My conscious life sprang into being amid belching smoke, sticky bodies and ethnic diversity. Considering where my future was to take me, it seems quite a coincidence that my earliest memories involve travel - and an Englishman. This is a story about one girl's dream to escape poverty and fulfil her ambitions. Set against the rich social and political backdrop of war-torn Malaya's independence, the child's viewpoint tells a personal story of family life and individual survival in the multi-cultural, multi-religious melting pot of Malaya, as it was then known. The trials of smallpox and poverty...