S E Asia\u2019s famous Gardenia Brand was a child of the sixties \u201cGolden Age of Air-Travel\u201d. It was a time of glamorous air hostesses, gourmet meals and of ample leg room for all. It was also the time when intercontinental transatlantic and transpacific globe circumnavigating long range routes were being pioneered and commercially proved by European and USA\u2019s Flag Carrier Airlines, and in particular lead by the two great doyens of the world\u2019s fraternity of Legacy Airlines which were USA\u2019s Pan American (Pan-Am) and United Kingdom\u2019s British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
USA\u2019s Pan-American (Pan-Am) pioneered transpacific, transatlantic and intercontinental flights between the North and South American continents, while United Kingdom\u2019s British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) pioneered both transatlantic flights and the lucrative \u201cKangaroo Route\u201d flights between Great Britain and the antipodes. From London\u2019s Heathrow Airport which was BOAC\u2019s primal international air-terminal at the time, her \u201cKangaroo Route\u201d flights would depart for the antipodes and on the way stop-over at Rome, Bahrain, Bombay (Mumbai), Ceylon (Sri-Lanka) Singapore and finally ending in Sydney Australia. As the pioneer of this route, BOAC naturally held a virtual monopoly over the \u201cKangaroo Route\u201d until Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territories Aerial Services) joined as the other half of a duopoly. This duopoly held its firm grip on the Kangaroo Route right up to 1977, when Singapore Airlines and BOAC shared a ground breaking Supersonic Concorde joint flight operation from London to Sydney and on the way stopping briefly in Bahrain and Singapore. The two airlines went to such great lengths in co-branding as to divide the exterior surface of Concorde\u2019s fuselage into its left and right halves, then allocating each respective half of the aircraft fuselage exterior surface, one side to each of the two partner airlines for the exclusive placement of their own brand livery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The inauguration of the Supersonic Concord flight operations on the Kangaroo Route was Singapore Airlines coming of age debut as the third member of a troika of world class airline brands that successfully dominated the marketing of the lucrative \u201cKangaroo Route\u201d, and this branding accolade held right until the end of the last millennium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The growth of air-travel in the sixties was driven by competition in a cosmopolitan world that resulted in greater internationalisation and accelerated 20th<\/sup> Century globalisation. Air travel in the \u201cswinging sixties\u201d was instrumental to opening up business and tourist air-travel between Europe and the continents of North & South America, Europe, Africa, and beyond to the far flung corners of the world to reach exotic destinations in the Far-East and South-East Asia. Hollywood too played its part to breakout a still traumatised and xenophobic post WW2 world into a new cosmopolitan mobile and connected One World community, in the production and international distribution of highly popular movies such as \u201cThe World of Suzy Wong\u201d \u201cThe Road to Bali\u201d \u201cSouth Pacific\u201d and last but not least, Ian Fleming\u2019s James Bond spy travelogue to the Caribbean, Bahamas, Japan and the Far East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aeronautical engineering and manufacturing resource capabilities.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the early post WW2 years USA and Great Britain came out of WW2 as the worlds\u2019 two leading industrialised nations. But of more interest to Aviation both countries had a massive aeronautical engineering and manufacturing capability built up during a war economy that was essential to winning WW2 and with the peace that followed was happenstance lying fallow and was a fortuitous ready resource at hand to meet the global expansion needs of aviations\u2019 pioneering national Flag Carrier airlines<\/p>\n\n\n\n Initially in the early post-war years, Aviation\u2019s commercial passengers needs was met by using the large inventory of retired and mothballed surplus strategic bombers left over from WW2 which were converted for use for long-range commercial passenger flights. But from day one of operations it became patently clear to the airline marketers that tomorrow\u2019s commercial air-travel passenger consumer demand was for faster, higher and more comfortable passenger aircrafts that the converted military strategic bombers they were using at the time just could not offer; and conventional wisdom at the time was that the jet engine would be the answer to their prayers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This marked the beginning of an unofficial technological and marketing race between the two great industrialised aviation nations of Great Britain and the United States to be the first to build a purpose designed commercial passenger jet-aircraft that would fulfil aviation\u2019s air-travel consumer\u2019s dreams and demands<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was a high stakes race which could make or break even the largest of the giant USA and Great Britain\u2019s aircraft manufacturers of the time.The pressure to succeed was so great that in a mere 5 years after the end of WW2, the iconic jet engine De Havilland Comet 1 prototype flew for the first time and soon after entered service with BOAC in 1952 as the world\u2019s first commercial passenger carrying jet-aircraft. