This letter was addressed to the Kuala Lumpur HHH in 1958 by Cecil Lee, one of the co-founders of the Hash House Harriers. He was a regular harrier 1938-40, and after the war, 1946-51, then in Borneo for three years before returning to KL to finish his hashing 1954-57.

The Hash House Harriers were founded in a moment of post-prandial inspiration at the Selangor Club Chambers, about 1937/38, by the inmates, who included myself, E.J. Galvin, H.M. Doig, and AS Gispert. Gispert was the real founder - a man of great wit and charm, who was killed on Singapore Island in February 1942 whilst serving with the Argylls, having only just returned from leave in Australia to rejoin the volunteers. I am glad of this opportunity to salute his memory. He was a splendid fellow, and would be happy to know the Harriers are still going strong, and are as merry and bright as ever - or more so. Gispert was not an athlete, and stress was laid as much on the subsequent refreshment etc. as on the pure and austere running. It was non-competitive, and abounded in slow packs. Life was then conservative rather than competitive.

The name was a mock allusion to the institution that housed and fed us. Later "Torch" Bennett returned from leave, and produced order out of chaos - a bank account, balance sheet and some system. But we pride ourselves on being rather disorganised - or the minimum organization sufficed. The original joint masters were myself and "Horse" Thompson, still running somewhere - a past-master at short-cuts and the conservation of energy.

Celebrations were held in various places, and the first was in what is now the Legislative Council, then the Volunteer Mess. The oratory, I recall, was much the same as now.

Llew Davidson is an old member. Morris Edgar was one, but apart from Llew and John Wyatt-Smith, I do not think there are any more antediluvians still running. Philip Wickens was also one who kept us going post-war.

We started up again after the war due to Torch Bennett who discovered a Bank Balance and put in a claim for War Damage on one tin bath, and two dozen mugs, and possibly two old bags (not members). We started by a small run in reduced circumstances around the race-course then the horses were not much better.

The Emergency cramped our style but did not diminish our activities, and we were called in for information on various by-ways in Selangor, but our period of usefulness to MI5 was brief, and our information probably otiose. But the hares ran into two Bandits at Cheras, who were later copped.

An Irish accountant, Kennedy, drew up the Rules we had to register as a club, and he seems to have preserved the old traditions just as you do now."

Selemat tinggal HHH