A Town Like Alice

Jean Paget was born in Malaya, in 1921. At that time Malaya was ruled by the British and many people from Britain lived and worked in Malaya. Some of them were government officers, others were in the army and the police force, and others worked in schools and hospitals. But most British people in Malaya worked in trade and industry. The most important industries were mining tin and growing rubber. Jean Paget’s father was the manager of a large rubber estate. The estate was in the State of Perak, about 100 miles north of the capital city, Kuala Lumpur.