9) Meeting up with Christopher aka 13 again

In 1963, I was in Form 4 and at this time too, Christopher Choong, who was from a Chinese medium school was transferred to St. Michael’s Inst. He was placed in the same class with me. As I was a tall guy, I was made to sit at the back of the class and Christopher sat next to me. It was the beginning of a whole distracting year for me as Christopher would be talking to me all the time and mostly about music. He would play with his imaginery drumset, using pencils to strike the geometry box as a snare drum, bottles for cymbals and the desk as his bass drum. It was a bit disruptive to the class and he would get punished. I was also punished as it was “guilt by association” as far as the teacher was concerned although I didn’t get to talk much at all sitting next to Christopher. If you know Christopher, you will know that if he is talking nobody can really get another word in. He seem to have music in his head all the time and nothing could ever distract him from music, not even punishment meted out by the teacher. He was a really creative and talented guy. He might have been born with drumsticks in his hands !! Of course it came as no surprise to everyone, that Christoper became the top drummer in Malaysia at that time and was a truly respected musician. His idol was Gene Krupa a world famous drummer