Occupying an area of some 2,400 square metres – the size of ten HDB 4-room flats – the gem of a house at 3 Lady Hill Road is huge by any standards. Set in 1.9 hectares of land that was once part of Scottish merchant Gilbert Angus’ Lady Hill estate, the house is laid out is an untypical fashion and has over the years been put to a variety of uses.

The former Kinloss House today.

Known for much a greater part of its life as Kinloss or Kinloss House, a name that it acquired in the early 1900s, it has in more recent times been referred to as the AXA University Asia Pacific Campus. The French insurer, AXA, having occupied the premises since beautifully refurbishing and renovating it in 2009, vacated it about a month back. The house now empty, wears much of what has gone into it in the last eight years less its furnishings. What will become of it in the future is not yet known.

A meeting room put in by AXA  located in what would have been part of the boarding house’s huge refectory.

Alexander Murray

The origins of Kinloss lies with another Scotsman, the Colonial Engineer Alexander Murray, who is best known perhaps for his work on the design of Victoria Memorial Hall. Murray, a British army engineer who moved from Calcutta, had it built as his private residence in 1903. It is not known what motivated him to name the house Kinloss, but the proximity of the Scottish village to Lady Hill Castle in Elgin could perhaps be a possible explanation. Little is known of the house that Murray built in its early years except for the fact that it became the residence of the Consul of Japan to Singapore in 1909, after Murray’s retirement and return home in 1907, until sometime in the mid-1920s.

What would have been the boarding house’s library.

Much more is certain about the use of Kinloss after the war. The British Military set it up as an Officers’ Mess in the years after, before turning it into a boarding house in 1957. As a boarding house, Kinloss House took in the children of military personnel who were posted to Malaya and also other parts of the region. Singapore had then been where the British Military Education Service had set schools up. The need for a large boarding house, with a capacity of 150 children, was very much due to the increase in postings of personnel “up-country” to deal with the Malayan Emergency. Barrack-like dormitories and sporting facilities – of which evidence still exists – were added to the sprawling grounds for this purpose. This arrangement lasted until 1970 when the property was handed over to the Singapore government for its use as the University of Singapore’s newly established Faculty of Architecture.

Kinloss House during its days as a boarding house (source: http://www.geocities.ws/jkr8m/KINLOSS_house.jpg)).

Subsequent to the faculty’s move to the university’s new Kent Ridge Campus in 1976, Kinloss was transferred into the hands of the Police force to house the Police force’s Junior Officers’ Mess and Police Welfare Unit displaced by the closure in 1979 of Hill Street Police Station. Kinloss also housed several Police units such as the Arms and Explosives Branch. A Police co-operative retail store was also located on the premises. The Police moved from the premises in 2002 when a clubhouse was built at Ah Hood Road.

Participants of one of two tours I recently conducted as part of the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of State Property visits supported by the Singapore Land Authority.

Memories of Kinloss House (by Stephanie Keenan)

I was a boarder at Kinloss House 3 Ladyhill Road Singapore from September 1963 to May 1965.

My family lived ‘up country’ in Kuala Lumpur and the only British Forces run Grammar school was in Singapore, so those who passed their 11+ exam attended there. I remember and enjoyed the train journey from KL to Singapore and back, each end of term, and also (during & after Konfrontasi) the flights on the old Fokker Friendships.

Kinloss House was a well run boarding house with about 150 boarders and a live-in staff of about a dozen adults who were either Army Education Corps teachers or army nurses or local catering staff. The teachers and prefects exerted some strict discipline, but my lasting impression is that it was a happy place.

The former Kinloss House seen from the Nassim Road end.

Those living in Singapore attended the school as day pupils. After the new St Johns School opened in Dover Road, Sept 1964, new boarding houses were built there, and the older boarders went to board there. My fellow boarders were British, Australian, New Zealanders, Gurkhas. Also some Dutch children from Indonesia. We attended school near the Gillman Barracks in the mornings and had the long afternoons to play or take part in various sporting actitvities and then a set ‘prep’ time in the evening to do our homework.

A spiral staircase.

The other boarders lived all over Malaya – some up as far as the East coast somewhere, but mainly from Terendak near Malacca and Penang as well as Taiping and KL, although I think I was the only one from there when I started school. The school itself is still there, now the International School (ISS) at Preston Road We all have not so fond memories of climbing a steep slope there in the morning and dashing down it in the rain at lunchtimes to catch the buses back to Kinloss. And we often sang on the bus journey back and forth! We got up to all the usual high jinks too like midnight feasts (although we were told NOT to keep food in our rooms due to ants and fruit bats), dorm raids with water and flour bombs, apple pie beds and jumping off the wardrobes onto a pile of mattresses. The old Alexandra Grammar School which became Bourne school when St Johns opened in 1964. St Johns is also still there, now the UWCSEA.

Kinloss House

In the main house there were female dormitories and in the grounds, which sloped down in a series of terraces towards a stream, were a series of long barrack type huts which were also dormitories for the boys and older girls, the staff quarters, ‘sick bay’ and store rooms. These huts were demolished in about the 1990s. The remains of the tennis and basketball courts can still be found, now the territory of a monitor lizard and kingfishers.

The main staircase.

The interior of the house has been re-modelled in at least one of its tenancies. When I visited last year even the staircase was in a slightly different configuration. I remember as you entered the main house there was the Junior common room on your left, the refectory hall on your right, a smaller hall ahead of you (where I learned to ballroom dance) with adjoining housemaster’s and matron’s offices. The kitchens and local staff quarters were behind the refectory area and out of bounds to us students.

What would have been the Junior Common Room.

Upstairs, at the top of the stairs was a large open area bounded by a small ‘library’ which was where we did ‘prep’, watched the occasional film, and had weekly dances. Off this were two dormitories further staff quarters, and a small store room where memorably one of the biology teachers once enlightened us with the ‘facts of life’.

The staircase seen from what would have been the library.

Beyond the ‘prep’ area and above the refectory and kitchens were more dormitories clustered around an internal courtyard, which was used for parking. The whole perimeter area was encircled by a high barbed wire fence.

The internal courtyard.

The Kinloss House song (adapted from and sung to the tune ‘Oh Island in the Sun’ ) begins “Oh Kinloss in the sun, given to me by McLevie’s hand. All my days I will sing of hate of that big big house with the barbed wire gate”. Most ex Kinlossites, however, seem to look back on their time there as very happy. We worked hard, played hard, and benefitted from firm and mostly fair discipline.

Another view of the staircase and what would have been the library.

My understanding (via Mr David Anthony, housemaster during my time there) was that the house had been owned by a Mr Tan pre World War II, who had a number of cinemas in Singapore. It was taken over by the Japanese, and then again by the RAF after WWII.

The British High Commission was next door to Kinloss House when I was there. The Commissioner had a daughter Jill Moore who was the same age as me who was apparently lonely and so girls of my age, including me, were invited there for tea from time to time. I went the day after the Rolling Stones had visited and signed my name under theirs in the visitor’s book! When I went for tea Jill’s parents were absent and she was waited on by a tall Sikh servant in imposing turban.

The visit to 3 Lady Hill Road, the second in the ‘Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets’ series of State Property Visits, was made possible with the support by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA). A total of about 60 participants were able to visit the property over two 45-minute tours. Another tour in the series that has been completed was to the former Pasir Panjang ‘A’ Power Station. Future tours include ones to Old Kallang Airport on 26 Aug 2017 (for which no more spaces are available),  a yet to be disclosed location on 9 Sep 2017, and Old Admiralty House on 23 Sep 2017. Links will be posted for registration on a Friday two weeks prior to the respective event – do look out for announcements as to when the links will be posted on this site as well as on Facebook.

