Memories of Upper Changi Road and Changi Grammar School

Wittering Airbase, UK

In June this year, I brought my family to the UK for a holiday. I took the opportunity to visit my friends Brian Mitchell in Cambridge and John Harper in York. Enroute from Cambridge to York, we drove past the RAF airbase at Wittering. The sight of a fighter jet – I think it was a Harrier Jump Jet – at the entrance brought back some memories of the Changi that I used to know as a boy; especially the RAF Airbase at old Upper Changi Road.

Memory No. 1 – No Highway

Wittering Rd in Changi

When I was in Secondary 4, we had to study the book No Highway by Nevil Shute for our Senior Cambridge (equivalent of today’s O-Level) English Literature paper. The year was 1968. The name Farnborough was frequently mentioned in the book and I was rather curious as to why we had a road in Changi with the same name. I only found out years later that the roads in the Changi Airbase vicinity were all named after famous RAF airbases in the UK. Naturally, there was also a Wittering Road in Changi.

Memory No. 2 – Old Upper Changi Road

My memories of this part of Singapore are documented in my book Good Morning Yesterday. Here’s an excerpt from pages 147 and 148.

“The occasional trip to Changi Beach was always a great delight for us. From our home in Lorong Chuan, we used to travel to Changi via Upper Serangoon Road and Tampines Road. The sight of the solemn grey walls of the Changi Prison which greeted us as we came to the end of Tampines Road meant that we were nearing our destination. After that it was a straight stretch of road along Tanah Merah Besar which ran along the perimeter of the prison followed by a left turn into the coastal road called Nicoll Drive before arriving at Changi Point. My own favourite activity at Changi Beach was rowing the rented wooden sampans for an hour or two.

An alternative route that we took to get to Changi Beach was via Upper Changi Road. Until just a few years ago, this road led right up to Changi Village. We liked this route because we could see the combat aircrafts sitting at what I now know was called the Dispersal Area of the British Royal Air Force.”

Unfortunately, in recent years that stretch of the road had been closed to the public. Hence, it was a great disappointment that I could not bring John Harper and other UK friends to this part of Singapore which they so fondly remember.

 

Final stretch of Upp Changi Rd closed to the public

Visit to Changi Airbase (West)

A few weeks ago, I received a pleasant surprise in my inbox. It was an invitation from the MINDEF NS Policy Department to visit old SAF military camps; one of them being the Changi Airbase. Thus it was that on Saturday, 14^th of September, a group of bloggers boarded a coach at Spore Expo MRT Station which brought us to, first, Selarang Camp, home to SAF’s 9^th Division, and then to Changi Airbase (West). I learnt that this visit was mainly extended to bloggers who had ‘done time’ at these camps and could share their memories of these places with future generations of NSmen. I am not sure why they included me in this privileged group because my NS days were spent in Safti, Gillman and Mandai and not these two places. Could it be that it was because I was such a famous blogger and that many people have read my posts about my ‘army daze’?

 Anyway, the highlight of the visit for me was the visit to the stretch of Upper Changi Road I mentioned above. Our guide, RSM Yip, told us that this stretch of road used to be a popular lover’s haunt after Changi Airport was built.

 By the way, would you like to know what this piece of land on which the Changi Airport was built looked like in 1978? If you do, then please check out my post about the SAF Day 1978 here.

SAF Display 1978 on reclaimed land for Changi Airport

 Former Changi Grammar School

Another highlight of my visit to Changi Airbase was to the blocks that once housed the Changi Grammar School. This was because my friend Brian Mitchell used to study here. Like John Harper, he too was disappointed during his visit to Singapore in 2009. When I brought him here, we could only view the buildings from outside the camp along Loyang Way. And we did not even dare to take any photos because of the warning signs on the fence prohibiting photo-taking. Anyway, I shared some of the photos with Brian and this is what he commented:

The area is obviously a bit smarter than in the 60s and the old attap huts are removed; but it’s all very recognisable. These blocks obviously go back to the 1950s and must rate as very old buildings in Singapore! I was surprised in a way to see that they survive in much their original form with the open corridors around the outside. I assume the rooms within are now closed in and air-conditioned, but of course, when they were used as barracks or then as a school building, our classrooms had large open doorways into the classrooms - this was after all the only source of light. There were very few air conditioned places in our lives in the 1960s.

The large tarmac area was where all the gharries or schools buses delivered us in the fairly early morning - so if I was on a bus that arrived early I would be looking up at the block and wondering if anyone had got to the coke machine on the ground floor - the cokes were often frozen first thing in the morning and were for some reason particularly prized. At the end of the school day, the gharries would draw up in lines in the tarmac area (actually a playground) and we would all board them. The end of the school day was for most days at lunchtime - the heat and humidity led to a different pattern of schooling from the UK.

