. I think, though, that the thing I miss most is the food - our house was within walking distance of the Hillside makan carts. You could certainly never get satays for 20c in Australia (even 20 years ago) and they just don't taste the same! --