TRIBUTE ABDUL - Perdana Library

FRANK SULLIVAN
Then he said, "Well, in that case you had better come with me".
I grabbed a songkok, put on my coat and joined the Tunku in his
car.
It was the eve of Princess Margaret's wedding and crowds of
sight-seers and cars were thronging The Mall. As we were driving
along, the Tunku read the statement over again, stopping occasionally
to think or to look out at the crowds. The sentries saluted as
his car, with the Malayan flag flying, swept through the gate amid
waves of greeting and into the courtyard of the Palace, finally drawing
up at the doorway leading to the Queen's Apartments. The
Tunku told me to wait there till he came down. 1 rang Malaya
House and asked for a typist and a telephonist to be standing by
duringthelunch hour, because it looked as if this might be necessary.
At two minutes to one the Tunku came down, smiling broadly,
and got into the car. He did not say anything until he had gone
through the gates of the Palace. Then he asked me to read the
statement again. I did so, with the Tunku nodding his approval
at the end of each sentence. At one point he said, "Leave those
three words out". By this lime we were approaching Whitehall,
and there was a traffic jam. The Tunku was silent for a few minutes
and then he turned to me and said, "All right, Frank, put it out".
The car turned into Downing Street, and after the Tunku had
disappeared through the doors of No. 10, we drove up Whitehall
to Malaya House.
A flurry of organisation began at once with the statement being
finally typed on a stencil and all the telephones busy with staff
members ringing up the newspapers, asking them to send representatives
down to Malaya House. There was great excitement; one
girl said, "I don't think we have ever handled really hot news
before". Then the duplicating machine jammed for the first time
in its career, and it was twenty minutes before it could be put right.
The first few copies were being run off as the first newsman arrived,
Fraser Wighton of Reuter. As the other newsmen began to come
in to read the statement and rush to telephones I could hear Fraser
Wighton describing the Tunku's statement as a "bombshell". He
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