A friend visited the Birch Memorial Clock Tower and brought us back these pictures.
The top two are at the top of the steps as you approach the tower from the lower road. Rotting food and goodness knows what else to navigate past as you visit Ipoh’s heritage. Bottom left is the base of the tower, complete with broken bed and water bottle and the bottom right is just across the road from the mosque. What a dreadful sight for our Muslim friends as they leave their place of prayer.
Now you may not like the reason that the tower was put there in the first place – many don’t. But the fact is that the structure is 100 years old this year and represents a key bit of history for this country and its people. Nobody denies that Birch was not a good administrator, nor that he treated the Malays badly, but as they say, that is history and whatever else, it is history like this that brings in tourist dollars.
Surely the place deserves to be treated better than this!