40 Faces of Brendoncare – Tony Baitup

The Far East holds many memories for Tony Baitup, a resident at Brendoncare Stildon in East Grinstead. In his early life, his father served in the Army in India. Tony and the rest of the family would have joined him there if it wasn’t for the outbreak of war at which point his father left the Army after 21 years.

For his National Service, Tony signed up to the Military Police for three years. After a year’s training, he was called up and joined the British military contingent sent out during the Malayan Emergency.

This guerilla war was fought between communist pro-independence fighters and the military forces from Malaya, Britain, and the Commonwealth.

Recalls Tony: “It happened after World War 2 when the Japanese occupied Malaya. They left behind many of their weapons. The terrorists were using them to ambush British rubber planters in the country.”

Tony had many experiences, some very dangerous, during his time in Malaya.One regular mission was to meet the plantation managers from the train station and escort them to their plantations. This was treacherous because of the risk of ambush.

Attached to the 17th Gurkhas, Tony got to know other serving personnel and local people.

“We were at Johor Bahru just across from Singapore. Some military people either came over here or went to Africa. I used to go and pick them up in the truck and take them up to the British Military Hospital if they had a few too many!”

After completing his service, Tony remained in the Army reserves and nearly went out to Egypt during the Suez Crisis.

Returning to the UK, Tony was a senior operating theatre assistant at Pembury Hospital, Tunbridge Wells where his wife Margaret was a ward sister. He later worked at local power company, Seeboard.

When Tony and Margaret retired, they visited more Far Eastern countries, including Bali, Indonesia, Batam and the Philippines as well as returning to Malaya, now Malaysia.

Friends:

They kept in touch with friends in Singapore so paid regular visits there especially for the Chinese New Year.

Tony and Margaret have three children – son Kevin, a teacher in Mexico for 20 years, daughters Susan who has been a care assistant for many years and Karen, who has practised as a lawyer for 30 years.

Tony’s travels have included a couple of visits to Mexico to see Kevin.

The couple moved to Stildon a year ago but sadly, Margaret died soon afterwards.

Tony has been sharing his passion for the Far East with fellow residents. He gave them an illustrated talk about Malaya.

Dignity and Respect:

“I am very happy here,” Tony says. “This is my room where my door is always open which means I can talk to everybody.”

Tony is passionate about all people being treated “as a person”. This means whoever they are, wherever they’re from, whatever their skin colour, everyone should be treated fairly with dignity and respect.

He feels so strongly about this, he wrote a letter on this subject to the Minister of Education from whom he has received a reply.