In memory Alistair R.G Morrison

Former Sarawak Information Director Dies

KUCHING, Aug 20 (Bernama) -- Former Sarawak Information Services director Alistair R.G Morrison, who was credited as a crucial figure in the state's relatively smooth transition from colonial rule in the early 1960s, has died in Canberra, Australia, aged 94.

Former assistant state secretary Lim Kian Hock said today the Peking-born Morrison died of old age on Aug 4.

He said in a statement here that Morrison had been afflicted with a range of health problems in later years.

After his wife, Hedda, died in 1991, he proceeded to occupy himself in writing his memoirs, first of his time in Sarawak, entitled "Fair Land Sarawak", and then of his earlier life, "The Road in Peking" and "A Bird Fancier : A Journey to Peking".

Describing him as a "fine writer, whose wry sense of humor was never far from the surface," Lim said Morrison joined the British Colonial Service in 1947 and was sent to Sarawak just after it was acquired by Britain from the last Rajah, Sir Charles Vyner Brooke.

He served in several up-country posts as a district officer and wrote extensively for the Sarawak Gazette on future government policy towards Sarawak's indigenous groups.

Later he was transferred to the secretariat in Kuching and finally to the Government Information Office in late 1959.

"As an economist, his real interest was in rural development and he was disappointed not to be able to persevere in that challenging area.

On the other hand, he was to be a crucial figure in the relatively smooth transition from colonial rule in the early 1960s," Lim said.

He said the up-country postings had also given Hedda, a photographer by profession, the opportunity to take a superb series of photographs of the people of Sarawak before the effects of modernisation began to change their traditional way of life.

Her 1962 book, "Life in a Longhouse", remains a classic.

In early 1967, four years after Sarawak became part of the new federation of Malaysia, Morrison and Hedda moved to Canberra where he took up a senior position as head of the Southeast Asian branch of the Office of Current Intelligence under the Joint Intelligence Organisation before retiring in the mid-1970s.

-- BERNAMA