A typical day at St. John’s island started with singing the Red Flag in Chinese and the Internationale in English. This practice was introduced by Sharma. After that there was fifteen minutes of exercise followed by a simple breakfast.
The class discussions then occupied the larger part of the morning. Devan Nair used Caldwell’s two books, ‘Essays in Dying Culture‘ and ‘Further Essays in Dying Culture‘ as the texts for his lectures. He had learned the texts by heart and regurgitated the same points in every lecture. Although they too knew Devan’s lecture by heart, the ABL detainees appeared very serious and attentive.
James felt that the whole exercise was ritualistic and done to conform to the party guidelines as enforced by Sharma.
James lectured on economics which resulted is more disagreements as it focused on the capitalist system. James remembers being criticised by his colleagues for discussing the idea of surplus value in the capitalist system. They suggested he concentrated his lectures on socialist or communist economics. James replied that it would be difficult to grasp Marx’s ideas fully without an understanding of the capitalist system, especially the idea of surplus value. This was a further indication of the ideological differences he had with Sharma.
After class the cooking team performed their task and then lunch was served. The detainees were free in the afternoon when they either continued their discussions, read or learned languages. In the evening they played games. At night they frequently engaged in further discussions or arguments. There was no regulation stipulating what they should or should not do or what time they should retire at night.
During visiting days (once a week) the detainees met their visitors in a big hall. The guards hung around in the hall while they talked. There were not enough guards to prevent the detainees from sending messages to and receiving the
same from their visitors. Hence James’ ability to urge his brother George to smuggle in money for the escape plan.
Life on St. John’s island was not bad. The detainees were placed under European rations – 4 eggs a day person, half pound of meat, 3 ounces of fish and 4 ounces of vegetables.
Indeed, they had more than they could consume and hence, they used to sell some food items (eg eggs) to the Chinese provision shop on the island. James also kept a diary while at St John’s island in which he recorded the events there.
The diary was later taken away by the Special Branch. Hence, he refused to keep a diary during his subsquent detentions.
The ABL detainees had free access to the newspapers and most books brought in by visitors. The ABL group has no problem following the progress of the MCP insurrection through the newspaper reports. The police did not block out any report about the war on the MCP but the detainees generally did not believe the reports, regarding them as British propaganda.