Gambling at the sands at Marina Bay actually started well before Marina Bay Sands landed – on the evidence of the accounts of Munshi Abdullah. In his autobiography, “Hikayat Abdullah“, Munshi Abdullah describes the events at the time of modern Singapore’s founding in 1819 to which he had not been witness to. He did however have a reliable enough source in the form of  William Farquhar. Farquhar’s observations, as recorded by Abdullah, extended to the physical landscape around the mouth of the Singapore River and the adjacent shoreline and rather interestingly to some of what seemed to go on around the shores.

Especially interesting is a description of mouth of the river in its natural state and the superstitions the local population held of a particular stone at which offerings were made:

In the mouth of the Singapore River there were a great many large rocks, but there was a channel in between the rocks, which was as crooked as a snake when it is beaten. Among all those stones there was one with a sharp point like the snout of a swordfish, and that was called by the sea-gypsies Batu Kepala-Todak (Sword-fish-head Rock), and they believed that that stone had an evil spirit or ghost. It was at that stone that they all paid their vows, and that was the place they feared, and they set up banners and paid it honor: for they said, “If we do not honor it, when we go in and out of the straits it will certainly destroy us all”. So every day they brought offerings and placed them on that stone.

Also interesting is what must have been a most gruesome of sights greeting the newly arrived of skulls, some with hair still on them, rolling about the edge of  the shoreline. The shoreline and its sands, two centuries before it was made into part of Marina Bay and the Sands casino arrived, was also a location for what must have been some of the earliest instances of gambling in Singapore:

And all along the edge of the shore there were rolling hundreds of human skulls in the sand, some old and some new, some with the hair still remaining on them, some with the teeth filed, and others not, skulls of all kinds. Mr. Farquhar was informed of this, and when he saw them, he had them picked up and thrown out to sea; so they were put in sacks and thrown into the sea. At that time the sea-gypsies were asked, “Whose skulls are all these?”‘ And they said, “These are the heads of the victims of piracy, and this is where they were killed.” Wherever native vessels or ships were attacked, the pirates came here and divided the plunder; in some eases they killed one another in struggling for the booty; in other cases it was those whom they had bound. It was on the shore here that they tried their weapons, and here also they had gambling and cock-fighting.

A very different shoreline and river, 1819 (source: The Singapore River: A Social History, 1819-2002 by Stephen Dobbs).

Boat Quay – the site of a swamp when Raffles first landed on the opposite bank. Soil from a hill at what is today’s Raffles’ Place was used to fill the swamp (what would be the very first reclamation to take place in Singapore).

Marina Bay today, a body of fresh water where the sea had once washed up to.

Update
26 August 2017 8.20 am

A 2nd tour has been added at 1pm on 9 September 2017.

Details on registration will be posted at 1 pm today.

Update
25 August 2017 9.07 am

Registration for the event has been closed as of 0835 hours, 25 August 2017. All slots have been taken up. Do look out for the next visit in the series, which will be to Old Admiralty House being scheduled for 16 September 2017 at 9 am to 11 am (rescheduled due to Presidential election on 23 September). More details will be out two weeks before the visit.

The fourth in the series of State Property visits that is being supported by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) will present participants with a rare opportunity to visit the former Changi Hospital.

For this visit, participants will have to be 18 years old and above.

Registration is closed as all slots have been taken up. An email will be sent to registered participants with admin instructions a week prior to the visit.

Old Changi Hospital

The hospital traces its origins to the Royal Air Force(RAF) Hospital Changi. That was set up in 1947 to serve the then newly established RAF Station, Singapore’s third. The hospital operated out of two Barrack Hill buildings, one of which was actually designated for use as a medical centre in the context of the military camps of today. The buildings were built as part of the Changi garrison’s 1930s vintage Kitchener Barracks, which housed the Royal Engineers. Separated by a flight of 91 steps, it took quite an effort to move from one wing to the other.

Despite its less than ideal layout, the hospital gained a reputation of being one of the best medical facilities in the Far East. It was well liked by those who were warded there with its proximity to the sea. The hospital also played an important role during the Korean War. A ward was set up for use as a stopover for the “Flying Ambulance” service the RAF mounted. The service allowed wounded UN Command troops to be repatriated to their home countries via Singapore and London.

The hospital was also an important maternity hospital that served families with all arms of the military (not just the RAF) who were stationed in Singapore and counted more than 1000 new arrivals during its time as the RAF Hospital. An expansion exercise in 1962 gave the hospital a third block.

RAF Hospital Changi became the ANZUK Military Hospital following the 1971 pullout of British forces, then the UK Military Hospital, the SAF Hospital, and finally Changi Hospital. It closed in 1997 and the buildings have been left empty since. I will be sharing more on the hospital, its buildings and the history of the Changi garrison during the visit.

Update
26 August 2017 1.15 pm

Registration for the 2nd run of the event has been closed as of 1312 hours, 26 August 2017. All slots have been taken up.

Do look out for the next visit in the series, which will be to Old Admiralty House being scheduled for 16 September 2017 at 9 am to 11 am (rescheduled due to Presidential election on 23 September). More details will be out two weeks before the visit.

Due to popular demand, a second run of the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets visit to Old Changi Hospital will be held on 9 September 2017.

Registration is closed as all slots have been taken up. An email will be sent to registered participants with admin instructions a week prior to the visit.

Update
1 September 2017 4.25 pm

Registration for the event has been closed as of 1621 hours, 1 September 2017. All slots have been taken up.

Do look out for the next visit in the series, which will be to the former Central Police Station (Beach Road Police Station) scheduled for 7 October 2017 at 10 am to 12 noon. More details will be released two weeks before the visit.

The fifth visit in the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets State Property Visits at takes us to the only tenanted property in the series, Old Admiralty House, at 345 Old Nelson Road, Singapore 758692. This visit is supported by Furen International School (FIS), the property’s occupant, and the Singapore Land Authority (SLA).

Visit details
Date: Saturday 16 September 2017
Time: Session 1: 9 to 9.45 am; Session 2: 10 to 10.45 am
Address: 345 Old Nelson Road, Singapore 758692
Participants should be of ages 12 and above.

Registration link for Session 1, 9 to 9.45 am:
https://goo.gl/forms/9Iom36FbbYfsLSFb2

Registration link for Session 2, 10 to 10.45 am:
https://goo.gl/forms/3TGG1oy2ppyyNUMh1

Registrations are on a first-come-first-served basis and will close for each session when all spaces are taken up.

Old Admiralty House, perched atop the last forested hill in Sembawang.

Background to Old Admiralty House

The façade of the lovely Arts and Crafts Movement inspired house.

Built at the end of the 1930s as one of three intended residences for the most senior commanders of the British military’s three arms, the lovely Arts and Crafts styled house sits atop a hill situated at the edge of the Admiralty’s massive Naval Base. Meant to house the Commander of His Majesty’s Naval Establishments in Singapore, it only saw one as resident before the war broke out. It became the residence of the Flag Officer, Malayan Area as ‘Nelson House’ in September 1948 and then the residence of the Commander-in-Chief (C in C), Far East Station, as ‘Admiralty House’ in 1958 until the pullout of British forces in 1971.

Admiralty House become the residence of the Commander of the ANZUK Force post pullout. As part of a visit to ANZUK forces, Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh had lunch at the house during a visit to Singapore in 1972.  As the official residence of the ANZUK forces commander (only two were resident), it became known as ANZUK House. Following the withdrawal of the Australian forces from the ANZUK arrangements in 1975 saw the keys to the house passed to the Singapore government.

Much has happened since the house left the service of the military. It opened as restaurant and guest house in 1978. In 1988, plans were announced to turn the building and its grounds into a country club with a caravan park. This use was however rejected and it was relaunched in mid 1989 as the Admiralty Country House. The house and its grounds would eventually play host to a country club, Yishun Country Club, in 1991. From 2001 to 2006, it became the Karimun Admiralty Country Club, during which time the building was gazetted as a National Monument (in 2002). It is slated to become part of the planned Sembawang Integrated Sports and Community Hub after FIS vacates it in 2020.