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps the rush to be the first proved to be ill advised which lead to its downfall as almost immediately in next year 1953, the De-Havilland Comet legacy was tragically marred by the total loss of two of BOAC\u2019s Comet aircrafts when they literally dropped out of the sky after departure from Rome. An immediate grounding of all Comet aircrafts followed pending an official government public inquiry and accident investigation. A year of intensive forensic accident investigation followed lead by Great Britain\u2019s Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) in Farnborough which involved building an enormous water pressure test tank for immersion of a full scale DH Comet 1 fuselage. Eventually the D.H Comet was found to have suffered catastrophic structural failure caused by metal fatigue from repeated fuselage pressurisation cycles coupled with concentration of stress forces arising due to the corner shape of window openings let into the fuselage pressure cylinder. This unfortunate concatenation of little innocuous events that each in itself as separate isolated incidence would not have caused a catastrophic structural failure, but as a dynamic chain reaction of mechanically linked events that were invisible to the naked eye could cumulatively leads to a catastrophe structural failure was a little known phenomena at the time. As a result the D.H Comet airframe was then completely redesigned and the following iterations of Comet 2, 3, 4b and 4s went on to restore the DH Comet\u2019s rightful place as one of aviations\u2019 safest passenger jet aircrafts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon after the launch of the Comet 2, 3 and 4b in quick succession, its rival Boeing\u2019s 707 entered service with Pan Am in 1958 as the runner-up in an unofficial race to build aviation\u2019s first jet-aircraft passenger plane. But ironically it was the Boeing 707 who eventually took the crown as Aviation\u2019s most successful and long serving commercial passenger jet-aircraft of all time<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the jet-age well on its way, there followed an explosion of ground breaking passenger jet airplane designs from De Havilland, Vickers, Boeing, Douglas and Lockheed, and with the success of these sixties aeronautical-engineering marvels, air-travel began to eclipse trains and steamships as the preferred mode of conveyance for travelling on transcontinental, transatlantic and transpacific routes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jet Setters<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With every iteration of passenger jet aircraft design introduced in the late 50\u2019s and throughout the 60s, long range passenger air-travel time was cut dramatically while at the same time an increase of passenger traffic numbers coupled with increased passenger payload capacity of jet-aircrafts lowered the price of an air-ticket significantly; and with the leaps and bound in progress made in safety, lead to building consumer confidence amongst business and leisure air-travellers for jet travel, that by the end of the \u201cswinging sixties\u201d became the preferred mode of travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The term the Jet-Set of the \u201cswinging sixties\u201d, was perhaps best encapsulated by the movie \u201cThe VIPs\u201d Starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and jet-setting no longer remained the preserve of Europeans and North American travellers but emancipated a new generation of Asian and African jet-setters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1966 Sir Freddie Laker truly broke the mould of jet-set air-travel being previously confined to the preserve of the elite socialites and celebrities and his ground breaking Laker Airways opened a new \u201cclass\u201d of \u201cjet-set\u201d business and holiday air-travellers. But history will bear witness that Sir Freddie Laker was an innovative entrepreneur who was a little ahead of his time and it needed the advent of Boeing 747 wide bodied Jumbo jet in 1970, and the likes of Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Airlines in 1984 to offer air-travel consumers a choice range of air-travel ticket products from budget \u201cno frills\u201d to premium \u201call-frills\u201d fares as the logical marketing progression of the sixties jet-set age<\/p>\n\n\n\n IATA, PATA, National Flag Carrier Legacy Airlines & Global International Air-Travel Hubs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Global air-travel couldn\u2019t have achieved its rapid exponential growth in the sixties without its development being coordinated in the air by IATA (The International Air Transportation Association) accompanied by coordinated development on the ground by respective Airlines and Tourism industry\u2019s government linked organisations; and as a generalisation coordinated by respective USA, UK and Western European Nations\u2019 Tourism Agencies in the Atlantic hemisphere and PATA (Pacific Asia Tourism Association) for the Pacific hemisphere<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sixties saw the establishment of a comprehensive network of major global air-travel hub cities; the larger of which were London, Paris, Amsterdam, Singapore, Sidney, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Honolulu, New York, Los Angeles and San-Francisco. These global air-travel hub cities were the location of respective National Flag Carrier Airlines\u2019 fixed