Paul Warner sent me this photo to challenge you guys. He wrote:
"I enjoy reading the submissions on your website a great deal and the old photographs are fantastic. It's great to remember what Singapore was like in the old days. Well, I'd like to share an old photograph of myself taken with my classmates in about 1978. Maybe you can pose it as a quiz question to your bloggers."
So here’s the question: “Which of these kids is Paul?
Answer and more details later.
"I enjoy reading the submissions on your website a great deal and the old photographs are fantastic. It's great to remember what Singapore was like in the old days. Well, I'd like to share an old photograph of myself taken with my classmates in about 1978. Maybe you can pose it as a quiz question to your bloggers."
So here’s the question: “Which of these kids is Paul?
Answer and more details later.
***********************************
ANSWER
"It's Parry Avenue Boys' School, off Yio Chu Kang Road, where I was a pupil between 1974 and 1979. It was then well and truly a rural part of Singapore.
There used to be a Chinese cemetery along Parry Avenue and if I remember correctly, the road on the other side of Yio Chu Kang, was Jalan Hwi Yoh which I recall had several garden centres and I remember watching men making clay pots with the old spinning wheels.
The school is still there, but it has since become Parry Primary School for boys and girls. But long gone are the coconut trees and kampongs which I was lucky enough to visit during my time there. And of course I was the only ang mo out of all the pupils from the morning and afternoon sessions - which must have been more than 1,500 children."
By the way, Paul is neither British nor Singaporean. In fact, he hailed from Kuching Sarawak. “Mum's Eurasian and dad English”.
“We moved to Singapore in 1972 and lived in Seletar Hills (I'm sure there were tobacco plantations there at the time) and then we relocated to Seletar Air Base at the end of Jalan Kayu in 1978 and lived there until 2006 when my parents made the move across the border.
Jalan Kayu then was a thriving Indian enclave, shame I never took any photos. I'm also fairly fluent in Malay having sat and passed O and A-levels in the subject. We'll be heading back to Singapore and JB later in the year and I'll try and dig out some more old photos which I'm sure still exist."
There used to be a Chinese cemetery along Parry Avenue and if I remember correctly, the road on the other side of Yio Chu Kang, was Jalan Hwi Yoh which I recall had several garden centres and I remember watching men making clay pots with the old spinning wheels.
The school is still there, but it has since become Parry Primary School for boys and girls. But long gone are the coconut trees and kampongs which I was lucky enough to visit during my time there. And of course I was the only ang mo out of all the pupils from the morning and afternoon sessions - which must have been more than 1,500 children."
By the way, Paul is neither British nor Singaporean. In fact, he hailed from Kuching Sarawak. “Mum's Eurasian and dad English”.
“We moved to Singapore in 1972 and lived in Seletar Hills (I'm sure there were tobacco plantations there at the time) and then we relocated to Seletar Air Base at the end of Jalan Kayu in 1978 and lived there until 2006 when my parents made the move across the border.
Jalan Kayu then was a thriving Indian enclave, shame I never took any photos. I'm also fairly fluent in Malay having sat and passed O and A-levels in the subject. We'll be heading back to Singapore and JB later in the year and I'll try and dig out some more old photos which I'm sure still exist."
