There is one interesting episode regarding my father when he was a young boy in baggy khaki shorts that my grand aunt related to me. His father U Ba Saw (U is the Myanmar equivalent of Mister) was still living then. On one occasion U Ba Saw gave a good thrashing to his son Bertie for some naughty act he had committed. According to my grand aunt, my father cried out at the top of his voice, and while still beating his son, the old man told him to stop crying. Still bawling out at the top of his voice my father shouted back at his father :”How can I stop crying when you don’t stop beating me ?” The old man was so taken aback at this sudden response from his son that with his mouth wide open suddenly stopped his raised hand in mid air. As my grand aunt related the story to me, from that day onwards till he died the old man never touched his son Bertie again. U Ba Saw must have realized the plain logic of his son’s words and at the same time ashamed at his own failure to grasp the simple truth before his son did.
After passing the Matriculation Examination from his St. Patrick’s, Bertie continued his studies at the University of Rangoon for the Bachelor of Arts and the Bachelor of Law. As a university student Bertie did well in his studies. Although he became friends with some of the future leaders of the country, he didn’t join in their political pursuits. My father was of a different breed. He knew what was going on around him, the already awakened national spirit gathering momentum and the people’s yearning for independence from British rule, but focused his attention on his studies: English Literature, Modern European History (from 1789, after the French Revolution onwards) and Political Science. {I studied the same combination of subjects when I attended the same university}.
Bertie looked forward to a career in the civil service of the day. He was a simple man and tried to accomplish what was expected of him by his family and close relatives. He graduated in 1937, and as was common among most educated young men of the day, except for the very few who became leaders of the country later on, Bertie joined the civil service and was appointed Township Officer (T.O) and served in that capacity in a number of small towns. His postings included Buthidaung-Maungdaw Township in western Myanmar(then called Burma) where he contracted malaria which troubled him off and on even after I was born.