base operations, and collectively constituted air-travel industry\u2019s essential infrastructural hardware and software in the form of supporting goods supplies and services provider businesses operations. Business operations such as aircraft maintenance services contractors, travel agencies, international transit gateway airport, city hotel accommodation, collectively worked to provide air-transportation\u2019s intermodal connectivity that is critical to the efficient operations and functioning of a massive modern global air-travel \u201chub and spoke\u201d network system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Long range intercontinental transatlantic and transpacific air traffic were routed through the major international air-terminals which were \u201chubs\u201d strategically located to meet the fuel range and marketing\u2019s traffic considerations of the early jet aircrafts and well as to opportunistically collect market share of incidental passenger traffic demand in the vicinity. These global air-travel international airport in turn served as regional air-travel intermodal and inter-airline passenger transfer \u201chubs\u201d, that were fed by incoming passenger traffic emanating from the radiating \u201cspokes\u201d of routes that connected to a second tier \u201cregional hub\u201d network of airports that served large regional urban centres and conurbations. The larger of the second tier \u201cregional hubs\u201d were and still are Rome and Frankfurt in Europe, and Chicago, San Diego and Atlanta in North America. In the USA arising from its country\u2019s large captive domestic market base, the second tier \u201cregional hubs\u201d were fed by a third tier commuter and general aviation traffic originating from \u201csub-regional airports\u201d; and as where the fixed based operators for small commuter airlines and general aviation are located.<\/p>\n\n\n\n British North Borneo, Golden Age of Commercial Sail\u2019s \u201cThe Land below the Wind\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n British North Borneo\u2019s earned its moniker as \u201cThe Land below the Wind\u201d which was a sailor\u2019s truism that harked from the Golden Age of Commercial Sail when great Clipper Ships in the period between the mid-18th century and early 19th century took advantage of favourable \u201cTrade Winds\u201d and plied the global circumnavigating commercial maritime routes. The Clipper Ships were the Jumbo Boeing 747 of their time conveying bulky trading cargo of goods and commodities at speed between Great Britain and the rest of the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Golden Age of Commercial Sail was a milestone for European global trade interests which pivoted from the ancient world land based trade routes where the ancient \u201csilk road\u2019s\u201d caravan camel trains were the \u201cships of the desert\u201d that conveyed cargo of the goods and products of global trade overland through the Orient and beyond to India sub-continent, the Far-East and China. The Golden Age of Commercial Sail\u2019s \u201cmaritime silk road\u201d, allowed global trade conveyance routes to bypass and avoid ancient overland \u201csilk road\u201d that were by now exacting an exorbitant \u201cusurious rent-seeking toll\u201d on the ancient world\u2019s transcontinental global trade conveyance routes and this lead to its own decay and eventual demise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Clipper Ship seafarers who navigated the \u201cnew age\u201d global maritime silk-roads knew that favourable \u201cmonsoonal\u201d trade wind directions on which their maritime conveyance business relied on in the South of China seas didn\u2019t visit the western shores of North Borneo as these \u201cmonsoonal\u201d trade winds in the South of China seas blew parallel to North Borneo\u2019s western coastline and reversing their wind direction on a quarterly period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Furthermore the early Clippers Ships had \u201csquare rigged sails\u201d which meant they were fastest running before the wind and couldn\u2019t point upwind to any great degree. Thus typically the outward leg of a journey heading for Canton in China, would begin in Great Britain\u2019s Port of London from whence Clippers Ships would drive down southwards to round the Cape of Good Hope and catch the fabled \u201croaring forties\u201d Westerly Trade Winds with which to traverse the Indian Ocean and reaching North to the island of Singapore. At Singapore the Clipper Ship would stop over and briefly wait for a favourable change in weather to the South Westerly \u201cmonsoonal\u201d trade winds when they would then set off in a North Easterly heading to drive up to Canton where they would discharge their consignment of valuable cargo. At Canton they would take onboard London\u2019s cargo consignments just in time to catch favourable North Easterly \u201cmonsoonal\u201d trade winds to begin their return trip in setting off in the South of China seas on a reciprocal heading to Singapore. If timed carefully to avoid the dreaded doldrums, the round trip to complete the two legs between Singapore and Canton took approximately 6 months; and as a consequence the natural periodic quarterly change in monsoonal \u201ctrade wind directions\u201d in the South of China Seas determined that the Square Rigged Clipper commercial ships couldn\u2019t linger in the South of China Seas in wasting valuable time by calling into port along North Borneo\u2019s west coastline; thus imparting North Borneo\u2019s moniker as \u201cThe Land below the