More on the history of the house can be found at: An ‘English Country manor’ in Singapore’s north once visited by the Queen.

(See also: Abodes of Singapore’s military history, The Straits Times, 6 October 2016)

Windows into the past.

The real story behind Old Changi Hospital, isn’t about what the place seems to have got an unfortunate reputation more recently for.  The former hospital, which has its roots in the RAF Hospital set up after the war in 1947, is a place that many who were warded or who worked there remember with fondness.

The hospital, with a reputation of being one of the best military medical facilities in the Far East, is also well remembered for the wonderful views its wards provided of the sea and that it was felt aided in rest and recovery.

Members of the public got to learn about the background to the hospital and how some of the basis for the more recently circulated myths are quite clearly false during a visit to the site as part of the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of State Property Visits organised with the support of the Singapore Land Authority. More on the visit and the series can also be found at the links below.

More on the visit:

• A compilation of photos on Facebook
• A wonderful set of sketches executed in double quick time by Pardeep Alva
• The only ghost spotted by participants 

More on Old Changi Hospital / Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets:

• Guided tours of best kept secrets in S’pore (The Straits Times, 23 July 2017)
• Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets: Visit a former power station
• On Instagram
• A wander through Old Changi Hospital

Also of interest:

• The first RAF hospital in Singapore

I am reminded of the kelong from the numerous Facebook posts I have been seeing in the last half a day in which the word is used. What comes to mind is not what the word has more recently to describe – a rigged outcome, especially in referring to match-fixing in sports – but of the fishing traps constructed of wooden stakes that once decorated our shores.

What the word tends to be used to describe these days.

There were kelongs aplenty in my childhood and apparently there were even more in the days of hardship that followed the war. This is seen in a postwar map showing locations of food production facilities that also included fishing traps, where a proliferation of such traps can be seen along Singapore’s long coastline.

While it may then have seemed that kelongs – characterised by the long rows of bakau timber stakes rising above the sea surface – must have been a feature of the coastal scenery since time immemorial, the kelong was a technological import that arrived not long after the British did. Spears had apparently been the standard fishing implement that was employed prior to the introduction of the much higher yield kelongs. Munshi Abdullah, in his memoirs Hikayat Abdullah, describes the introduction of the kelong, attributed to a man from Malacca named Haji Mata-mata:

A kelong off Singapore – once a common sight.

Some eight months after the settlement had started the fishing fleet came from Malacca to fish in Singapore waters.

Most commonly caught were dorabs for they were an easy prey, never having been fished with hand-lines before in the whole history of Singapore. The fishermen used to stand out 120 -180 yards from the shore. When the Singapore people saw the Malacca fishermen making much money by hook and line fishing they also began to fish with hook-and-line like the Malacca folk. Previously they had known no method of catching fish other than by spearing them. When the Singapore settlement was a year old there came a certain Malacca man named Haji Mata-mata. He constructed large fish-traps with rows of stakes called belat and kelong. Other people built jermal.

In the first kelong which was put up, off Teluk Ayer, they caught a small number of tenggiri fish; in fact such vast surfeit that the fish could not be eaten and had to be thrown away. Their roes were taken out, put in barrels containing salt, and sold as a regular commodity to ships. The people of Singapore were surprised to see the number of fish caught in this way. The place where they built kelong was at Teluk Ayer Point, near Tanjong Malang. It became well-known.

– Munshi Abdullah in Hikayat Abdullah as translated by A H Hill

A kelong off Singapore (online at https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1322/5161998843_d5e877ded8_z.jpg).

Another one off Pulau Blakang Mati (now Sentosa) (online at https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-1aMnkOWx350/UbjcRtk72kI/AAAAAAAA050/eG_Hiq9ARqk/s1600/1968%2B12%2B22%2BSingapore052.jpg).

Update 22 September 2017

Registrations have close as all available slots have been taken up as of 10.05 am. Do look out for the next visit in the series (location to be advised) on 21 October 2017.

More on the series:

• Guided tours of best kept secrets in S’pore (Sunday Times, 23 July 2017)
• Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets: Visit a Power Station 
• Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets: Visit Kinloss House
• Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets: Visit Old Kallang Airport
• Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets: Visit Old Changi Hospital (see also: The Real Story behind Old Changi Hospital)
• Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets: The house on Admiral’s Hill

The sixth in the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) supported series of guided State Property visits, “Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets“, takes us to the former Beach Road Police Station.

The details of the visit are as follows:
Date : 7 October 2017
Time : 10 am to 12 noon
Address: 99 Beach Road Singapore 189701

The size of the group for the visit is limited to 30 and registrations will be required. To register, kindly fill this form in: https://goo.gl/forms/kDn5piD8NglKGH1W2

Background to the station and barracks:

The station and two barrack buildings were completed in 1934 at the tail end of a decade of reorganisation for the police force. The efforts also saw the establishment of a Police Training School at Thomson – the old Police Academy, as well as the construction of new stations and living quarters across Singapore, in the face of a relative state of disorder that had prompted comparisons between the “cesspool of iniquity” that was Singapore, a.k.a. Sin-galore, and Chicago and Clapham Junction.

The complex was a replacement for an earlier station, which had been located further east along Beach Road at Clyde Terrace and was built at a cost of $319,743. The barracks provided quarters for 64 married man in one of its three storey blocks. 80 single men and NCOs were also accommodated in another three storey singlemen’s block in which a mess and recreation room was also arranged on the ground floor. The three storey main station building, described at the point of its construction as being of a “pretentious type”, also had quarters  – for two European and two “Asiatic” Inspectors – on its second and third levels. Its ground floor contained offices, a guard room, an armoury and a number of stores. A cell block – the lock-up – was also arranged “behind the guardroom”, “approached from it by a covered way”.

The station would play a part in a series of tumultuous events that followed its completion. A hundred or so Japanese “aliens” were held in it at the outbreak of war on 8 December, before they were moved to Changi Prison. This was a scene would repeat itself after Singapore’s fall. The station was used as a holding facility for different ethnic groups of civilians including Jews, individuals of various European backgrounds and nationalities, and also members of the Chinese and Indian community, before internment in Changi.

Beach Road Police Station also found itself in the thick of action during the Maria Hertogh riots in 1950, when policemen from the station were sent to quell disturbances in nearby Kampong Glam – only to have the men involved retreat into the station, along with scores of civilians, for safety.

The station served as the Police ‘C’ Division headquarters until May 1988, when that moved into new premises at Geylang Police Station on Paya Lebar Road. The Central Police Division headquarters moved in to the station in November 1992 and used it until 2001 when that moved into the newly completed Cantonment Police Complex. The decommissioned former station was also used by the Raffles Design Institute for some six years. Two sets of quarters, added on an adjoining piece of land – two four storey blocks in the 1950s and a 12 storey block in 1970 – have since been demolished.

The station complex sits on a 2 hectare reserve site that is now the subject of a Government land sales tender exercise and as the successful developer will have the option of demolishing the two barrack blocks as part of the redevelopment, this may be a last opportunity to see the complex as it is. The main station building itself has been conserved since 2002 and will be retained.

Please note that registration for the event is closed as all spaces made available have been taken up.

The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) has kindly granted permission for a series of guided State Property visits, “Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets”, the seventh of which will be to the former View Road Lodge – best known perhaps for its time as the View Road (Mental) Hospital.

View Road Lodge in January 2011.

As a branch of Woodbridge Hospital (now the Institute of Mental Health) that operated from 1975 to 2001, View Road Hospital was used to house and treat recovering patients from Woodbridge. Many of View Road’s patients were in fact well enough to find work in day jobs outside of the hospital, which also operated a laundry, a cafe and a day-care centre with patients’ help.

