by Dr Rahim Said
Let me take you back to Penang in the 1970s — where men wore bell-bottoms without irony, women sported beehive hairdos that doubled as rain shelters, and the traffic lights were more of a polite suggestion than a rule.
I first landed in George Town fresh from schooling overseas, sometime in the early part of that deliriously carefree decade, a wide-eyed young man with more hair than sense.
The island was a charming contradiction: colonial buildings jostling for space with kopitiams, while the whiff of nutmeg and laksa floated through streets named after long-dead Englishmen.
You didn’t need Google Maps to get around. All you had to do was ask any local uncle, and he’d point you in the right direction — often with additional commentary about which road used to be a British governor’s mistress’s secret getaway.
Light Street, of course, honoured Captain Francis Light, the fellow who planted a flag and declared Penang his after what was essentially the 18th-century version of Airbnb squatting.
Fort Cornwallis stood nearby, its cannons aimed at the sea in case the Siamese got any funny ideas, or in modern times, to photobomb tourists.
Then there’s the famous Queen Victoria Memorial Clock Tower, built in honour of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee. It’s located in a tiny corner called King Edward’s Place, just a stone’s throw from the port where super cruise ships dock these days. Legend has it that the tower leans slightly because even in colonial times, construction contracts went to someone’s brother-in-law.
But amongst these storied landmarks, one mystery intrigued me most — a name whispered in smoky coffee shops, behind the gleaming rims of Tiger beer glasses: London Mary.
Now, being the polite kampung boy I was, I never dared ask what it meant. I would hear young college lads mention, “Eh, later we go visit London Mary lah,” and I’d nod sagely as if fully in the know.
Of course, I hadn’t the faintest clue.
For months, I pretended. I suspected she was either a British lady philanthropist running a halfway house for wayward cats… or a ghost who appeared at midnight near the Esplanade offering unsolicited moral advice.
Then came the night the mystery unravelled.
I was giving a bank manager a lift — back in those days, bank managers were local celebrities. He asked to be dropped off at an apartment along Jalan Northam (now rebranded as Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah).
In the front yard were three brightly decorated bechas — trishaws festooned with coloured bulbs, plastic flowers, and enough tinsel to shame a Christmas tree.
Curious, I asked, “Apa hal ini?” (which in Penang Malay roughly translates to “What on earth is going on?”)
He grinned and said, “Bachelor’s party lah. We’re surprising the fella with a ride to see London Mary.”
I was about to offer to drive them, but he waved me off. “No thanks. It’s a surprise. Got more bechas joining.”
As the convoy pedalled off, my mind raced. London Mary? Or was it London mari? Meaning “from London”? Was it a pub? A colonial statue? A visiting rock band?
Unable to contain my curiosity, I cornered the bank manager the next morning at Chowrasta Market. He chuckled and explained.
Turns out, London Mary was a legendary figure of the night from the old London Hotel off Penang Road.
In Penang Indian-Malay speak, when someone arrives from overseas, they’d say “London mari” — literally “came from London.”
Mary, the fair-skinned lady of the establishment, became so famous that every other hostess in the hotel inherited the title.
So “going to visit London Mary” was Georgetown slang for… well… visiting the kind of establishment your grandmother warned you about but your uncle had on speed dial.
And thus, a piece of Penang’s rich social history was laid bare before me.
Today, the London Hotel is gone, swept away by progress and parking lots. The bechas have become Instagram props for tourists sweating through heritage trails.
But in the quiet corners of kopitiams, old-timers still chuckle over the legend of London Mary, proving that in Penang, history isn’t just in the books — it’s in the stories we dare not write down.
So next time someone boasts about knowing every inch of Penang’s colonial past — Fort Cornwallis, Light Street, Queen Victoria’s clock tower — ask them if they’ve heard of London Mary. If they hesitate, smile knowingly.
You now have the upper hand.
(The views of the writer are entirely his)
WE