Malaysia Review ‘The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year began with heavy snow, a novel coronavirus and economic concerns. Vladimir Putin was in the Kremlin and Boris Johnson was re-elected as Mayor of London as the Olympic torch made its way towards the East End.’
T
he year 2012 is memorable for many reasons: the excitement of the Games, Murray’s triumphant Olympic response to his Wimbledon defeat by Federer, Wiggins’ Tour de France victory and rain – lots of it, making 2012 the wettest year on record in England. However, 2012 also brought to an end five years of planning for a sun-drenched corner of southern Malaysia where 90 acres of palm-oil plantation had been cleared to create the home for a unique experiment in international education: Marlborough College Malaysia (MCM). Bob Pick (Master 2012-17, CR 1980-2012) recounts the immense planning and the Phase 1 building process
in his splendid book, From Vision to Reality, and I commend this to all OM readers, not least because to summarise it here would inevitably leave egregious omissions. At the heart of MCM lies the vision and courage to take a different approach, not to follow the herd. It is often what distinguishes the great from the mundane and we continue to value that heritage ten years later. MCM, therefore, was designed to be and remains unique in conception and innovative in operation and yet, as General Sir John Lorimer (C1 1976-81) remarked on a visit in 2019, ‘It’s more like Marlborough than Marlborough’. Marlborough College Malaysia was conceived as an institution that would offer the quality of broad education, promote intellectual curiosity and provide exceptional British boarding care without compromise in a land to which Marlborough had and continues to have strong ties. The names of the Houses – Wallace, Thompson, Sheppard, Taylor, Munawir – and the composition of its Council attest to a long and enduring relationship between Marlborough and Malaysia.