Winds\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even with the later arrival of the steamships that were free of the dictates of the winds direction for speed and allowed steering a course independent of prevailing trade winds direction did not alter the pattern of global trade and conveyance services. The technology of the Golden Age of commercial sail may have faded into history but had established and left behind the great entrep\u00f4t trading ports and financial cities of the 20th<\/sup> Century which were the nodes of international maritime trade that locked in this pattern of global trade until the end of the 20th <\/sup>Century. The notable exception was when Communism finally wrested control of mainland China in 1951, she then effectively sequestered herself out of international global world trade, and this was cause for the rise of Britain\u2019s Hong Kong replacing Canton as the British Empire\u2019s pre-eminent financial centre and entrep\u00f4t trade\u2019s gateway port of entry for mainland China, the Far East and S.E Asia\u2019s burgeoning consumer markets. This pattern of global trade and conveyance set by the Golden Age of Commercial Sail remained until the handover of the Hong Kong sovereignty by the United Kingdom to China by a 1997 Treaty (when Hong Kong became one of China\u2019s Special Administrative Region).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beginnings; The Land below the Wind, late Fifties and early Sixties.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n British North Borneo remained as the \u201cLand below the Wind\u201d, throughout the Nineteenth Century and into the first half of the Twentieth Century, however the post WW2 new world order in the fifties and sixties would figuratively speaking \u201cblow and sweep\u201d the colony of British North Borneo from the Nineteenth Century Golden Age of Commercial Sail into the Twentieth Century Golden Age of Air-Travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Broadly speaking, the Golden Age of Air-Travel was born and shaped by the post WW2 geo-political new world order, communications technological advances and the consequences on one hand of the sun-setting old world Europeans Empires which were reinventing themselves and consolidating as regional \u201csupranational\u201d states (such as the USSR and European Union), which was concomitant with the hurried independence of their respective and now \u201corphaned\u201d inhabitants of former Colonies as fledgling nation states; coupled on the other hand with the impact of the Cold War as the consequence of the newly formed United Nation that brought in a \u201cUniting Nation\u201d \u201cpolitick art\u201d narrative. This new age \u201cpolitick art\u201d narrative was at the chagrin of an aggrieved European, and Japan nation states, who were only recently warring Empires and now losing sovereignty over a retinue of colonies dotted around a now fast shrinking and smaller disuniting world. This was a new world order where the brash \u201creal politick\u201d \u201cgun-boat diplomacy\u201d of the 20th<\/sup> Century was replaced by a creeping \u201creal politick\u201d \u201cneo-diplomacy\u201d which became empowered on the formation of the United Nation and its consequential \u201cUniting Nations\u201d \u201cpolitical art\u201d narrative. This was a \u201cneo-diplomatic force\u201d born in the lobbies corridors and bars of the U.N building and as \u201cback channels\u201d which were politically impacted and surreptitiously divided by an emergent troika of 20th<\/sup> Century \u201csuperpowers\u201d namely the Soviet Union, USA and People\u2019s Republic of China as the three \u201csuper\u201d supranational protagonists<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this post-WW2 new world order, British North-Borneo was returned to the United Kingdom as a protectorate colony largely as the British North-Borneo Chartered Company just didn\u2019t have the necessary funds to rebuild its WW2 war-devastated capital \u201cJesselton\u201d which was North Borneo\u2019s main and only port essential to her hinterland plantations and townships for the export of its rubber, copra, hemp, and cocoa plantation commodities and base products. Furthermore the Owner\u2019s Board of Directors of The North Borneo Chartered Company could not or would not deal with a looming humanity disaster in the making, evident from the growing cases of starvation and malnutrition occurring in the void left by the departing wartime Japanese Occupational Government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These were the very concatenation of events that the British and USA allies post WW2 caretaker military government in British North Borneo knew from the bitter experience of recent world history will certainly attract the unwanted attention of a growing communist insurgent threats to peace, brokered by the not so subtle egregious efforts and \u201creal politick\u201d disuniting machinations in the Far East of their one time WW2 allies, namely Stalinist Russia and Maoist China<\/p>\n\n\n\n The concatenation of post-war geo-political economic and communications technological advances sealed British North Borneo\u2019s fate and its now \u201corphaned\u201d colonial inhabitants could no longer be left to remain in the back waters of a fast paced globalising and modernising world and were thrust headlong into the 20th<\/sup> Century theatres of superpower driven alignments and realignments \u201cproxy\u201d egregious confrontation at the United Nation General Assembly, and which was a direct consequence of her \u201cUniting Nations\u201d \u201cpolitical art\u201d narrative as the \u201cgo to\u201d venue for dealing with the unfinished business of WW2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n British North Borneo\u2019s political existential future was now largely being delineated and directed at the newly formed United Nations U.N Assembly building in New York, which was in effect a \u201cvirtual\u201d \u201cglobal supranational state\u2019s \u201cgeneral assembly\u201d, that growingly determined the political fate of the now \u201corphaned\u201d colonial inhabitants of United States, Europe and Japan Empires. The U.N\u2019s modus operandi was to set aside the egregious disuniting activities of a motley group of orphaned and often rebellious inhabitants of US, Europe and Japan colonies, (which in time were rebranded as \u201cfreedom fighters\u201d) who were seeking legitimacy at the United Nation with its own egregious version of a \u201cUniting Nations\u201d \u201cpolitical art\u201d narrative for world peace in \u201cfreeing\u201d humanity from the shackles of past colonialism\u201d through rebirth as \u201cnew but frankly dispirit nation states. At the same time the \u201cnow\u201d orphaned colonial inhabitants were buffeted by the growing frequency of \u201cthe winds of proxy wars\u201d being surreptitiously prosecuted in the Far East and South East Asia that first served the new world-order interest and agenda of global political economic and military superpowers symbolised by the \u201c5 permanent standing members\u201d of UN\u2019s security council namely China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, and United States; and secondly were actively being seduced by overtures of the so called \u201cnon-aligned nations\u201d interests and agenda which in the latter largely served to hide the neo-imperialist egregious seditious activities of communism as unfinished business of WW2. The concatenations of the 50\u2019s and 60\u2019s was to distract the inhabitants of colonies from a legitimate but which was for \u201cfar too many\u201d Nationalist Independence leaders at the time, an excruciating \u201cfar too slow\u201d a process of seeking independence and legitimacy under the auspices of a United Nations and its concomitant \u201cUniting Nations\u201c \u201cpolitical art\u201d narrative<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe concatenation of political neology conflation and inflation of a Revolution\u2019s cackling of its \u201cgreat unwashed masses and mob\u201d, its Jacobin neo-liberal \u201cliterati\u201d and lurking Supremacist usurpers, continues until today to conflate and at the same time to inflate a genuine twentieth century humanist \u201cdemocratising\u201d narrative. But as recent history tells us of the French Revolution as the mother of all modern revolution; creates the very conditions that more often than not, lead to the hijacking of the people\u2019s grass root Revolution democratic narrative by Supremacists usurpers as caricatured by the story of Napoleon Bonaparte<\/p>\n\n\n\n Post WW2 Concatenations.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The early days following founding of the United Nation General Assembly and declaration of its concomitant \u201cUniting Nations\u201d \u201cpolitical art\u201d narrative that followed, had by and large an equivocal real politick impact on the \u201cnow\u201d orphaned inhabitants of USA, European and Japanese colonies, but which from an existential standpoint was at least in British North Borneo experience unequivocally beneficial. The fast changing political and economic landscape in the Far East and S.E. Asia was cause for the Owner\u2019s Board of Directors of the British North Borneo Chartered Company to regard North Borneo as a liability and the Chartered Company promptly disposed of its Chartered North Borneo territorial land assets in a \u201csale\u201d back to Great Britain and which was concomitant with reverting government administrative responsibilities of the Colony\u2018s inhabitants to the British Government. As the consequence of this \u201cnew deal\u201d, British North Borneo remained a British Protectorate Crown Colony and a member of the newly formed British Commonwealth, and the inhabitants of British North Borneo who were granted British subject status was now governed directly by the British Colonial office in Whitehall and not by the Acts of Parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outside of British North Borneo and in the Pacific and S.E. Asia, the United States was the acclaimed outright \u201cwinner\u201d of WW2\u2019s Pacific Theatre and now the pre-eminent wealthy western industrialised and technological advanced country and economy in the world by far. The United States was effectively the \u201cRuler of the Pacific and Atlantic waves, and ergo the Master of the World. In the Pacific and South of China seas, the \u201cUniting Nations\u201d \u201cpolitical art\u201d narrative was cause of the empowerment of creeping \u201creal politicks neo-diplomacy\u201d born in the lobbies corridors and bars of the United Nation, which displaced Twentieth Century brash \u201creal politick\u201d \u201cgun boat diplomacy\u201d; and one of the \u201creal politick\u201d consequence was for United States to unofficially put pressure on Great Britain to relinquish its former colonies in the Pacific and S.E. Asia. Effectively through creeping \u201creal politick neo-diplomacy\u201d, Great Britain\u2019s colonial inhabitants would became \u201cfreed\u201d nations\u201d protected by the United States as the world\u2019s foremost political and economic policing power and with effective policing power in the Pacific and S.E. Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The post-war concatenation and growing \u201creal politick neo-diplomacy\u201d in S.E. Asia, forced a democratising change in British North Borneo that was now governed by London\u2019s Whitehall Colonial office and who hastily began to prepared the former colony and its charge for greater self governance and presumably to \u201ckick the bucket of self rule down the road\u201d to some later stage in the distant future, in appointing and founding its first North Borneo Legislative Council, and installing a British style jurisprudence and civil service system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The British Commonwealth Institution was formed and which gave birth to the Colombo Plan, were regional organisations that represent a collective intergovernmental corporative constituted to assist the development of S.E. Asia\u2019s former British colonies. In addition to development funds as grants from the British Colonial Office, these regional institutions provided additional development funds needed to fund British North Borneo\u2019s post-war fifties \u201cgreat leap-forward\u201d development projects, in Health, Education, Urban Reconstruction and modernisation of Jesselton its capital\u2019s municipal sewerage, electrical power transmission, potable water purification systems, its road air and shipping and airport conveyance and intermodal infrastructure; as to fast track North Borneo into the twentieth century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the private sector front, the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank and the Standard Chartered Banks were important British publicly owned financial institutions which effectively served as Development Banks needed in British North Borneo\u2019s laissez-faire economy to nurture local entrepreneurship and businesses taking a larger role and share of its economic activities and proceeds, which was coupled with a gradual introduction of modern fiscal policies on personal and company income taxation. At the same time through the auspices of the UN\u2019s World Health Organisation (WHO), \u201cfree\u201d comprehensive vaccination of North Borneo\u2019s inhabitants for polio and small pox was carried out and eradication of endemic tuberculosis and malaria began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time of British North Borneo independence and concomitant joining the Federation of Malaysia in 1963, the port town of Jesselton was a modern urban centre with a thriving commercial sector and businesses community, with a nascent \u201cWellness State\u201d if not a British style Welfare State and as a result child and natal medical care, dental and hospital facilities were all brought up to WHO standards. In North Borneo\u2019s experience, the early \u201cUniting Nations\u201d \u201cpolitical art\u201d narrative wasn\u2019t mere talk, but was followed by real material and existentially beneficial improvements in environmental quality, living standards, nutrition, urban environment and key municipal utilities amenities and infrastructure. By independence in 1963 as Sabah a State of Malaysia, these existential exigencies of the ordinary man were of comparable if not of a higher standard when compared with other states in the newly born Federation of Malaysia and indeed when compared with many other old and new nation states in the rest of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gardenia, Borneo\u2019s first \u201cColonial Fusion Steak & Grill Room\u201d to \u201cIn-Flight Kitchen Catering Services\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gardenia Restaurant as a brand (refer Naming Gardenia Brand) was established by my father (Datuk Wong Tze Fatt) in 1959 and was located above his newly established Tong Hing Supermarket 59 Gaya Street Jesselton, capital of British North Borneo (now Sabah Malaysia. My father had recruited a team of 3 \u201cHainanese\u201d Chefs and a two man, maitre-de and his deputy team from Singapore (refer The Hainanese German colonial fusion Chicken Rice Recipe) to set up Borneo\u2019s first Western Steak and Grill Restaurant and the restaurant used imported ingredients and Australian Beef purveyed by his own Tong Hing Supermarket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 60\u2019s the Gardenia Restaurant Brand garnered accolade throughout S.E. Asia gastronomic circles simply as Borneo\u2019s best western Steak & Grill Room that served an authentic contemporary \u201ccolonial fusion cuisine\u201d before the word \u201cfusion\u201d became a \u201cbuzz word\u201d amongst social-media gastronomic gourmets. Thus when in 1996 Malaysian Singapore Airlines (MSA) planned to launch its Comet 4s First Class Cabin services between Singapore Paya-Lebah and Jesselton North Borneo to meet the growing demands of a fast internationalising and cosmopolitan jet-set, Gardenia was without question the only local brand name in Jesselton\u2019s (renamed Kota-Kinabalu 1997) fledgling hotel, restaurant and catering businesses that could deliver in-flight food and beverage supply services to meet the jet-set customer\u2019s \u201cfirst class\u201d expectations at the commiserate price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MSA Cabin Services Director (Lee Siong Mai) flew into Jesselton for a summit meeting with my father and a Letter of Understanding for an In-Flight Cabin Catering Services Supply Agreement was forged between my father\u2019s Tong Hing Holdings company