When I was there, this area held the Grammar School (using two of the blocks - I think there was a third that was still a barrack block for airmen) and then around the tarmac area the Secondary Modern School and the Primary School - I think this is right although we hardly noticed the presence of these other schools. Then shortly after I left in August 1962, the Grammar School moved to the site on Upper Changi Road. This is the site remembered by many of the UK and then Australian and NZ kids from the 60s.

Conclusion  

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to these two old military establishments and seeing places that I knew about from decades ago; and which I thought I would never have the chance to see again. I thank Ms Stephanie Chia and her colleagues at the MINDEF NS Policy Dept for arranging the visits. Thanks also to the staff at these two places for their warm hospitality and presentations; and also staff from MINDEF Centre of Heritage Services. I look forward to future visits. The one place that I would really love to visit is the former Mandai Camp where I spent the last ten last months of active National Service.

Related posts

1) ArmyHeritage Tour by James Tann

2) A Lightwhere there was Darkness by Jerome Lim

Tugboat adventure stories off Singapore (Brian Mitchell)

Chun See’s blog on Enid Blyton and other authors he read as a child reminded me of my search for children’s books set in Singapore. In late 1959, with my family about to depart from the UK for Changi, I wondered what Singapore would really be like. All I had as a guide was a thin pamphlet for British forces which rather horrified me with warnings about the heat, humidity and a long list of insects, snakes, and diseases I might now encounter!

So what could I expect to experience in 1960 Singapore? I looked for stories set in Singapore and came across a series of adventure books. When I remembered this a couple of years ago all I could recall was that the books (I had read several of them) featured a tugboat. So I simply googled ‘tugboat Singapore’ and instantly had my answer (what a wonderful thing the internet is).

My almost forgotten books turned out to be by an equally largely forgotten author, Arthur Catherall. The website I found told me that I had read Catherall’s ‘Bulldog’ series of novels which are;

‘all about battles of wits between a two groups of characters who crop up regularly in nearly all of the books. The main setting is the South China Seas for the tugboat "Bulldog" has the Lion City of Singapore as its home harbour.’

I found the novels in my local public library in south London. I could have read only the first four or five adventures which were published before I left for Singapore as the series of 11 novels continued up until 1968.


Good as the books were I probably learned more about deep sea diving, salvage and running a tugboat than I did about Singapore – the adventures took place on and under the high seas and among islands often far from Singapore’s kampongs and city streets.


But the website did reassure me in one respect – these books do not display the ‘colonial’ attitude of so many stories, whether for adults or children, set in the then British Empire. In Catherall’s ‘Bulldog’ books, with its hero seventeen year old Jack Frodsham;


‘the reader is exposed to the behaviour of men from several different races. As Jack operates in this subterranean world his fellow divers are usually Malayan or Chinese and again and again we see examples of their courage, loyalty, endurance and dignity…..

The mutual respect and teamwork shown by the good people of all races is what ultimately sticks in the memory. …… A mere ten years have passed since the end of the Second World War and Catherall is encouraging his readers to look beyond the stereotypical picture of old enemies and to go forward in a spirit of reconciliation.’

I wonder if Catherall’s books are held by Singapore’s National Library or are known in today’s Singapore? Today’s children in Singapore are, I expect, fortunate in having access to a variety of books written by local writers and set in their own island, reflecting their own culture and communities.


Brian G Mitchell

An Old building and Linked Histories - Brian Mitchell

Cycling home last week here in Cambridge, UK, I took a road I don’t take too often and came to a halt as I passed this building.

I have seen this hut before but had not realized that it was now boarded up, has been sold and will shortly be demolished. Rather surprisingly it had a Japanese name, ‘The Yasume Club’, ‘yasume’ means ‘rest’.

You might also be surprised to learn that this old building in a side street in Cambridge has a great deal to do with Singapore. As the worn, lopsided, sign hanging over the door tells us, this hut belonged to FEPOW – Far East Prisoners of War.

With the fall of Singapore in 1942, 50,000 British, Australian and other servicemen fell into Japanese hands. Most were eventually assembled at an army base at Changi. Lee Kuan Yew, then an 18 year old student at Raffles College, said ‘ I saw them tramping along the road in front of my house for three solid days’.

Those prisoners suffered terrible hardship and 25% of them would die, sent from Changi across S E Asia and to Japan itself. Many died building the infamous Siam-Burma railway. Some who remained at Changi worked building an airfield at Changi. This became RAF Changi, where I lived in the early 1960s, and then part of the new Changi International airport and SAF base.

On repatriation to the UK many of the former prisoners felt that their suffering was not and could not be understood. They formed their own clubs and associations and there were about 60 such associations which were part of FEPOW. Men from the Cambridgeshire regiment, who had fought in Malaya and Singapore where they became prisoners, opened their club house in 1952. Finally, it closed in 2008 – its job, ‘To keep going the spirit that kept us going’, completed.

