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On October 20th 2018, Mary Harris, author of Rocks, Radio and Radar gave the annual talk to the Malayan Volunteers Group in London.

The history of the Volunteers goes back to 1854 [Moffat and Riches 2010] and the Malayan Volunteers Group exists today to record the contribution they made to the defence of Malaya and Singapore notably in the period leading up the fall of Singapore to the Imperial Japanese Army in 1942. The Volunteers came from all professions and walks of life, were European, Malay, Chinese, Indian and Eurasian and all underwent regular, professional training. Their unique knowledge of the local environment and languages was largely ignored by the incoming military authorities who began to arrive in Singapore in the late 1930s but as members of the British Army they fought, died or were imprisoned alongside the newcomers. The newsletter of the Malayan Volunteers Group, Apa Khabar, goes back to 2005 and has become an authoritative source of records, mostly of people who were there at the time, which should be better known to professional historians. At its annual lunch, a speaker with a particular interest in an aspect of the period, is invited to address the Group.

Mary Harris chose as her topic "Bouches Inutiles: who were they and what happened to them?". She used unique records published in Apa Khabar, to critique the dominance of the literature on the fall of Singapore, described ironically by Professor Mary Beard as "Big Books By Blokes about Battles" and draw attention to the crucial work of women not only in the civilian defence, medical and educational services but also in military intelligence, to counter, with evidence, some of the myths that are still published, that trivialise the lives of the women of Singapore. She insisted that until this essential work of women receives parity of esteem in the literature, the history of the fall of Singapore will remain half-written.

Mary Harris's talk is published in full in Apa Khabar Issue 57 and subsequent issues. The photographs were taken by Zaharah Othman.

www.malayanvolunteersgroup.org.uk/newsletters

Moffat, Jonathan and Riches, Paul (2010) In Oriente Primus. A History of the Volunteer Forces in Malay and Singapore. Published by Jonathan Moffat. JonathanMoffatt@aol.com

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