and MSA. This was the beginning of a long and mutually fruitful pioneering business joint venture for both parties who were later rebranded respectively as Gardenia In-Flight Kitchen and Malaysian Singapore Airline (which the latter separated as Malaysian Air System and Singapore Airlines). This partnership of pioneers in S.E. Asia\u2019s In-Flight Kitchen services lasted from 1966 till 2014, and which marked the end of 48 years of Gardenia as a pioneer and premier In-Flight Kitchen Catering Services and a fin de si\u00e8cle of the Golden Age of Air Travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the days that followed the first summit meeting at Gardenia Steak and Grill Room, Lee Siong Mai returned with his entourage of Executive Chefs and Costs accountants, who were all feted with food tasting lunches and dinners of a selection from Gardenia Restaurant\u2019s famed menu. The entrees were; Thousand Island Prawn Cocktail, Tomato Soup, Green Pea Soup, Mulligatawny Soup, Beef Consume Soup, Mock Turtle Soup, accompanied with freshly baked Dinner Rolls glazed with Duck egg yolk followed with; Main course specialities of Sizzling Beef Tournedos Fillet Steak with Pepper Sauce made with classic French style demi-glace, Maryland Spring Chicken, Lobster Thermidor, and Dover Sole; And topping it all off with; Desserts of Bombe Alaska and completing the tasting sessions with afternoon tea-cakes, a variety of Sponge Cakes, Classical English Scones and a Battenberg cake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gardenia Airport Cafeteria (In-Flight Kitchen services provider operations was managed as an integral part of MAS In-Flight Cabin Services) was renamed as Gardenia In-Flight Kitchen and was the in flight- service provider at Kota Kinabalu (BKI) to the Flag Carrier legacy airlines of Malaysian Air System, Singapore Airlines, Silk Air, Cathay Pacific, and Dragon Air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Airlines and Aircrafts in S E Asia\u2019s Golden Age of Air-Travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Borneo Airways \u2013 Malayan Airways<\/p>\n\n\n\n De-Havilland Rapide; Twin Pioneers;<\/p>\n\n\n\n Douglas Dakota DC3 (Jesselton Kuching Singapore Paya Lebah)<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Menu: Sandwiches)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Malaysia Singapore Airlines (MSA 1966-1972) (Malaysian Air System & Singapore Airlines)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vickers Viscount (Menu: Sandwiches, Cold Meals) Jesselton Airport to Singapore Paya-Lebar route<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1966 Comet 4s (Menu: In-Flight Kitchen Hot Meals); Jesselton Airport to Singapore Paya-Lebar route<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 70\u2019s Jet-Set Generation;<\/p>\n\n\n\n Boeing 747-70\u2019s APEX Mass Air-Travel<\/p>\n\n\n\n Concorde Supersonic Jet-Set<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Federation of Malaysia and Republic of Singapore<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Malaysia was formed in 1963 comprising of the 9 British Malaya Federated 11 states (9 Sultanates &; 2 Straits Settlements), Sabah (formally British North Borneo), Sarawak and Singapore (which later seceded from Malaysia in 1965).<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Moment of joy and happiness in Gardenia\u2019s Golden Age of Jet Air-Travel<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the summer of 1967 as a young man of 16, I was back in Sabah Malaysia from boarding schooling (at Bedales, Hampshire, England) for my long summer break and settling down on my first day at home, when quite unexpectedly my father asked me to leave home and accompany him on a business trip to Singapore. This was indeed a pleasant surprise and a treat as I knew I was going to be upgraded from my usual economy class to take a seat with my father in the Malaysian Singapore Airlines First-Class Cabin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As my father and I cleared the required airport departure procedures, I was quite excited to find out that we will be boarding one of Malaysia Singapore Airline\u2019s De-Havilland Comet 4s, newly acquired in a lease from BOAC and put into service earlier that week replacing MAS Vickers Viscount turbo-prop aircraft type for their Jesselton to Singapore Paya-Lebar route. After flight boarding security ticket and luggage check-in procedures were completed, my father and I boarded the MSA Comet 4s and I settled down in the First Class Cabin sitting at second row right aisle seat and across the aisle from my father who was sitting at the first row aisle seat to the left of aisle. I then began to fasten my seat belt and browse the passenger safety and promotional pamphlets in the pockets ahead of me, and leaned forwards a little to look past the empty seat to my right and out of the large windows to admire the over-wing view which was devoid of the usual intrusion of airplane propellers. The stewardess came around with welcome drinks and cold and hot hand towels that in the sixties were only served in Airliners\u2019 First Class cabins. In the interim between passengers seating with taxiing to the runway threshold and aligning for takeoff on runway 02, I looked around at the first class interior which was an experience in luxury and comfort having only flown in the comparatively plain single-class students chartered flight arranged by Malaysian London Embassy Student Affairs Office to ferry Malaysian students returning home from studies in the U.K.