Thought to have been completed just prior to the outbreak of war in late 1941, it is also known that the building was put to use as accommodation for Asian policemen (with the Naval Base Police Force) and their families from the end of the 1950s to around 1972. During this time, the Gurdwara Sabha Naval Police – a Sikh temple, operated on the grounds. As View Road Lodge, the building was re-purposed on two occasions as a foreign workers dormitory.

The visit will also include a rare opportunity to have a look at an above ground bomb-shelter that had been constructed as part of the complex in 1941.

Rimau “Bomb-Proof” Office, 1941 (National Archives UK).

The details of the visit are as follows:

Date : 21 October 2017
Time : 10 am to 12 noon
Address: 10 View Road Singapore 757918

Participants should be of age 18 and above.

Kindly register only if you are able to make the visit by filling the form in below.

Registrations will close when the event limit of 30 registrants has been reached or on 14 October 2017 at 2359 hours, whichever comes first.

More on the property : Rooms with more than a view

Further information on the series / highlights of selected visits:

• Guided tours of best kept secrets in S’pore (Sunday Times, 23 July 2017)
• Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets (LAND – SLA Newsletter, September 2017)
• Old Changi Hospital Visit on 9 September 2017
• Former Beach Road Police Station visit on 7 October 2017

Registration is closed as all spaces have been taken up as of 3.15 pm, 21 October 2017.

Visit #8 – the last of the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of State Property Visits, which the Singapore Land Authority is supporting, takes participants to Adam Park. A quiet estate of 1920s vintage with its cluster of Black and White houses, Adam Park was the scene of some of the last battles fought in the lead up to the Fall of Singapore in February 1942. It was also where a POW camp was established in the early part of the occupation when the Japanese moved POWs to the area for the construction of the Syonan Jinja at nearby MacRitchie Reservoir from March 1942 to January 1943.

The visit presents a rare opportunity to visit five of the Black and White Property, including no. 11 at which a chapel was established by the POWs. (do note that the wall on which the remnant of the mural mention has been concealed by a panel for its protection, so that cannot be seen).

The details of the visit are as follows:

Date : 4 November 2017
Time : 10 to 11.45 am
Address: 7 Adam Park Singapore 289926 (Registration / Meeting Point)

Participants should be of age 18 and above.

Kindly register only if you are able to make the visit by filling the form in below.

Registrations will close when the event limit of 60 registrants has been reached or on 28 October 2017 at 2359 hours, whichever comes first.

Further information on the series / highlights of selected visits:

• Guided tours of best kept secrets in S’pore (Sunday Times, 23 July 2017)
• Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets (LAND – SLA Newsletter, September 2017)
• Old Changi Hospital Visit on 9 September 2017
• Former View Road Hospital Visit on 21 October 2017
• Former Beach Road Police Station visit on 7 October 2017

How I miss my outings as a child to Changi Beach. High tides occurring on a Sunday morning often meant a trip to the beach for a dip. Trips to Changi Beach, which meant a long but scenic drive in days when the word “expressway” did not feature on a Singaporean driver’s vocabulary, were always looked to with much excitement and were not without preparation.

A day at  Changi Beach, 1965.

Mum would often prepare a delicious tiffin. Mee goreng or chicken curry served with local versions of the French baguette were my favourites. Dad would ask to have his thermos filled with kopi-o from the nearby kopitiam. Straw hats and mats, tiny pails and spades for sand play, inflatable floats, my grandma, my sis and me could then be packed into the trusty Austin 1100 for the drive – part of which featured the seemingly never-ending and still very rural Tampines Road.

Picnics out of the Car Boot, Changi Beach, late 1960s.

Changi Beach had then a very different feel. It was uninterrupted for miles, running from the spit at the mouth of Changi Creek to the cliffs at Tanah Merah Besar. Ketapang (sea-almond), acacia, sea apple, coconut, and casuarina trees lined the beach and its popular stretches were lined with sampans for hire, and within sight of that, inner truck tire tubes for use as floats and deck chairs were displayed – also for hire.

Under an acacia tree, Changi Beach, early 1970s.

Sampans for hire (photo courtesy of Lies Strijker-Klaij and posted On A Little Street in Singapore).

One of the things also associated with the beach that I was recently reminded of from a posting of photographs by Mrs Lies Strijker-Klaij, were the beach-side cafes. Housed in wooden shacks – much like those now found in some beaches in the region – they served the delicious Malay fare and were popular with the beach crowd as were the mobile food vendors who made an appearance. The fish and chips van was a regular, as were several bell-ringing ice-cream vendors and the Indian men balancing delicious a tray of vadai or a rack of kacang putih.

The vadai vendor with a tray balanced on his head. The wooden base opened up as a folding support (photo courtesy of Lies Strijker-Klaij and posted On A Little Street in Singapore).

A vadai vendor and a beach-side café similar to the ones I remember at Changi Beach in the background (photo courtesy of Lies Strijker-Klaij and posted On A Little Street in Singapore).

Thinking about all that also reminds me of the machine gun pillboxes that lined the beach in my earlier years. Built to fend off would be invaders, they decorated the southward facing coastline. Many were filled with rotting matter and stank to high-heaven. There was also a pillbox along the beach that was a café operated out of. I don’t quite remember it but I recall my parents making reference to it as “chipot”. I never quite figured its name out, that is until quite recently. My dad explained that it was a name parents used for the want of a better name,  derived from how the Chinese lady who ran the café would repeated an order for a pot of tea, “chi pot” – a combination of the colloquial Hokkien word for one and the English pot!

A Pillbox at Changi Beach.

A similar pillbox at Mata Ikan in the 1970s.

The unique, quirky and once immensely popular Singaporean attraction, Haw Par Villa, is probably best remembered for the journey it offers its visitors into hell. Its representation of the path to rebirth imagined by the Chinese in its Ten Courts of Hell is gory and uninhibited. With a full suite of the gruesome range of punishments that is thought to be meted out for earthly misdeeds, the experience is certainly one that is not easily forgotten.

Haw Par Villa in its heyday. It drew visitors from all walks of life and of all races. It was especially popular as a destination for an outing during Chinese New Year.

Hell aside, Haw Par Villa is a garden of many delights, which quite sadly seems to have well been forgotten in an age in which attention has shifted to air-conditioned malls and modern attractions. The crowds that Haw Par Villa once drew has reduced to a trickle; a trickle in which inquisitive tourists, and migrant workers who lack welcoming spaces in which to spend to their days off, far outnumber the locals.

The garden attracts hardly a crowd these days.

Haw Par Villa seems to have embarked on its own journey to damnation. Death, it appears, will soon arrive at hell’s doorstep. A museum, a showcase of rituals associated with death in various cultures, now threatens to swallow hell up. Visitors, for the price of a ticket, can come face to face with death and even have the experience of being put in a coffin. The Ten Courts of Hell, it seems, will become a part of that paid death experience.

Death comes to Haw Par Villa.

I had a peek at an exhibition put up of what is to be expected, sans the coffin that was promised. On the basis of what has been put up, it is hard to see how death could aid Haw Par Villa’s cause. Death, as we know, is quite a taboo subject in this part of the world. It is bad enough that Haw Par is already remembered more for its garish version of hell, an added association with death, serves not just to distract from its value and purpose, but may further erode the already negative image many have of Haw Par Villa.

Wielding justice without his hand, Qinguang the god of the underworld at the first court of hell.

