From The Daily Telegraph August 1997:

Major PH ‘Val’ Meadows, who died aged 78 in July 1997, was awarded an MC when serving behind Japanese lines in Burma, and was also twice mentioned in despatches.

The citation for Meadow’s MC recorded that ‘with great personal courage and endurance he led small parties deep into enemy territory, and his many and daring exploits caused bewilderment, uneasiness and numerous casualties among the Japanese’.

After the war, Meadows joined the Malayan Civil Service, and when Malaya became independent he stayed on to become Permanent Secretary (Special Duties) in the office of the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. In 1963 Meadows became chairman of the War Committee when the Brunei rebellion broke out. He ended his career as Director of Far East Levingston Ship Building in Singapore.

Percival (Val) Herbert Meadows was born on May 15 1919 and qualified in Tropical Horticulture at Wye College, where he was captain of boxing. His first overseas appointment was on a coffee plantation in Kenya, from which he moved to tea-planting in Ceylon. On the outbreak of the Second World War he returned to England to enlist in the Lincolnshire Regiment, and soon afterwards won the Combined Service Boxing Championship at Welterweight.
In 1941 he was posted to India where, after initial training, he was commissioned into the 12″ Frontier Force Regiment, joining the 8th Battalion. After active service on the North-West Frontier he was selected for Intelligence duties and sent on a short course at Karachi. Here he also gained his pilot’s licence in a ‘Gypsy Moth’.

Meadows served as Intelligence Officer in the Arakan, mostly behind enemy lines, from 1943. He established a rapport with the local villagers which raised their morale and also brought in valuable and varied information. On one occasion he paddled upstream in a dug-out canoe, ducking enemy fire to rescue a Gurkha who had been left behind. Once he hid in the jungle with two Gurkhas when a whole platoon of Japanese passed within 50 feet. On examining the bodies of dead Japanese he noticed they all carried poems.

In 1945 he transferred to the 2nd Gurkhas, and as part of his duties had to depose the Japanese puppet governor of Perlis (Malaya) and install in his place the rightful Rajah, who then dubbed him ‘Prince of the Southern Seas’.

After the war, Meadows joined the Colonial Administrative Service, and after taking courses at Magdalene College, Cambridge and then the School of Oriental and African Studies, he was assigned to Malaya. However, at the beginning of the Emergency there, when Communist terrorists tried to take over the country, he volunteered for active service, and his previous experience of jungle warfare i Burma proved extremely useful.

In 1949 he was selected to study Cantonese in Macao, a colourful world of gambling casinos, gold smuggling, opium dens and Chinese ‘taxi dancers – girls who could be bought with a ticket for a dance.

For two years, as honorary British Consul, Meadows sent back intelligence reports to London on the Chinese Revolution, then in full swing, and learned the basic 2,500 characters required to read a Chinese newspaper, as well as mastering the art of Chinese brush strokes.

His next posting was to Singapore, but soon afterwards he was sent to Kuantan. In Pahang (famous for its tigers, black panther and deep jungle), which at that time was a flourishing base for guerillas. The chances of an ambush on the remote roads were considerable, but he survived unscathed by driving flat out in his MG sports car.

In the run-up to Independence, Meadows held a number of important administrative posts. He was variously director of Social Welfare (which included the protection of women and girls, some of the youngest of whom were employed in opium dens), chairman of the Rural Board, and Secretary of the ministries of Local Government, of Lands and Housing, and of Internal Security.

After Independence, Meadows’ tasks included the integration of cities and district the Port of Singapore Authority with appropriate legislation. When Lee Kuan Yew’s People’s Action Party had come to power under the ticket of ‘Sweep the British into the Sea’, Meadows recognised this as an election ploy and said “I always understood his game plan’. Meadows was a good friend and loyal supporter o the Prime Minister, a feeling which was reciprocated and his steadying hand calmed the fears of the commercial world and the Eurasian community. The successive stability of post independence Singapore owed much to Meadows. He promoted private enterprise in the development o Singapore and supervised the rapid establishment of television.

When the Brunei Rebellion broke out, at the request of Lord Selkirk, Commissioner General for South East Asia, Meadows agreed to go instantly to Brunei as Acting High Commissioner. As Chairman of the War Committee (Brunei, Sabah, Sarawak) his principal task was to co-ordinate the Armed Services, Police and Civil Service and give policy direction on the conduct of operations. At the outbreak of the rebellion the Residency had been captured and the Sultan, for his safety, was secured in a strong room under Gurkha guard.

Brunei then had no oil millions. The people were poor and aggrieved and one of the first acts of the new High Commissioner was to bring water to their villages by standpipes. In such a little way was their trust regained. Brunei was stabilised, but the rebellion led to Indonesian Confrontation.

In 1963 he was appointed CBE and for his services in Brunei was awarded a Loyalty to Brunei medal. In 1967 he became Chairman of the Singapore Tourist Promotions Board.~

Finally, as Chairman and Managing Director of Levingston Ship Building, he was engaged in the construction of some of the most technologically advanced vessels of the offshore industry.

In spite of his talents and achievements, Val Meadows remained modest and unaffected. But he had the ability to inspire people of all races, creeds and customs. He had a dry sense of humour and a concealed sense of mischief. In a life of notable achievements he thought less of accolades than the generation of ideas from which others might benefit.

He had true nobility of spirit and a spontaneously generous nature. A man of great charisma, in his encounters with others he gave something special to each.
He is survived by his wife, Mary.

Editor’s Note:
What is not mentioned in the obituary is that Val’s first encounter with the Regiment, was, when as Brigade Intelligence Officer in ’44 ,he accompanied a 3rd Battalion patrol led by the then Capt D F Neill which resulted in the killing of 34 Japanese Infantrymen and the capture of another. It was no doubt with some irony that he next served alongside the Regiment as Acting High Commissioner during the Brunei rebellion!