Autograph

Not having anything particular to do than the routine reading I am now doing, I started to rummage through my collection of odds and ends and came up with my old autograph book that I had maintained during my boyhood days and through school in Burma. Brought back a lot of memories, especially those of my singing days in St. George's Cathedral in Yangoon (Rangoon), Myanmar (Burma). We got paid to sing, at least us sopranos did. Most of the jottings are from my friends and it brought me memories of Elizabeth San Ba (She was doing medicine a that time), her sister Esther San Ba; my organist George Ronson and Mary Maung Pe (we used to call her Kyu Kyu), Hazel and Flossie (who were singing Alto) and the others. I sang soprano till my voice broke and I sang tenor for some time till I left for my native India. There were also two other sisters June-Rose and Heather Forbes-Mitchelle. They left for England before I left Burma. There was also a Kendly Smith who also did his schooling in the same school I went to - St. John's High School.
I kept in touch with Esther for some time after I came to India and then the writing fizzled out. How I'd love to go back to Burma and look these old friends of mine.
I remember my friends from I.E.S. Khalsa High school, particularly a S.M. Writer. He left for the U.S after I left for India and he used to make soapbox radios using a crystal. I still have the letters from him from U.S. and from Esther San Ba (all in Burmese which language I have practically forgotten, so I am not able to read them).  I'm trying to find a website that will teach Burmese online but so far I've not come up with one. I'd really like to read all my old letters once again. May be I'll go to Burma once again and see my old friends.
Now that I'm old, I am able to recollect the small incidents in my life that happened decades ago. Old people seem to recollect their childhood experiences vividly as they grow older. I was there in Burma fro nine years, from 1954 to 1963, an they were the best years of my life. Come to think of it the best years of my life were till I finished college and then I found myself a job and life after that was somewhat different.

Autographs

Now that I have retired, I was going through the accumulation of odds and ends over the years and came across my old autograph which I had maintained till the end of my school days. In it I came across the following poem written by my maths teacher, Mrs. Tha Sein of the Seventh Day Adventist School in Rangoon (Yangon), Burma (Myanmar).

Is there aught so dear to me
That I cannot share with thee.
In the casket of my heart
Do I hide from thee a part.

All my treasures now I pour
At thy feet for evermore.
Love and life and will are thine,
I a rich if thou art mine.

Beautiful isn't it?

This, naturally, brought me memories of these school days when my Headmistress was a Miss Lockie Gifford and my old friends. like Jennifer Rees. Like in the song "Those were the days"; we had a lot of dreams and after all these years, we are still the same, still having those dreams in our hearts.