Developed by Mr Aw Boon Haw and spread over the sprawling grounds of a magnificent seven-domed villa by the sea he had built in 1937 for his younger brother Boon Par, it was not Mr Aw’s intention to have hell or for that matter, death, celebrated in the garden. Mr Aw had the grounds decorated with figurines and tableaux with scenes from Chinese folklore and the Chinese classics. Displays also contained messages related to traditional values and moral standards and had Buddhist or Taoist themes. Even if it was a private garden, this was done with the public in mind as Mr Aw had planned to have the garden opened to the public to whom the illustrations could provide moral guidance. Mr Aw made a huge effort to ensure the illustrations were accurate in their depiction, personally supervising artisans involved. This also required Mr Aw to retell the stories associated with the scenes being created to his artisans.

The villa’s swimming pool and changing room, 1941 (source: Private George Aspinall via Australian War Memorial, public domain, copyright expired).

The changing room of the swimming pool c.1950 (Harrison Forman Collection).

The changing room displaced.

There have been several deviations from Mr Aw’s original garden. Boon Par had passed on in 1944 in Rangoon and with the house damaged, Mr Aw had it demolished in the early 1950s. With his initial plan to replace the villa with a “grand palace”, modelled along the lines of the Beijing’s Imperial Palace, as well as a subsequent proposal for a 200 feet high pagoda, rejected by local authorities, Mr Aw set out instead to expand the range of tableaux. It was also in the 1950s, that a purge against “yellow culture”, resulted in the modification and dressing up of several nude figurines.

The gardens, which was opened to the public, was popular with both locals and visitors alike. Here, Australian nurses are seen visiting it in September 1941 (source: Australian War Memorial, public domain, copyright expired).

Australian nurses visiting Haw Par Villa (with the villa seen in the background) in September 1941 (source: Australian War Memorial, public domain, copyright expired).

Boon Par’s son Cheng Chye introduced several displays that broke with the garden’s theme and its Chinese flavour after his uncle’s death in 1954. An avid traveller, Cheng Chye put up International Corners to mark his overseas trips, which contributed to the garden’s quirkiness, even if it altered its character. Judging from the numerous photographs found online, the figurines Cheng Chye introduced, were popular spots to have photographs taken at.

Yours truly mimicking the tiki at the New Zealand (International) corner in 1976. The tiki was removed during the remaking of the gardens into a theme park in the late 1980s.

The biggest change came to the garden in the late 1980s. Haw Par Villa, which had lost its lustre by this time, had come into the hands of the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board, STPB (the current day Singapore Tourism Board, STB). At a cost of some S$80 million, a partnership formed by F&N and Times Publishing, turned the garden into the Haw Par Villa Dragon World. The theme park featured a water ride into a Ten Courts Of Hell that was swallowed by a dragon. The conversion resulted in several of the garden’s displays removed, including several of the International Corners. Haw Par Villa Dragon World, which opened in 1990, ran at a loss for most of its operational period and closed 11 years later in 2001.

The dragon that swallowed hell up – during its theme park days.

It would seem that Haw Par Villa has not recovered since, even the attempt to revive interest with a relaunch of it in 2014 as part of STB’s Tourism50 initiative. That promised much, but very little seems to have been delivered thus far. A contract, that if my memory serves me right was worth something to the order of $7 million, was awarded to a local operator in August 2015 for the running of the park and its rejuvenation. This, based  on a 15 October 2015 op-ed by Melody Zaccheus in the Straits Times, should have included the opening of five dining outlets and the transformation of the park into a place for art exhibitions, performances, flea markets, and yoga, taiji and wushu sessions. More than two years into this, little except that is for sketchy mentions of intent and promises for an application for UNESCO Heritage listing to be submitted, seems to have been done.

A view of the “Signature Pond” c.1950 (Harrison Forman Collection).

Drowning in sorrow – thin crowds and a now submerged Signature Pond .

Describing the garden as a “unique Chinese cultural resource”, “the only one of its kind left in the world”, the writer opined that urgent attention was needed with regards to its conservation. Little also seems to have moved in this respect since then. A heritage survey would have been conducted based on what was also mentioned. It would be interesting to see what, if anything, that could tell us about the park’s potential for conservation.

A display that has since been censored. A depiction of the Spider Spirits who attempted to impede the progress of the Monk Xuanzang in the story Journey to the West by trying to entice him through their transformation into beautiful maidens (source: G. Bertschinger on Flickr, Creative Commons License CC BY-SA 2.0).

The spider spirits were modified to appear less provocative and clothed in response to a movement against “yellow culture” in the 1950s.

The urgency to have Haw Par Villa conserved is certainly there with the development of the Greater Southern Waterfront looming over the horizon. That may not be due for some time yet, but this being Singapore, the planning effort for that would surely be carried out well in advance. Haw Par Villa, if it isn’t already in it, has to be part of that plan.

A Datuk Kong, who has quite clearly been resettled.

The park’s value from a heritage perspective, is not just in the lessons in Chinese values and culture it offers, but also for it as a showcase of a well forgotten side Chinese culture. Brought in by our less refined Chinese immigrant forefathers, it serves to remind us as well as tie us to a less refined side of a culture than isn’t necessary the same as the Chinese culture that is pervasive today. The garden is also a monument to the legacy of Mr Aw Boon Haw, who besides putting Singapore on the map with Tiger Balm, made significant contributions to society and was well regarded as a philanthropist. The park, built at a time when the municipality lacked public recreational spaces, is a reminder of this.

An ad for UTA French Airlines in 1965 suggesting a stopover in Singapore for its attractions, one of which was the “fantastic presentation of Chinese mythology at Haw Par Villa”.

The challenge in preserving Haw Par Villa for our future generations is in the revival and the subsequent maintenance of interest and relevance. In a letter written to the press on 31 Oct 2017, Mr Toh Cheng Seong expressed concern on the Death Museum and at the same time, provided several useful ideas. Rather than going on their own, STB and its operator will do well to seek input from the likes of Mr Toh, members of the wider community – young and old alike, and subject experts. For the attraction’s dying ambers to be rekindled, it has to be in the hearts and minds of all of us in Singapore. Any attempt to move ahead with none of us in mind will surely see the last of the 20,000 lights that Haw Par Villa once had a reputation for, extinguished.

Pulau Sarimbun, a little known island tucked away in the northwest corner of the Johor or Tebrau Strait, has quite an interesting chapter in its history. Now forlorn and isolated due to the area’s heightened security, it was once a picnic spot and later a place of retirement for a Boer War veteran turned planter, tin miner and waterworks engineer, Mr W A Bates Goodall.

Mr Goodall’s bungalow on Pulau Sarimbun in 1932 (photo courtesy of Mr Stephen Downes-Martin).

Mr Goodall arrived at our shores as part of his deployment when he was in the service with the Manchester Regiment in the early 1900s but left soon after as “soldiering in the east did not appeal to me”.  He visited the island regularly for picnics from 1923 to 1932 and as the “Robinson Crusoe life” appealed to him, decided to live in a bungalow perched on a cliff on the island upon his retirement after 13 years in the waterworks department in 1932. Mr Goodall was sometimes also referred to as the Laird of Sarimbun Island and “ruled” over four “subjects”: a Cambridge educated Chinese clerk, a Malay boatman and two Chinese servants and rented the island for some $35 annually. Mr Goodall lived on the island until his passing in October 1941 – just a few months before the Japanese invaded.

Pulau Sarimbun as seen on a 1938 map.

Interestingly, Mr Goodall wasn’t the island’s first inhabitant. There was apparently a mysterious Russian who lived in a hut on the island, who paid  a rent of “three peppercorns” annually at the end of the 1800s. Sarimbun Island was described in a The Straits Times 15 March 1936 article as “sunny, shady and delightful a spot as can be imagined” and commanding a view “embracing the Jalan Scudai waterfront of Johore, and the Pulai, and Plentong Hills”. The same articles also explains that its name means “shady island” in Malay*, which the people of the strait thought was haunted. A rare indigenous fossil fern thought to have been extinct in Singapore, the Dipteris, was found on the island in 2003.