Now the old hut in which those former prisoners met will shortly disappear and with it a small symbol of the linked histories of the UK and Singapore.

Link: FEPOW Community

Flying from Singapore to the UK – in three days! (Brian Mitchell)

Good Morning Yesterday has brought together people across great distances and also across many years. Some time ago GMY published my blog about plane spotting in the 1960s and recently an old friend from 47 years ago, David Taylor, saw himself in one of the blog photos and added a comment. David (who I misnamed Malcolm on the blog) and I have not been in touch for nearly five decades but I am now looking forward to chatting to him and perhaps meeting sometime soon.


David immediately sent me a rather poignant photograph which I had no idea existed and which my brother, sister and I are absolutely delighted to see. It is from August 1962 and shows the Mitchell family, my younger brother Ian, my father John, myself, my mother Emily and my sister Carol. We are boarding a Comet 2 at RAF Changi to return to the UK – this is our final moment in Singapore after living there for two and a half years.


David, who lived nearby in what is now the Changi West SAF airbase, was on hand to record the moment, he emailed me; “I recall that not many families were flown by Transport Command. Most of us came and went by BUA Britannias from Paya Lebar...I was very envious that you flew in a Comet!”

So GMY has enabled my family to see this photograph and I have the opportunity to renew a friendship from long ago. David has other photographs and I may be able to share some of these with you in the future. Perhaps David can be persuaded to blog as well?

But I want to tell you about that flight home from Singapore because it was rather extraordinary – the Comet flew only by day and it took us three days to reach the UK. This was also the last passenger flight on this route by a Comet 2 – we were told that as we boarded that ramp our footsteps were being recorded for a film record of the flight (which I have never seen).

We left Changi in the afternoon, flew over Sumatra and as evening fell reached a tiny atoll called Gan in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I can still see the intense blue green sea and white beaches of Gan and my brother remembers walking on the beach with my father. I recall very little of Gan except that we spent the night in wooden huts and that there was raucous singing and shouting outside the women’s accommodation by airmen as a very attractive young lady was on board our flight!

The next morning we set off across the Indian Ocean and reached Aden in the Middle East for a refuelling stop. There was civil unrest in Aden and (perhaps I am imagining this) but I recall hearing gunfire as we left the plane. In the afternoon we set off across the African continent. This was a journey I saw little of – for some reason there was a shortage of seats and I was volunteered to travel this leg with the baggage! No - not in the hold underneath the passenger compartment – most of the baggage in the Comet was held in rope cages immediately behind the flight deck. I made myself as comfortable as I could on the bags just behind the navigator’s seat! For a while it was interesting to watch the flight crew but I eventually settled down with my book – a bank heist thriller called ‘The League of Gentlemen’. I recall leaving the baggage area just once – to look down from a cabin window as we crossed the River Nile.

By late afternoon we reached Libya, this was in the pre Gaddafi days and the RAF had an airbase in the desert about 20 miles south of Tripoli. It was a desolate spot. Both my brother and I recall swimming in a pool, surrounded by a high wall to stop it filling with sand. I also walked to the main entrance looking down an endless straight road leading eventually to the sea and at the enormous dunes piled up around the base. So a second nights rest on our journey from Singapore – this time in the North African desert.

On the third day we flew north across Europe, as we did so we lost the sunshine we had become so used to as a thick bank of cloud covered Northern France and England. We landed at RAF Lyneham in south west England on a damp, dull and cold day – it was the English summer! None of our family had any warm clothing and I remember that we gathered in the only warm place we could find, a clothes drying area with hot water pipes! So we were finally home after our three day journey – was I glad? Not at all, I wanted only to return immediately to Singapore!

有缘千里能相会

There is a Chinese idiom, 有缘千里能相会, 无缘对面不相识. Roughly translated, it says; “Fate brings together people who are far (1,000 miles) apart”. On the other hand, if not fated, you would not even know the person who lives across the street.

Well I don’t know whether or not it is fate that brought first John Harper and now Brian Mitchell and his lovely wife Tessa thousands of miles from wintry Cambridge to our sunny shores. (Actually not all sunny because we had quite a few rainy days this past week). Still I am thankful to be able to finally meet up with somebody I seem to have known for decades this week. And they also got to meet a few of our regular friends of GMY (Good Morning Yesterday), Victor, YG, Peter and Chuck. I think our visitors were happy to be able to see most of the places that they wanted to see, such as:

Brian’s houses in Toh Drive and Opera Estate, Brian’s school in Changi, Pulau Ubin, Cliff House in Bt Chermin and Johore Causeway. Unfortunately, Brian’s school is now part of the RSAF’s Changi Air Base and thus out of bounds.

