Memories of Albert Street by night by Russ Wickson

Bugis Street was always a firm favourite with servicemen for any number of reasons, but crossing Victoria Street one came into Albert Street. These photographs are of night time Albert Street taken sometime in 1967. They are from my personal photograph album.

I am not sure what the reproduction will be like but amongst the neon signs in Photograph 4 you can just pick out the sign Fatty's, this is where I used to get my S$ dollars worth of 'fried rice' or 'noodles'. (in those days we got S$7.20c to the English Pound Sterling ... I was paid a S$140 a fortnight as a single airman stationed at RAF Tengah and later RAF Changi ) If it wasn't rice or noodles then it would be a S$1.00 of Satay from one of the satay street vendors as shown in Photograph 1.

We/I recall we always got six sticks of chicken satay for our dollar and a little bowl of peanut sauce, but we were quite naughty really because we always insisted on a second bowl of sauce or even a third. I would hope we threw in a few extra cents but I can no longer remember. We/I sat on steps or kerbstones to eat the satay and I used to be fascinated by the very large and beautifully ruddy coloured cockroaches that ran about your feet and up and down the uncovered monsoon drains. Some of the cockroaches must have been two inches long ... or perhaps I had had too many pints of Tiger beer to focus properly.