Mr Max Bevilacqua Bell and the attempt to cross breed Friesian cows with Indian cows in Lim Chu Kang 

It is hard to imagine that Singapore had an agricultural past. The northwest corner, while we know was given to rubber (see also: A Lost World in Lim Chu Kang), was apparently also where cattle was reared.

The very rare photograph of Pulau Sarimbun was sent to me by Mr Stephen Downes-Martin in October 2015. Mr Downes-Martin, who lived in Singapore as a child in 1959, 1960, and then again in 1970, was the stepson of Mr Max Bevilacqua Bell,  a businessman whose association with Singapore began from the early 1920s and lasted until the 1970s. Among Mr Bell’s ventures in Singapore was in cattle rearing. Mr Bell had a farm in Lim Chu Kang on which he attempted to cross breed Friesian cows with Indian cows but the war put a halt to that venture. A photograph of Mr Bell’s house in Lim Chu Kang also came in the same email.

Mr Bell’s farm in Lim Chu Kang in the 1930s (photo courtesy of Mr Stephen Downes-Martin).

* Sarimbun probably follows the naming convention adopted for Singapore’s islands by the Orang Laut, which have a prefix sa- or se-. Rimbun in Malay translates to “lush” from a perspective of vegetation – which well describes the island.

Notices in the back pages of the press can sometimes bring joy.

An notice that gave me a sense of happiness appeared in today’s edition of the Straits Times, which contained a list of proposed amendments to the Master Plan being made by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). One is the re-designation of part of a certain Lot 05052P, Mukim 17 at Serangoon Road as a Conservation Area, which OneMap identifies as the site of the former National Aerated Water Company’s bottling plant. The possibility of its conservation was actually discussed a year back after the site was purchased by property developer Selangor Dredging. The developer intends to redevelop the site for residential use, which interestingly appears as the “Jui Residences” – a play I suppose on the Hokkien word for water Jui or 水, on OneMap. What is now left to be seen is how much of the former factory can be retained.*

More on the plant, the social memories connected with it, and its history can be found in this post: Losing its fizz: the third milestone without the former National Aerated Water plant.

The notice on page C16 of today’s Straits Times and the lot as identified on OneMap.

The former National Aerated Water plant by the Kallang River.

*A press release issued by the URA indicates that the conservation will be of the two-storey L-shaped main building facing Serangoon Road. Part of the conserved building (I suppose the corner where the road access now is) will however have to be demolished and reconstructed to allow vehicular access to the rear of the site.

The corner of the building that would have to be reconstructed.

More photos previously taken of the plant

(see also: https://thelongnwindingroad.wordpress.com/2016/12/11/losing-its-fizz-the-third-milestone-without-the-former-national-aerated-water-plant/):

The photographs of the site of the former National Aerated Water Co. used in this post were taken during a private visit organised by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) for invited guests and have been used with the kind permission of the site’s current owner. Do note that the site is not opened to the public.

Disused spaces bring great joy, even as in the case of the former National Aerated Water Co’s bottling plant at 3MS Serangoon Road, the paraphernalia associated its use has long been removed. There is much to learn from the spaces, especially those that were conceived with little in way of frills in an age of greater simplicity. The disused plant, fronted by an art-deco-esque tw0-strorey structure placed along a thoroughfare that would have been hard to miss, last saw use some two decades ago. Associated with the bottling of two popular soft-drink labels, Sinalco and the joy in a green bottle that was the comic strip inspired Kickapoo Joy Juice,  there are many now who look back fondly at the now empty building that is one of few constants in an area that has seen much change.

The art-deco front of the former factory is a rare constant in an area that has seen much change.

The good news we heard just last week was that a portion of the former plant – its front – is being conserved. Selangor Dredging purchased the site for residential redevelopment just last year and has over the year been working with the URA on the conservation of the former plant’s most recognisable feature and its face – the art-deco main building.

The disused factory offers us a window into the past.

The factory, of a 1954 vintage, last saw operations some two decades ago. Built at a time of increasing demand for soft drinks, the home-grown company’s new plant found immediate success. The investment in the state-of-the-art factory and bottling equipment on the company’s 25th Anniversary was motivated by Sinalco’s 1952 award of exclusive bottling and distribution rights. An interesting nugget of information was shared by the URA about the rather peculiar name of the German drink was that it was derived from the words “sine alcohol” or without (in Latin) alcohol. More on the plant and the company can be found in a previous post: Losing its fizz: the third milestone without the former National Aerated Water plant.

Writings on the wall: soft drinks bottled at the plant … plus a secret formula perhaps.

The L-shaped building being conserved was where the company was run from. Offices and a mixing room were located on the upper floor and a reception, the storage area and distribution spaces on the lower level. The conserved building has several interesting features. These include a purpose designed “signage tower” on which the Sinalco logo was emblazoned, a tapering balcony at the front with a fair-faced brick parapet facing the road on which the company’s name is mounted, and a built-in sun shade projecting out from the building’s side that spirals out of a circular window (see: Conserved features of the building at “Former National Aerated Water Factory building to be gazetted for conservation” identified by URA). Parts of the building will have to be rebuilt. This includes the southeast corner, which will have to be knocked-down to permit vehicular entry to the site for construction.

A sun shade or concrete, spiraling out of a circular window.

The signage tower.

Office space on the upper floor.

Redevelopment will take place on the site just to the rear of the conserved building and this will see several structures removed, including the wide-span steel truss supported roof structure under which the main shopfloor of the plant was sited. This roof construction, topped with corrugated roofing sheets, has ample window covered openings built in to it to maxmise the entry of light and ventilation. An auxiliary building, that would have contained service spaces including toilets that can still be seen, can be found close to the rear perimeter of the site.

The shopfloor and the roof structure through which light into the factory was maximised.

The building at the rear of the site.

A look around …

A last reflection. The reception area at the southeast side of the building.

The fair-faced brick parapet.

Windows from the past into the present.

The main staircase.

The tapered front facing balcony.

The rear of the office space – which overlooked the shopfloor. Part of the roof structure can be seen.

Timber doors and matching ventilation grilles above are seen on the outward facing boundaries of the main building.

A view from the former shopfloor towards the main building. The right portion of the building was where crates of soft drinks were stored and dispatched.

The southwest side of the building.

The part of the building that will be reconstructed.

The office space on the upper floor.

The mixing room.

Joyful switches.

A view out the back of the office space towards the roof and the shopfloor below.

A close-up of the corrugated roofing sheets.

Frosted or textured glass is in evidence throughout to filter light that would otherwise have been too harsh.

Close-up of a textured glass panel.

Up on the roof.

A view over the top.

Textured glass windows.

A ventilation house?

Dead slow ahead. The part of the factory that will be demolished as seen from the driveway.

The pump at the driveway, which is visible from the outside.

Comfort facilities at the rear.

What’s become of the “conserved” former Khong Guan Biscuit Factory at MacTaggart Road since my last post on it (see: The fallen star of MacTaggart Road) in September 2016:

The former factory – which also served as a warehouse for flour and a residence for the family that owns it, has seen a refreshing transformation with the addition of an eight-storey industrial building behind its distinctive three-storey conserved façade. The design of the quite un-industrial looking new extension seems to have been undertaken by Meta Studio (see: http://meta-current.strikingly.com/#khong-guan-flour-milling-ltd and https://www.facebook.com/meta.architecture/posts/777289939043015).

Photographs of the building before the addition of the new extension:

https://www.facebook.com/thelongnwindingroad/posts/2045557402136053

Singapore in 1941, already one of the world’s busiest ports, was an island – even then – in a state of constant flux. The civic and commercial centres had in the two decades prior to 1941, seen the additions of some of the grandest edifices they municipality had seen. The European flavour of the buildings, many of which exhibited Neo-Classical features, were in sharp contrast to the Singapore River that ran through the heart of the municipality. A centre of the trade on which the fortunes of the institutions housed in the new edifices built fortunes on, the river was lined with well worn godowns into which and out of which bent and frail looking coolies with sun-bronzed bodies moved goods from the twakows over flimsy planks.