I will leave it to Brian and Tessa to tell you about their trip to Singapore in their blog. I will just show a few photos here and keep my fingers crossed that another friend from UK, Tom Brown will make it to our shores soon.

Brian and Tessa with Cliff House in the background. Notice how dark the skies were. It was raining heavily and we almost decided to turn back. Miraculously the rain ceased long enough for us to take a few shots. On the way back, it started to pour again. At Benjamin Sheares Bridge, you couldn’t even see the sky scrapers of Shenton Way.

Brian and I at the Siglap Road entrance to Opera Estate. Brian recalls that the bus taking him home from school would speed down this slope. The surrounding was mostly empty land.

Brian and Peter taking a shot of the houses at Aida Road in Opera Estate.

Brian and Tessa sampling our local hawker fare at Sunset Way Food Court

I stopped my car at Woodlands Street 13 to let our English visitors see a flowering durian tree close-up. Unfortunately, in this trip they did not get a chance to try the durian. I guess they can do that in Malaysia. After all our durians are mostly imported from Malaysia where they’re much cheaper.

That Chinese idiom may not be 100% appropriate in describing my meetings with Brian Mitchell and John Harper. But it certainly applies to a chance meeting between Lynn Copping’s brother and their amah. Lynn, you may recall has written about her stay in Pulau Brani here. Recently, she emailed me to describe the amazing coincidence which enabled her and her brother to be reunited with their amah from more that 40 years ago. Here is their story in her own words.

“By the way, I was in Singapore in July 2007, to meet up with my old amah. My brother found her completely by chance.

He has been in Singapore about 18 times in the last three years, and in April 2007 he mentioned to the porter in the hotel that he had been brought up in Singapore, on Pulau Brani. 'So was I' said the porter. My brother asked him to look at some photos of old Pulau Brani that he had on his laptop, and when the porter saw one of my elder brother with our amah, he said 'that's my mother'. (He had first seen one of me, and thought to himself that he had seen a photo of that girl before, but didn't like to say anything - it was a copy of one that his mother had in her album). My brother went to see her the next day, and I flew out on my brother's next trip (in the July) to see him and to meet up with her. It was so exciting.”

PS - to read Brian and Tessa's posts click on the label Brian Mitchell on right side of this page

My Grandfather – Tessa Mitchell

My paternal grandfather, Lewis Williams, lived and worked in Singapore in the early years of the 20th century. He was employed by a company called Topham, Jones and Railton and worked in Singapore from about 1911 until about 1930. Topham, Jones and Railton were the civil engineering firm who built the King’s and Queen’s Docks and in 1922 began building the causeway linking Singapore to Johor Bahru.

Recently I was going through some photographs in my late Mother’s belongings and came across two large photographs from my grandfather of the newly built causeway in 1924. These have now been donated to National Archives of Singapore.

Causeway from North

Causeway from South

My father, Frank Ivor Williams, was born in Swansea, but spent his early years with his parents in Singapore. His younger brother, my Uncle Idris, was born in Singapore. Both boys were sent home to the UK at the age of seven or eight, only seeing their parents on their occasional ‘home leave’. Here is a photograph of my father at an early age with his Amah which is dated 3rd March 1911.



Photo of my grandparents

I know very little about my grandparents’ life in Singapore. My grandfather died in 1948 and although my grandmother lived until the early 1960s she did not talk about her past. I think life in Singapore must have been very luxurious in comparison to their later days. They lived in Cliff House (where my uncle Idris was born), a very large and well appointed house on Bukit Chermin Road between the Keppel golf links and Chermin Way. The house is still there and is now owned by the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) who rent it out. It is apparently not possible to see the house from the road but it can be seen, situated above an oil jetty, from the north west corner of Sentosa. Here is a recent picture of the house taken from the sea.


View of Cliff House viewed from the sea. Photo courtesy of Peter Chan, 2007.

My cousin Martin visited Singapore in 1993 or 94 and was lucky enough to be shown around the house as it was between tenancies. He particularly noted the large and airy size of the rooms – one way to keep cool before the days of air conditioning. Here is a picture of the front of the house taken on that visit.

Photo of Cliff House car port. Photo courtesy of Martin Williams, 1994.

Later my grandparents moved to a large bungalow in Johor Bahru – close to the construction of the causeway. Here is a photo of my grandmother in front of that house.

After work on the causeway my grandfather worked on a geological survey for the new naval base at Sembawang and then on a hydro-electric dam project in Perak.
My family, my sister, Susan Tessier, my cousin Martin Williams and myself have very few artefacts from my grandparent’s life in Singapore. They lived a peripatetic life moving to various engineering projects and were bombed out of their home whilst living in Portsmouth in the 1940s. We have a few water colours of tropical scenes (my grandfather was also a water colourist) and among a few other photographs, this one dated 25th September 1922, of my grandparents and friends swimming at Pulau Ubin.

