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Mr Lim Guan Choe And The Perak St John Ambulance Association
The picture on the left was taken from the St Michael’s Institution (SMI) 1951 Magazine, “The Michaelian”. The caption reads;
“Mr. Lim Guan Choe, Hon Secretary, St John Ambulance Association (Perak District) and District Officer of the St John Ambulance Brigade (SJAB), photographed after being invested with the insignia of Serving Brother of the Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem.
The second picture, held in the SMI archives, is of him later in life.
He was the first Headmaster of the SMI Primary School, which was started in 1957 and then split into Primary 1 and Primary 2 in 1959. He then served as head of Primary 1 until his retirement in 1971. Prior to that appointment he had been a faithful member of the teaching staff in SMI Secondary School for more than 20 years.
Lim Guan Choe was also associated with the St John Ambulance Association in Perak from its very beginning in 1938 when the first Perak Division was formed in Teluk Anson (now Teluk Intan) under the leadership of the YM Raja Musa bin Raja Mahadi.
He then established the first Ipoh Division of the Brigade on 16th September 1940 at St. Michael’s Institution, some of whom travelled South in 1942 with the retreating British forces, doing their best to treat the wounded.
Soon after formation in Perak, news of the imminent war was heard. Among the achievements of the brigade, there were 16 Ambulance Divisions and 4 Nursing Divisions formed in the state by 1941. The Perak Centre was able to provide the full personnel required to man all First Aid Posts in addition to providing stretcher-bearers for attending to ‘casualties’. They were also able to provide teams for the ‘Black Out’ practice in Ipoh.
After the War ended on 15th August 1945, a few Brigade members got together and restarted the organization in Perak, with their office in Ipoh Town Hall.
In 1950, the Association was properly reconstituted when YM Raja Musa bin Raja Mahadi came to Ipoh and was elected as one of the Vice Presidents of the association. Tuan Haji Wahab bin Toh Muda Abdul Aziz was also elected President of the Association and Lim Guan Choe became Secretary and Treasurer at the same time. Here he played a major role in the planning and erection of the Ipoh SJAB hall on a piece of land donated in 1951 by Mr G S Walker, Chairman of the Ipoh Town Council. On the 4th September 1957, the Duke Gloucestor laid the foundation stone of the building in Anderson Road Ipoh. On 26th July 1958 the St John Ambulance Association Patron Duli Yang Maha Mulia Sultan Yussuf Izzuddin Shah, Sultan of Perak officiated the opening of the building and the SJAB, Perak had their own headquarters.
Always active with the SMI’s SJAB detachment, Lim Guan Choe was also Area Commissioner of the Association from 1964 to 1972.
An active member of the community, he served as Chairman of the English School Teachers Co-operative Society from 1954 until retirement in 1971 and for his services to the public was awarded the honours of AMN, PJK and O StJ.
A complete history of the Perak SJAB may be found at http://www.sjampk.org.
To read more about St Michael’s Institution, click here.