KUALA LUMPUR: More than 120 ex-staff of the New Straits Times Press got a chance to catch up with each other at the “Ex-NSTP 31 Jalan Riong” event, organised for the first time today.

The event, to gather all ex-NSTP staff who once walked the corridors of Balai Berita Bangsar in Jalan Riong, was the brainchild of six members of the company’s production department.
They began planning the reunion two months ago.

One of the organisers, 69-year-old Zakaria Mat Ali, said it all began with a plan to hold a reunion without setting any charges, unlike the usual practice for reunion events.

“We aimed to get 100 people to attend this reunion and we shared a tentative programme in our WhatsApp chat group to try to get an estimate of how many people would want to attend, to make it easy for us to order food.

“As it turned out, the number of attendees exceeded the list (we put together). We just accepted it because the purpose of this reunion is to reconnect with old friends whom we haven’t seen for decades,” he said during the event at the Grand Barakah Hotel near Ampang.

Among those who attended the reunion were former Berita Harian group editor Datuk Seri A. Samad Said, former press secretary to Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Datuk Dr Ibrahim Yahya, and former Berita Publishing senior director Datuk Ahmad Jauhari Yahya.

Meanwhile, former production staff member Abd Shukor Saedon, 79, said NSTP had left him with many fond memories in the 30 years he had worked in the company.

“I began under the Malay Mail in the Jalan Pudu office and retired in 2000. In the 30 years I worked in NSTP, there were things which I will never forget.

“One of these memories is that I worked in two different eras, one being the Straits Times era (when the office was headquartered in Singapore) and the other, in Malaysia.

“To me, NSTP is a place of both hardships and joys. Attending this event and meeting old friends brings back memories. I didn’t expect that this reunion would actually come to fruition,” he said.

For former production technician Abd Malek Abu Talib, 74, it was a 15-year stint at NSTP, where he started out with a salary of just RM600.

“NSTP provided beautiful experiences and also taught me the meaning of hardship and joy. I’m happy to be able to reunite with old friends and warmly shake hands with them, after so many years of not seeing each other,” he said. – NST Online