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the MSA Comet 4s jet engines spooled up and began its take-off run, the sound of the Comet\u2019s pure jet engine was a completely new tone to me. As compared to the turbo-props, the pure jet engine was very much quieter and more important was free of engine and propeller vibrations and uncomfortable throbbing propeller harmonics of earlier generation of prop-piston engine and turbo prop-jet aircrafts. At that moment my father glanced over to my seat and nodded when he saw that I was clearly enjoying the first class jet-set experience. Then there was a smooth and sustained acceleration throughout the take off climb and quite unlike the earlier planes which seemed to run out of breath just as they begin to rotate to climb out and as result the Comet 4s four jet engines much higher available thrust, climbed at a far higher rate and at a noticeably steeper angle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we climbed through the cloud base condensation level, what looked alarmingly like smoke from a fire vented out of the air-conditioning outlets. But as all the flight attendants were still seated quite unperturbed by the sight and there wasn\u2019t a trace of a burning smell, I quickly realised that it was vapour condensation from a rapid fluctuation of relative air humidity and as we our climb rate was so much higher than previous aircrafts that cabin relative air humidity didn\u2019t have time to normalise and the incoming cold air-vapours from the air-conditioning system was forming a mini standing wave cloud as it exited its vents and condensed momentarily while passing in and out through its dew point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We continued our climb through the tropical late morning layer of cumulus clouds the captain gently weaved to dodge turbulence and as he turned to a south westerly heading for Singapore. Soon we were well above the cumulous cloud layer and flying in clear blue skies and the Comet 4s gently levelled off into cruise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gardenia pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As the plane settled on its course for Singapore and was cruising in smooth air, the passenger seat belts signs went off with a dulcet ping, and Rediffusion background music came over the Tannoy, and which was a signal for the cabin crew to began to go about their after take-off cabin check list and duties. From time to time they would emerge with cold and hot hand towels, complimentary playing card embellished with their MSA brand logos, trays of cocktail peanuts, drinks and beverages, and the very \u201csixties\u201d mini-bar\u2019s mini-bottles of spirits and of course stylish grown-up sixties canap\u00e9s which included \u201cpetite\u201d sandwiches made from thin sliced fresh sandwich white bread prepared by Gardenia\u2019s In-Flight Kitchen patisserie and bakery. I began the read the menus and that was when I noticed that a choice for main course was Beef Fillet Tournedos with Black Pepper sauce which I recognised was my father\u2019s Gardenia Restaurant signature recipe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the meal trays were served to all the First Class passengers, and I had finished my Beef Consume and Gardenia cucumber sandwiches, my father turned and looked over to me as I began to tuck into my choice of a Gardenia Signature Beef Tournedos with Black Pepper Sauce prepared with classic French style Demi-glace as my main course. When I responded to my father\u2019s overture with an approvingly gastronomic grin of satisfaction, his first look of concern melted away and was replaced with a smile of utter joy and happiness. It was in this moment of an epiphany when I realised that while the raison-d\u2019\u00eatre for this trip was his business commitments in Singapore, but the \u201cpiece-de-resistance\u201d for my father was to watch his eldest son tuck into his famed classic \u201cGardenia petite canap\u00e9 cucumber sandwiches and Beef Tournedos with Black Pepper prepared with Demi-glace sauce all prepared in his Gardenia In-Flight Kitchen. In that moment of joy and happiness I could sense that all the hardship of my father\u2019s earlier Singapore business trips that typically started with the loneliness of leaving his family behind and to boarding a Straits Steamship Kimanis second class berth, vanished away as the trials and tribulations of an existential past that brought us to share this moment of utter joy and happiness that marked a Golden Age of Air-Travel and the arrival of Malaysia\u2019s Jet-Set era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" S E Asia\u2019s famous Gardenia Brand was a child of the sixties \u201cGolden Age of Air-Travel\u201d. It was a time of glamorous air hostesses, gourmet meals and of ample leg room for all. It was also the time when intercontinental transatlantic and transpacific globe circumnavigating long range routes were being pioneered and commercially proved by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-47","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygardenia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygardenia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygardenia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygardenia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygardenia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/mygardenia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"https:\/\/mygardenia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygardenia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}