We also have a mahjong set, some bits of china and a big brass bowl but little else.

I shall be visiting Singapore in mid March 2009 with my husband Brian Mitchell who has also contributed to this blog. He will be looking for memories of his time there as a teenager in the 1960s and I will be looking for those long lasting signs of my grandfather’s time in Singapore – the causeway and Cliff House.

Tessa Mitchell

** More pictures of Cliff House here.

School days in 1960s Singapore – one teenage Brit’s experience (Brian Mitchell)

It has been a while since I wrote anything about my days in Singapore as a young UK teenager at RAF Changi in early 1960. I have not written about my experiences at school – partly because John Harper has already dealt with his schooling experiences in more detail that I can remember. But I also can’t recall seeing anything much on Good Morning Yesterday about the school day experiences of Singaporeans of my generation – so perhaps this blog will encourage something more from Spore readers.

I arrived in Singapore from a cold grey London which suffered from dreadful smoky fog - which sometimes led to us being sent home early from school. My London school had been a new state of the art comprehensive (ie non selective) school. I could walk to the school which was only a mile away from my home wearing the traditional school blazer, shirt, tie, v-neck pullover and long flannel trouser uniform.

There could not have been a greater contrast with Changi Grammar School in Singapore. I found myself dressed in a uniform of khaki shorts and white shirt, I was suffering not from smog but from the steamy heat and I was sat not in a modern multi-story building but in an attap hut with chicken wire windows!

I don’t have a picture of the huts with my class but here is a picture of a primary school class in the same row of huts at Changi.

1966 Photo of Changi Junior School by Andrew Barnes Courtesy of Memories of Singapore

And here I am in my school uniform – with the regulation long shorts turned up inside to make them shorter and more fashionable!

Getting to school was the first challenge to me. I had suffered from travel sickness in buses and now I had to travel from the Orchard Estate (my first home) in one of the Gharries – service buses which brought kids to the three schools (Grammar, Secondary Modern and Primary) that occupied a central location in the then RAF base. I remember telling myself on the first day that I would no longer be travel sick – and I never was!

The gharries arrived from the various places in the Changi area occupied by service personnel, dropped us in the central playground – to which they returned at the end of the school day to pick us up. There was one advantage to being in the gharry that arrived first – a quick exit and a run up to the coke machine in the ground floor corridor of the barrack block would get you one of the first cokes of the day. This would often be frozen – and for some reason this was considered as a big treat.

The school day was relatively short – an early morning start and finish at lunchtime Monday to Saturday, although there were sport and other activities on two afternoons each week. We followed the UK curriculum of course – most of us were there for only two and a half years and had to fit back into the UK exam system on our return. Our teachers were, I think, in post for a longer period of at least five years. So by the time you left the school to return to the UK virtually everyone in your class would have arrived after you!

Although I found myself based first in the attap hut, most of the school occupied a couple of barrack blocks, three storey buildings with a corridor around the outside of the building onto which the classrooms opened – windowless and without air conditioning of course. So after a couple of terms in the attap hut I moved into the barrack blocks.

The barrack blocks are still there in Changi, now occupied (and no doubt much updated) for use by the SAF. John Harper took a photo on his recent trip – although the blocks now look much changed but there was evidence of other old school buildings.


Did I enjoy the Changi school experience? To be honest I don’t recall benefiting very much from the education! Being in Singapore was an overwhelming experience, there were too many distractions and too much to see and do as soon as school was over – things I have written about in other blog pieces.

Reading Chun See’s blog and visiting sites like Memories of Singapore has made me acutely aware of one thing – I knew nothing about other British Schools let alone schools for Singapore’s own population. What sort of school day did you Singaporeans experience? I recall hearing about schools operating a shift system to accommodate the growing numbers of school-children, was that true? And what sort of buildings did you have – and was there air conditioning in schools, then or now?

Brian Mitchell

#####################################

Brian,

Both my elder brother Chun Chew (Zen) and myself have written about our school days. You can read our stories here.

1) Braddell Rise School

2) Bartley Secondary School

3) More on Bartley Secondary School
4) Mattar East Primary School

Plane-spotting in Singapore (Part 2): Arrested for Espionage aged 14 - Brian Mitchell

I wrote a few weeks ago about some of my plane-spotting and photographing exploits in Singapore in the 1960s and promised a tale of when I really did get into trouble!

We spent a great deal of time at the then RAF Changi Officers Club swimming pool (still there, but now I think the Junior Sailing Club) and would see naval ships cruising past Pulau Ubin on their way to the naval base at Sembawang. One day, it was early 1962 I think, we were particularly excited by the arrival of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, huge and impressive and very close to our beach.

