The British Connection

Mr. Peter Arnold was instrumental in this blog. Having spoken and known my dad after paying me a visit one evening, he insisted I must write a biography of my dad for the rich experiences and war history he had gone through (picture below showing Mr. Arnold enjoying dinner with my parents. I am the photographer so I was missed out).

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He felt that the younger generations are deprive of these history and preserving it in writing is my due responsibility. As my ex boss, I have no other choice but to agree to him with a resounding Yes Boss!

As a young British cartographer who came to Malaya before turning into a very successful business man in the early 60s; he was the man that revolutionaries industrial cleaning in Asia. Mr Arnold bought in the KEW pressure washer agencies that change the industrial cleaning technology overnight. Industrial cleaning then was high volume low pressure cleaning using up to 60 lit water per minute at about 10bars pressure from a multistage centrifugal pump.

With high pressure washing, one uses pressure up to 150 bars at usually a fractional volume of 10~15 lit water per minutes with much better result.

Instantly, every car wash in Malaysia/Spore was turning to install a blue color KEW pressure washer to conserve water with better cleaning effectiveness. The first unit of washer introduced was a 6 cylinders boxer design HS1500. When I told him in early 2010 I have 2 of these surviving units still running having rebuilt/restore from scraps together with my dad, he had to see it himself.

The above HS1500 was in its original condition despite being sold by Mr Arnold company to a Singapore base shipyard engineering customer in 1971.

I was working directly with Mr. Arnold as the product manager for KEW when his company was bought over by my then employer, Jebsen &Jessen SEA in 1993.


Mr. Kew in Denmark despite his success; decided to venture into electric car manufacturing and hence the Kew name in industrial cleaning is relatively unknown today. My 2 units of HS1500 is probably the only known surviving unit in original condition in Asia.

As for my dad and myself, we continue to build high pressure unit as our hobby horse in keeping our cars and home spotlessly clean. Seen here is a Yanmar L90 diesel belt driven to a modern 6 cylinders boxer unit almost ready to be put into service. One of those weekend project the father and son had worked and enjoyed together.