1941 was also a year that brought much trepidation with the threat of war looming – even if many fed by pronouncements by Britain over Singapore’s imagined impregnability did not believe would come. Very visible preparations, which would prove to have been grossly inadequate, were being made for war with troops and equipment being shipped in. Thanks to photographer Carl Mydans, who covered Singapore extensively for LIFE Magazine, we are able to get a glimpse at all of this. A collection of Mydan’s many photographs of Singapore taken in 1941 can be found in the LIFE Magazine and features street scenes, people, dwellings on both sides of the very apparent social divide, as well as the preparations that were taking place for a war that was to have far reaching consequences.

The Supreme Court , which was completed in 1939.

The Municipal Building (now City Hall).

The statue of Stamford Raffles in front of Victoria Memorial Hall – with the colonnade that disappeared during the occupation.

Finlayson Green.

The GPO (Fullerton Building), still with the flambeau pieces and Royal Coat of Arms made by Italian sculptor Cav. Rodolfo Nolli.

The Fullerton Road side of the GPO.

Raffles Place looking towards the Mercantile Bank Chambers.

Empress Place Building – preparations for war can be seen around the building.

A view towards the old Supreme Court (now The Arts House) from the new Supreme Court.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Chambers, the Union Building and a view down Collyer Quay.

A view down Raffles Quay.

A view down Robinson Road.

Another view down Robinson Road.

A view down Japan Street (renamed to Boon Tat Street after the war).

Cathay Building and Singapore’s first “skyscraper”.

The waterfront.

Preparations for war at the waterfront.

The Singapore River, close to Cavenagh Bridge.

Cavenagh Bridge.

An aerial view of the “Belly of the Carp”.

Boat Quay.

A coolie “walking the plank”.

The view through the canopy of a twakow.

Boatmen on the river.

A laden twakow.

Boat Quay (image should be flipped horizontally).

A bullock cart along Boat Quay.

“Flags” of Singapore – laundry hung out to dry from shophouse fronts.

Loading rubber sheets along Beach Road,

A rickshaw puller along Boat Quay.

An itinerant hawker.

Sacks of rice loaded into a twakow.

Backstage.

Mother and child.

Kampung boys.

The letter writer.

Waterfront living.

More waterfront living.

The Turf Club.

Aw Boon Haw at the villa that gave Haw Par Villa its name.

Road workers outside the Ford Factory.

Loading rubber sheets onto a lorry at Beach Road (the SSVF Drill Hall can be seen in the background).

A bullock cart.

A view down North Bridge Road towards the Sultan’s Mosque.

An school excursion party at Tiger Balm Gardens (Haw Par Villa).

Rifle drills on the Padang as the threat of war looms.

Troops marching down Robinson Road.

Indian troops landing in Singapore.

Military vehicles being offloaded.

Malay Regiment soldiers taking a break during a training exercise.

Military training in a rubber estate.

Members of the Straits Settlement Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.

Military truck kits from Canada for assembly at the Ford Factory as part of the war effort.

Assembly line inside the Ford Factory.

A Brewster Buffalo being unpacked.

Brewster Buffaloes being assembled.

The Floating Dock off the North Wall of the Naval Base in Sembawang.

A view of the Naval Dockyard.

Coastal Artillery Gun.

One of the “Monster Guns” of the Johore Battery.

Pulling through.

Photographs: © Time Inc. for which Personal and Non-Commercial Use is permitted.

Thanks to LIFE Magazine’s John Dominis, we are able to get an interesting look back to a defining moment in Singapore’s history – the momentous 1959 elections that saw the People’s Action Party propelled into power.

The elections, held on 30 May, was to elect the first Legislative Assembly of a fully self-governing Singapore. The PAP claimed 43 of the Assembly’s 51 seats. While their victory was not unexpected – with the PAP the only party contesting all 51 seats – the manner and margin of its victory had alarm bells ringing with many, especially in Britain, concerned about the PAP’s leftist leanings.

Mr. Lee Kuan Yew speaking at an election rally outside Clifford Pier.

The crowd at the same rally.

Mr. Lee Kuan Yew addressing the crowd.

The PAP team at the rally – including Mr. Lee and Mr. S. Rajaratnam.

On the campaign trail.

Election day crowd at Orchard Circus.

A voter arriving at the Tuan Mong School voting centre by trishaw.

A view of Tuan Mong School at Tank Road.

Mr. Lee Kuan Yew arriving at Tank Road.

Mr. and Mrs. Lee arriving at Tuan Mong School.

Joining the queue.

Waiting in queue.

A section of queuing voters at Tuan Mong School.

A view down Tank Road.

Tuan Mong School – with a view towards the steeple of the Church of the Sacred Heart.

The queue of voters at Ai Tong School in Telok Ayer Street (Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan Building). A queue can also be seen across the street at Chong Hock School (at Chong Wen Ge) next to the Thain Hock Keng Temple.

Outside the Chong Hock School (Chong Wen Ge) at Telok Ayer Street.

The scene at the PAP’s Tanjong Pagar Branch Office.

An enterprising vendor through the crowd.

The crowd at Anson Road opposite the counting centre at Gan Eng Seng School.

Another view of the crowd at Anson Road.

A bus carrying ballot boxes arriving at Anson Road.

An election officer carrying a ballot box.

The agonising wait.

Victory?

A garlanded Mr. Lee being carried by supporters.

Supporters gathering around the victorious Mr. Lee.

Jubilant PAP supporters.

Photographs: © Time Inc. for which Personal and Non-Commercial Use is permitted.

I love old and forgotten buildings. There are often lots of stories that can be told about them – as is the case of the former Anglo Chinese Secondary School at 126 Cairnhill Road. That had its story told in an article in Monday’s edition of the Straits Times that spoke of the desire among its current tenants to have the building conserved. Now used by the Cairnhill Arts Centre, it has a history of use in the promotion of learning. Unlikely as it may seem, the building was also where the National Institute of Education (NIE) had its beginnings in as the Teachers’ Training College (TTC) way back in 1950.

The Cairnhill Arts Centre at the summit of Cairnhill was completed in 1928 for Anglo Chinese Secondary School.

The setting up of TTC had come as part of a wider effort, the ten-year Education Plan that was initiated by the postwar Colonial administration’s Director of Education Mr J. Neilson. Its aim was to raise the standard of teaching and to provide (free) universal primary schooling in Singapore to stem the problem of juvenile hawking amongst the children of the fast growing urban population. A lack of funds had hampered the adoption of the plan and it would only be in late 1947 that the plan was adopted. Implementation of the plan began in 1948. An immediate task was to set up the TTC and its would be principal was quickly identified. With ACSS moving to new premises at Barker Road at the end of 1949, its Cairnhill school building became available and was made TTC’s first home. Operations began in 1950 and TTC was officially opened by the Governor of Singapore Franklin Gimson the following year on 8 June 1951.

The building, which was originally to have been erected at Oldham Lane, was designed and also adapted for its new location by Swan and MacLaren.

Described as the “most momentous in the history of education in this colony” in a Straits Times article on 9 August 1950 on the new TTC, 1950 also saw education receive a much needed boost with the adoption and implementation of a five-year Supplementary Education Plan. This plan, initiated by Mr. Neilson’s successor Mr. A W. Frisby, was put in place to accelerate the building of schools as well as the training of teachers. This was much needed in light of the postwar baby boom. The “emergency”  teachers’ training programme was one of the first tasks the new TTC’s was put up to. The supplementary plan would also see several “Emergency Schools” built and completed the same year. TTC’s use of the Cairnhill Road premises continued for a while even after it found a permanent home on Paterson Road. The purpose built new TTC campus at Paterson Road would begin operations in 1956 and was fully completed in 1957. Trainee teachers were known to have to shuttle between the two campuses during this period.