But not close enough of course for myself and my friend Kerry who persuaded his parents to drive us to the naval base for a closer look a few days later. I am not sure what security was like then, maybe service personnel could easily visit other bases, for Kerry and I were soon on the dockside, cameras out, with the aircraft carrier and all its aircraft looming over us, just waiting to be photographed!

But not for long! It was perhaps only a few minutes before we suddenly became aware of a Sikh military policeman and his colleagues bearing down on us. Our excuses were useless and we were bundled into the back of a police Land Rover and taken at speed to the guard room.

There we found ourselves transferred to a concrete walled cell, open to the sky with a wire grill for a ceiling. We had plenty of time to contemplate our position, presumably whilst they discussed what to do with us – 14 years old and banged up for espionage!

Eventually we were brought out, Kerry’s parents had been found and were there, and our arresting officer gave us a very angry talking to. Our film was confiscated but not our cameras – that would indeed have been a severe punishment. Eventually our talking to over, we were released.

I remember well as we staggered into Kerry’s parent’s car, hands shaking – indeed so sorry did his father feel for us that he offered us a cigarette each - I think I refused but if I recall correctly Kerry took his!

Brian Mitchell

Plane spotting in Singapore in the 1960s (Part 1) - Brian Mitchell

Chun See’s kind invitation to me to post the occasional guest piece on his blog has led me to reminisce about some of the ways I passed my time as a young teenager in early 60s Singapore – but I have missed out perhaps one of the most important, which was plane spotting.

But first a warning – some of today’s Singaporeans were a little dismayed at my recklessness whilst paddling my dug out canoe (no life jacket, no safety boat, casual trips across to Pulau Ubin etc) – my exploits whilst plane-spotting were even worse! You have been warned.

So why plane-spotting? Well I was certainly interested in aircraft, with a father in the Royal Air Force I had grown up around them. But in Singapore my main interest was photographing aircraft – including getting close to them if I could.

My hobby was greatly encouraged by my father buying me my first ‘real’ camera. We went into Changi village and after a bit of haggling came away with a Samoca LEII (I probably still have it somewhere, but its years since I used it), a simple manual 35mm which even had a light meter built in to the body. I can’t remember what we paid for it but when we got back to the UK I was pleased to see that it cost just under £20 which was certainly more than in Changi village – then as now Singapore prices were good!

There were several of us who went plane spotting. Here (courtesy again of my old friend Ray Shaw) is a photograph of three of us, myself on the left, then tiny Malcolm with his camera and finally Kerry on the right.



So where did we go to photograph planes? Well Changi obviously. In those days the Upper Changi Road went right across the main dispersal area so our school bus or gari ride was always a way of checking out any interesting planes. And the other location was Singapore’s international airport at Paya Lebar – we took a bus along the Tampines Road, then a trek through some Kampongs (I still remember the pigs and chickens) to the end of the runway or a further walk to the terminal building itself. Those were the days of Boeing 707s, and Douglas DC8s. Singapore was already an international hub with planes from the USA, South American, Australia etc.


Photo of RAF Changi from the air and showing the dispersal area (with Upper Changi Road running across the centre of the picture) contributed by Barry Fagg to Memories of Singapore.


Photo of Paya Lebar Airport courtesy of Memories of Singapore.

But the attempt to get exciting photographs of aircraft sometimes got us into trouble. After a few attempts at photographing aircraft landing at Paya Lebar we decided to have a go at Changi. The north end of the runway was open and we could get to it easily so two of us took our cameras and crept as close to the end of the tarmac as we dared. A single Shackleton (a large four engined aircraft based on the WW2 Lancaster bomber) was doing what we called ‘circuits and bumps’ so as it circled to land we got ready with our cameras.

I swear the pilot must have spotted us and decided to give us a scare for we were dismayed to see the plane coming in to land very low indeed. As it got nearer we abandoned any photography and flattened ourselves on the ground hardly daring to believe that it could miss us. It roared overhead, a few feet above us, the ground shook and our ears protested. I stole a quick glance up, the sky was blotted out by a mass of metal and rivets. Then it touched down and took off again, we got up on shaking legs and ran! Never again!

But sometimes there were rare and interesting aircraft that demanded a closer look – particularly since without a telephoto lens that was the only way to get a decent picture. Around the time of the first US space shots some very interesting US aircraft arrived at Changi – presumably engaged in tracking the space shots. One aircraft bristling with radar and electronics was spotted from the school gari on the way home. I was back shortly afterwards with my camera.

