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I happened across this article while flying from the IPOH post-lube back to Kuala Lumpur after World InterHash 1998 (In the Malaysian Airlines Magazine).
It is the best article I have seen on the origin of hashing. It was no doubt relayed from someone over a beer in the Selangor Club.
On-On and Enjoy,
Hazukashii
HASH BASH
Interhash '98 in Kuala Lumpur celebrates the 60th
anniversary of the founding of the Hash House Harriers in Malaysia's capital.
The celebrated running event has a colorful history. The original
idea was to mimic the Hare and Hounds or Fox and Hounds style chases that have been around
for centuries in one form or another. Some "gentle-men" substituted men for the
game in an effort to add something different to the sport. There is evidence of this in
colonial America as well as in England. It seemed a logical development then, to
substitute the hounds with runners as well. Men, not as well endowed as dogs with a sense
of smell, required a trail of some sort to track their quarry. Paper seemed the ideal
solution. This sport was well entrenched long before these sportsmen became known as
"hashers" and the sport was referred to as Hounds and Hares or the Paper Chase.
The Hash House Harriers had its humble beginnings in 1938 with an Englishman named Albert
Stephen Ignatius Gispert, in what is now Malaysia. Having a fondness for the "paper
chase," he gathered together a group of expatriates - including Cecil Lee,
"Horse" Thomson and "Torch" Bennett - to form a group in Kuala Lumpur
that would later become a worldwide legacy. The fraternity received its name from the
Selangor Club Chambers, which due to its lacklustre food was commonly referred to as the
"Hash House."
Almost a dozen runs took place, although attendance could sometimes be counted on one
hand. The sport was cut short during World War II, but then re-established when peace
returned. It was some time before the international phenomena we are familiar with today
began spreading around the world. A hash was formed in 1947 in Bordighera, Italy (near
Milan) by some former members of the original Hash House Harriers. It ceased operations
for many years but was reborn in 1984 and is now quite alive and well as the Royal Milan
and Bordighera HHH.
It wasn't until 1962 that the next official group was formed in Singapore. The Singapore
HHH was slowly followed by others until by the 1,500th postwar run in 1973, there were 35
known hashes around the world. This figure climbed into the hundreds by the 1980's and
there are now well over 1,300 active hashes.
The main difference between hash groups is their emphasis on the sporting versus social
aspects of hashing. Some choose to maintain the tradition of a live hare hash chasing
runners while they lay a trail after being given a few minutes head start. They thrill in
the hunt the occasional catch and the notion that there is a real pursuit in progress
during the event.
Other hashes have shunned the competitive nature of the live hare hashes, pre-laying the
trail with a number of marks designed to keep the pack together. These gathering checks
and other delaying marks allow the hashers of the dead hare hashes to sing and make merry
from point to point, emphasizing the social aspects of the sport.
Regardless the event, hashing knows no age boundaries, with family hashes and children's
hashes, as well as members from all ages, with hashers in their 70's or even older. So
there's no reason to not join. As one popular Hash House Harriers' motto goes: "If
you've half a mind to join the hash, that's all you need!"
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Objectives of Hashing:
(from a 1950 Kuala Lumpur club
registration card)
- To encourage physical fitness amongst our members
- To get rid of weekend hangovers
- To acquire a good thirst and to satisfy it with beer
- To persuade the older members that they are not as old as they feel
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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
Cecil Lee
KUALA LUMPUR
October 24, 1958
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