Thanks to Geoffrey Pain for sending me this mid-1960s picture
some time ago. The first person to identify this place wins a copy of my book, Good
Morning Yesterday. Just post your answer in the comments section.
Sorry; only local readers can win ….. for obvious reason.
RESULTS
This is what Geoffrey Pain wrote: “The subject of the photo is the shop at the end.
Hengs which is where my father bought his radios and other items. The shop is
in Jalan Kayu just outside the Seletar Base.“
Peter Chan, my friend, and regular
blogger here at GMY, adds: “Those shops on the left of Jalan Kayu as you
approach TPE (then you cross the road bridge over TPE); then before you is
Piccadilly Circus inside Seletar Airport.
The famous Jalan Kayu roti prata (in Foodage) opposite to those wooden
shops. Today those wooden shops gone and
now an empty plot of land.”
Congratulations to Johnny Chen for being the first to come up with the correct answer to what appears to be a relatively easy one. Pls email me your address; or message me at Facebook.
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Incidentally, Good Morning Yesterday (Book) was last spotted
at Times @ Centrepoint (Tel: 6734-9022), Kinokuniya @ Ngee Ann City (Tel:
6737-5021). You can also get it at Betel Box Hostel, Bistro & Tours (Tel:
6247-7340) and HAF Box Pte Ltd (Tel: 6235-4560).
12 comments:
Jalan Tari Lilin. So I am guessing Jalan Kayu in the 60s before the development?
Johnny, was the photo taken from the same or opposite side of Jalan Kayu? The road looks very narrow from this angle.
Hi Icemoon, unfortunately I am only making a guess here. My guess is that it is at the junction of terrace houses at Jalan Tari Zapin and Jalan Tari Lilin.
Jalan Kayu... Very near to a former US base there.
Just guessing.
Globe Silk Store is definitely along Jalan Kayu.
Hi Chun See. It's Paul Warner. This is a picture familiar with me having lived in Seletar Camp for a number of years.
But I don't think the picture is of Heng's electrical store. Heng's was one of the last shops along Jalan Kayu and was very popular before the onset of huge electrical department stores.
But this picture is of a electrical store located somewhere in the middle of Jalan Kayu.
In fact, if you walk up those steep brown steps you will come to a stationery shop and next to it was a bike shop run by the woman's brother called Eng Tong Seng Kee. I bought my first and several bicycles from there.
The soul has been ripped out of Jalan Kayu now. The famous prata shop is still there (although in a different location) but all the shop houses are gone. Lorries and school buses are parked up where the shops once stood.
Thanks for the inputs, Paul. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with this area. But if you click on the image and see the larger version, you can see the words "& Heng" in the shop's name.
Hi Chun See. It's Paul again. Yes that's right, it clearly states Heng.
I wonder whether the company moved to bigger premises in the 1970s and 1980s - the period when I remember Heng's.
Also as a link to your previous post about old cinemas, there was also one in Jalan Kayu called Eng Wah.
Thanks to Geoffrey Payne for supplying so many great photos. These really capture the Singapore I remember from the 1960s.
Newer readers may not know that Paul was a 'local ginger'; i.e. homegrown; and went to school here.
I was then serving full-time NS at Seletar East Camp in1971/72 and during reseve service as well. Jalan Kayu ends at our Camp's main gate (guardhouse then). I couldn't recall Globe Silk Store, but I remember one shop, George's Tailor, which was popular with our NS comrades then. In those years, the army uniforms supplied to us were not properly done, and needed alterations, so we went to this shop. I also recall that the actual or the original prata shop at Jalan Kayu was on opposite side of the road. Beside prata shop, we use to patronise a fish & chip store, and also a coffeshop shop with zhi char foods. Last but not least, there was a weekly "pasar malam" along Jalan Kayu, I think it was on a Thursday's evening.
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