Getting off the bus before it reached the airfield I walked across a field of tall vegetation behind the dispersal area hoping not to be noticed – aircraft like these were often under guard. Half way across the field I was astounded to see Malcolm striding openly across the dispersal tarmac from the other side – he wore only his shorts, socks and shoes in a vain attempt to appear to be one of the aircraftmen! His disguise was hardly effective, he was after all not much more than 5 foot tall! He was not even half way across when I saw the military police Land Rover rush out from near the control tower, stop him and take him on board. I did a swift about-turn, ducking low in the vegetation hoping not to be spotted.

Malcolm got off lightly on this occasion. But Kerry and I were not so lucky with a further exploit to be told in part 2!

Paddling My Canoe off Changi in the 1960’s – Brian Mitchell

As so often something in Chun See’s blog sets me thinking about my own time as a teenager in Singapore in the early 1960s – this time his report from the National Junior Canoeing Championships.

One of my favourite past-times was paddling my old dug-out canoe out from what was then the Royal Air Force Officers Club at Changi – I think this is now the Junior Sailing Club if my modern map of Singapore is correct.

Our canoes were stored upside down on a grass slope beside the club building ready for launching. Most young people had rather larger boats made out of planks but mine was smaller and a genuine dug out canoe. It came without a paddle so I accompanied my father to a boat yard in Changi Harbour where he explained what we needed – unfortunately what came back was a well made – but rather heavy – paddle which I used for the next couple of years building up arm muscle!

One continual problem was that in the hot sun the wood of the canoes shrank or cracked and needed re-tarring – and (courtesy of my old friend of the time, Ray Shaw) I have a photo of a group of us repairing one of the canoes (I am the handsome one with the towel around my neck).

Looking back, I am surprised just how far we got in the canoes. Often a few of us would paddle our canoes for short trips along the Changi coast but occasionally we would take a longer trip across towards Pulau Ubin and a small island or two in that direction – in retrospect and given the tiny size of my canoe - this now seems reckless but we were of course young, fit and excellent swimmers.

I do recall landing on a small island with an old house – looking rather like an English country cottage - and finding some bananas growing in the garden. We took a few to eat (a process known in the UK as ‘scrumping’, which is an innocent sounding term for stealing fruit off people’s plants and trees!).

I have hardly been in a canoe since those days but that tiny blue and white painted dug-out gave me a lot of fun.

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Footnote: I hope those kayakers I blogged about earlier will read Brian’s story. They will appreciate, I am sure how blessed they are to have the modern kayaks of today. Compare picture below with Brian’s home-made version. – Lam Chun See

Cars in 1960s Singapore

(Written by Brian Mitchell)

Chun See’s blog on his daughter passing the driving test – and that picture of the Morris Minor - got me thinking about cars in Singapore when I lived there 1960-62 (but first just to tell you that my first car here in the UK in 1965 was a Morris 1000 van, and I later had a light blue saloon just like in the picture).

Our family had never owned a car in the UK – not so unusual in the 1950s and we lived in London where public transport was plentiful. So I was pretty excited not just by going to Singapore but being told we were certainly going to be car owners when we were there! I guess the normal practice for a Royal Air Force officer was to buy one second hand from someone whose tour of duty had ended and sure enough we were soon the proud owners of a rather old, but grand, Humber Hawk - a huge tank of a car, leather seats and all.

This was OK but I pretty soon saw a number of my friends whose families had large American cars, one family had a huge Nash (there were about six kids) and across the road from our house sat another US monster with huge fins. Our Humber Hawk looked pretty out of date and tame in comparison.

We did not have the Hawk long but worse was to come. Our next car was a tiny grey little Standard. Our family of five hardly fitted into it and not only did we travel around Singapore in it but we also travelled across the Causeway to KL and a hill camp beyond (incidentally this was not too long after the ‘Emergency’ and I still recall the gates and fences, unused but still present, around villages on the road up through Malaya).

Eventually before our return to the UK my father decided to get a new car and ship it back to the UK - prices being much lower in Singapore. So we began a tour of the car showrooms, including visiting the Jaguar one for the unveiling of the ‘E type’ (in your dreams were we going to end up with that one!) but at the first sight of a Volvo I knew my father had seen the car he wanted, it was duly bought and arrived back at Liverpool docks in the UK some months later.

Now I guess the Japanese cars dominate Singapore as so many other places but I always associate my time there with those wonderful old American gas guzzlers even if we never actually owned one!

Lam Chun See continues

I happen to have a photo of my father and uncle with a car that looked like Brian’s Humber. I have always wondered if that car was a Hillman. But even Brian could not be sure if it was the same ‘Humber Hawk’ he talked about. Hope some of you can throw some light. But the car next to it is definitely a Morris Minor.

As for the place, Brian thinks it’s an airport. In that case, most likely it’s Kallang Airport. However, I have a few other similar photos which would suggest that this photo was taken at place called Port Swettenham in 1957. Now I leave the younger readers to figure out for themselves where is Port Swettenham.