The former TTC at Paterson Road.

The use of the building by Monk’s Hill Primary School just after the war tells another interesting story. A quick return to normalcy was high on the agenda of the British Military Administration (BMA) and this included the reopening of schools. That would however prove to be rather challenging. Many schools buildings had either been damaged and required repair or were destroyed. Some were also being utilised by the military services and could not be returned immediately to civilian use. In the first three months following the return to British rule, less than half of the schools operating prior to the occupation could be restarted. The situation was compounded by the accumulation – over four schooling years of the occupation – of would be enrollees. With places in short supply – especially for those at entry level, many turned to private schools in the interim. The sharing of school buildings helped ease this crunch. Monk’s Hill School was one that would resort to this arrangement, having to hold its classes (briefly in early 1946) in the afternoons at ACSS. ACSS, which was able to reopen in October 1945, held its classes in the mornings. Promotions of students across one or two levels was also introduced to permit those who had their education disrupted to have their progress accelerated.

A view into the building’s courtyard.

126 Cairnhill Road through the years

A sketch of the building to have been put up at Oldham Lane – the plans were later modified for the new site at Cairnhill.

It would seem that the site of ACSS, on the summit of Cairnhill, was in keeping with the Methodist Mission’s penchant for having its schools constructed on elevated positions, it was however not actually the case. The building – initially for a primary school – was to have been built on another site at (old) Oldham Lane off Orchard Road. Developments in the area around Oldham Lane – which was fast turning it into motoring hub – forced a rethink. The Cairnhill site, purchased by the mission in 1920, was then made available for the new school building. The site, some “30 feet above street level”, was thought to give a “more desirable outlook” and also be “free from interruption from street noises”.

The building in 1928.

The building, completed in 1928 and opened by Sir Hayes Marriot – the Officer Administering the Government on 17 November of the same year – features quite a unique design with its somewhat Chinese-styled roof. Its plans were based on ones that were drawn up for the Oldham Lane site in 1924 and was adapted in 1926 for the new site. Built with 13 classrooms to accommodate 480 pupils from Standard VI to Cambridge (what would be known as “O” Levels today) level, the main building was supplemented by a science laboratory and a school hall (Tan Kah Kee Hall) cum tiffin shed (canteen), each housed separately. Access to the main building was via a flight of stairs from Cairnhill Road (the road access it now has is more recent). Half the cost of construction for the building was borne by the Straits Settlements Government.

Plans for the Building (modified for the Cairnhill Road site) in the National Archives of Singapore.

Besides its use by the Cairnhill Arts Centre (which opened on 24 April 1993), the two schools and TTC, the building has also been used by the Adult Education Board from 1968 until its merger with the Industrial Training Board in 1978 to become the Vocational and Industrial Training Board (VITB). VITB – the predecessor of the Institute of Technical Education then used the premises as an Instructor Training Centre until 1984 when a new training centre was established in Ayer Rajah. A building found at the bottom of the flight of stairs at Cairnhill Road – the school hall and canteen – has been occupied by a theatre company ACT 3 since 1987.

Plans for the Building (modified for the Cairnhill Road site) in the National Archives of Singapore.

More Photographs

An auxiliary building on the lower terrace – perhaps where the science labs were housed.

Decorative pieces can be seen at the eave ridge ends of the main as well as the auxiliary building.

What would have been the school hall (Tan Kah Kee Hall) cum canteen.

The building is now surrounded on three sides by highrise residential apartment blocks.

There is always and element of romance connected with train journeys, especially the leisurely paced journeys of the past with which one can take in the magical scenes along the way that one can only get from railway journeys. LIFE Magazine’s Carl Mydans, a legendary photograph whose work spans several decades and includes an extensive coverage of Singapore prior to the war (see “A glimpse of Singapore in 1941, the year before the darkness fell“), took one such journey out of an independent Singapore some 3 decades later, capturing a Singapore we can no longer see but through photographs of the era. The set, also includes scenes along the journey to Bangkok, along with those captured at stopovers made in West Malaysia’s main urban centres.

The photographs of Singapore are particularly interesting. There are some of the old harbour, and quite a few of the twakow decorated Singapore River along which much of Singapore’s trade passed through. There are also several street scenes, once familiar to us in the area of North Bridge Road. A couple of quite rare shots were also taken at Tanjong Pagar Railway Station including one showing a steam locomotive of a 1940s vintage, which the Malayan Railway operated until the early 1970s. There are also images of the steam locos captured during the journey.

The photographs of West Malaysia are also interesting. The replacement of rubber trees with oil palm as a crop, which had been taking place in parts of the peninsula from the 1960s to reduce Malaysia’s reliance on rubber and tin was in evidence. This is something that I well remember from the road trips to Malaysia of my early childhood. Another familiar scene from those trips were of the padi fields, which the trunk road passing through Malacca seemed to weave through. This is something Mr. Mydans also seemed to have captured quite a fair bit of.

The departure platform at Tanjong Pagar Railway Station with a prewar relic of a steam locomotive.

Malaysian Customs Inspection at the Departure Platform.

The Supreme Court and the Padang.

Hock Lam Street.

Corner of Hock Lam Street and North Bridge Road.

North Bridge Road.

The old harbour (Marina Bay today)

View of Clifford Pier and the Inner Road, and Outer Roads beyond the Detached Mole. The view today would be towards Marina Bay Sands and Marina South.

Another view of the harbour – where Marina Bay Sands and Marina South is today. The Harbour Division of the Preventive Branch of the Department of Customs and Excise (Customs House today) can be seen at the lower right hand corner.

A rainbow over the harbour.

Boat Quay and the Singapore River

Walking the plank. Coolies loaded and unloaded twakows by balancing items that were often bulkier than their tiny frames over narrow and rather flimsy planks that connected the boats to the quayside.

A view of the stepped sides of the river around where Central is today.

Boat Quay.

Coolies sliding crates that were too bulky and heavy along the plank.

Lorry cranes were sometimes used instead.

But more often than not manual labour was used.

A view of the “belly of the carp”.

The Journey North

(with stops in Malacca, Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Bangkok)

A steam locomotive at what looks like Gemas Railway Station.

More steam locomotives (at Gemas?).

Inside the train cabin.

Train along a shunt line.

Rubber estates and rubber tappers were a common sight – even along the roads up north.

So were water buffaloes and padi fields.

Padi field.

Another view of a padi field.

Oil palms taking root. A drive to reduce Malaysia’s dependence on rubber and tin from the 1960s would see oil palms colour a landscape once dominated by rubber trees.

Another cabin view.

A break in the journey – a view of the Stadthuys Malacca.

Jalan Kota in Malacca.

View of the Malacca River.

The Arthur Benison Hubback designed (old) KL Railway Station .

Another view of the south end of the KL Railway Station – with a view also of the KL Railway Administration Building.

A southward view down Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin (ex Victory Avenue) with the KL Railway Station on the left and the KL Railway Administration Building on the right, also designed by Arthur Bennison Hubback.

The Railway Administration Building and Masjid Negara.

A view down Jalan Raja in KL with the BagunanSultan Abdul Samad on the left.

Another view down Jalan Raja in KL with the BagunanSultan Abdul Samad on the left and Dataran Merdeka on the right.

Sungai Siput Railway Station.

The Penang Ferry from Butterworth.

A view of Butterworth.

George Town – with a view towards the clan jetties.

The Kek Lok Si Temple in Penang.

Air Itam and the Kek Lok Si Temple in Penang.

What looks like the Leong San Tong in the Khoo Kongsi in George Town.

The Penang Hill funicular railway.

More padi fields.

Possibly southern Thailand.

Bangkok.