Fun and Entertainment in the 1960s - Brian Mitchell

The title of this blog – from a Paul Anka song - got me thinking about my time in Singapore in the early 1960s and the entertainment we had then - because the very first record I ever bought, a 45rpm single, was Paul Anka’s hit song ‘Diana’.

I bought it soon after I arrived in Singapore at a night-time market which must have been on or near the Orchard Estate where I lived for a short while. I recall the busy market stalls lit by gas or kerosene lamps and it was one of my first experiences of buying at a market – I probably had to haggle over the price which I always hated doing! Shopping in Singapore for us brits was always an adventure, in the UK you hardly ever get the chance to haggle over price.

Music was of course important to us young teenagers and I recall hanging around the jukebox in the hotel we stayed at on arrival in Singapore (called The Ambassador and near the site of what used to be Singapore’s original airport at Kallang) playing Everley Brothers, Buddy Holly and Elvis records.

The cinema was popular of course. For us ‘Brit brats’ with fathers based at the RAF Changi airbase we had outdoor films, few of which I recall except for some Elvis Presley films. My most vivid memory is of seeing ‘Ben Hur’ at a very large cinema in Singapore City, the film had its exciting moments but none more so that in the chariot race scene when the audience were all up on their feet cheering wildly! Much better than seeing the film in the UK where everyone just stays in their seat!

We had no television then (when did it start in Singapore?) and the radio was difficult to listen to in the evening with all the static from electric storms. I enjoyed the cartoons in the Straights Times (I think) which included strips from the United States including Litl’ Abner and also Dick Tracey and Mad Magazine was much looked forward to, although this featured satires on US tv programmes none of which I had even seen!

We used to visit a record shop in Changi Village, not so much to buy records as to enjoy the air conditioning and to listen to the strange sounds they played – I think now it must have been modern jazz which at the time I was completely unfamiliar with. I don’t recall going to any music gigs other than seeing Cliff Richard and The Shadows play at a large indoor stadium somewhere in Singapore City – a big moment for both the brits and local Singaporean fans of the day.

We visited the Tiger Balm gardens of course and we had what seem now as rather strange treasure hunts where families would get in their cars to follow a series of clues and drive all over the island in search of some ‘treasure’. I can’t imagine now why that was enjoyable! And there were also hill climbs, not on foot, but timed car races up a hill, maybe it was Bukit Timah hill –I doubt in these environmentally aware days that this still goes on?

Scanned postcard photo of Tiger Balm Gardens (Haw Par Villa) in the sixties. Courtesy of Memories of Singapore

Perhaps the most popular outings of all for us kids from RAF Changi were the organised boat trips to beaches on Pulau Ubin, always an exciting time, away from the gaze of our parents!

On the Buses – Brian Mitchell

I found Chun See’s excellent blog through the links at Memories of Singapore and its pictures of Changi Village and Upper Changi Road - taken near Toh Drive where I lived in the early 1960s when my father was stationed at the then RAF Changi airbase. He kindly invited me as a UK friend of Singapore to contribute.

A Stretch of Upper Changi Road near Toh Crescent and Toh Drive today.

What struck me about the pictures of Upper Changi Road was how quiet the road looked – and there were no buses! In the 1960s Upper Changi Road was the main route between Changi Village and the City and buses flew down it every few minutes at busy times.

And what buses they were! They were old and well used, rattled like mad and travelled with all the windows down – and that was just as well because they had shaken and rattled so much that the window glass had gone crazed and was opaque, nothing could be seen through them!

Those buses were the main means of transport for me and my friends – no Mass Transit system existed in those days. We would wait on Upper Changi Road for our frequent trips to the Village and the airbase swimming pool. Suddenly a bus would fly over the brow of the hill near Changi prison – and it might be more than one, they seemed to race each other and sometimes arrived in groups. Then we would rush onto the hard seats and spend the journey sliding around and hanging on as the bus flew onwards.

There are two other things I always recall about those buses – if you travelled at night you might see the biggest cockroaches ever. And then there were the bus tickets. Well the tickets need explaining - they were small coloured card tickets and they had numbers on them. Being teenage boys we had a game with those numbers – add up the digits and if they came to a special number, like 18 or 21, then you were in luck with your girlfriend - I won’t go into more detail! I wonder if similar games go on today.

So what are the buses like today? Air-conditioned and cockroach free? Driven carefully, with comfortable seats and with no rattles? I would be interested to hear from today’s Singaporeans.

Brian Mitchell

Footnote: Thank you and a big welcome to Brian for sharing this story from the 1960's. We look forward to more stories from him. Thanks also to Peter Tan for the photo below of 1960’s bus tickets of the Paya Lebar Bus Company. Notice the interesting way of writing "5 cents" in Chinese – Lam Chun See.