Meeting my new old friend Judith Johnson

Last month, I met another of “my new old friends”, Judith Johnson, and her husband, Robert. I brought them to see two places that held strong memories of her years in Singapore, the Changi Airbase in Loyang Avenue, where her school, the RAF Changi Grammar School used to be located; and Chiltern Drive when she used to live. She gave me a CD of old photos of Singapore, a few of which were from my former kampong in Lorong Chuan. I have been very busy these past weeks and have not had time to organize them and share them with readers. She also gave me a DVD of her dad’s cine films, segments of which contain scenes of Singapore in the early 1960s. Finally she also gave me a CD containing photos of the Joint Air Traffic Control Centre at Paya Lebar Airport, which her dad helped to set up, to hand over to the relevant organization.

Our first stop was the Changi Airbase West in Loyang Avenue.   Although she was not able to obtain permission to enter the premises, we were, nevertheless, able to view the buildings close-up from the nearby golf course. She shared with me many stories of her time in this school; especially of how naughty the boys (Brian Mitchell, are you reading this?) used to be.

After a short drive around the Changi Village vicinity, we proceeded to visit the house that Judith lived in at 10 Chiltern Drive in Braddell Heights. Judith was fortunate in that the house was still standing, and did not look very different even though it had undergone major renovation. Unfortunately, there was nobody home, and we were not able to enter the compound for a closer look.

1961 photo of Judith's house

2014 photo of Judith's house

Judith showed me the place opposite her house where there used to be an “ugly square cement structure” from the top of which she could see my kampong. She brought out her iPad and showed me photos that her dad had taken of our kampong. I was a bit disappointed because I could not recognize the place in the photos.  As you can see from the map below, it was probably quite a distance from where I stayed. From her description of the farms and ponds that she saw; including the trellises where the gourds were planted (described in detail in my book, Good Morning Yesterday), I concluded that she was referring to the area presently occupied by St Gabriel’s Primary School. Nevertheless, I am truly thankful to be able to get hold of these precious photos of my kampong. These photos were taken around 1961, which was prior to the construction of the Lorong Chuan in 1963. This new Lorong Chuan linked Braddell Road to Serangoon Gardens; and separated my section of our kampong from the section shown in Judith’s photos.

 

The "ugly cement structure" opposite Judith's house in 1961

This place is now a playground. The building in the background is St Gabriel's School, I believe.

The Lorong Chuan in this 1963 map is a dirt track which we kampong folks referred to as Chui Arm Lor (Water Pipes Rd) in Hokkien. Actually it continues all the way to Upper Thomson Road (refer to my book for details). X marks the spot where my house stood; and Y is the area shown in Judith’s photos. I can tell by referring to an old topographical map of this area which showed the ponds and the streams.

After taking several photos of Chiltern Drive, I brought them to the entrance of the Australian International School at Lorong Chuan and pointed out to the spot where my house probably stood. From there we drove to the Saddle Club travelling along stretches of Braddell Road and Thomson Road that Judith would have traveled on her way to her riding lessons. We proceeded for lunch at Toa Payoh before I brought them to their last destination at Geylang East Central where they had arranged to meet the family of her amah, Ah Moy, who unfortunately had passed away just two years ago. I understand that they had quite an emotional meeting.

I am glad to have met my “new old friend” Judith Johnson. I am glad to have played a small part in helping her recall found memories of her childhood years in our little island; and I have been richly rewarded by her gift of many precious old photos (of very high quality) of the Singapore of my childhood days; including a few of my kampong. I share some of them with you below. I will upload others to the Good Morning Yesterday Facebook Page.

Then and Now – Cashin Jetty

The photo that I put up in the latest GMY Book Contest is of the Cashin Jetty near Lim Chu Kang end. Actually I do not know much about this place until my friend James Tann pointed it out to me during my recent visit to the Lim Chu Kang Jetty.

Thanks to Peter Kirkman, I am able to share with you a few more photos of this place taken in the 1960s by his father, Ray Kirkman and forwarded to me by my friend Mike Robbins. I suspect, these photos were taken during the time when we were part of Malaysia. I also suspect that at that time, you could travel to Johor from Cashin Jetty. The reason why I say so is because among Ray’s photos from the same batch, there were several that were of Johor Bahru.

Incidentally, if you want to know more about the Cashin Jetty, its history and what it looks like today, please check out my friend Jerome’s very informative article here.

Some photos of 1960’s Bukit Gombak and Bukit Panjang

Today, I would like to share with you some rarely-seen photos of Bukit Gombak and Bukit Panjang taken in the 1960’s. These images were sent to me by Gordon Carle quite some time ago. But I had been hesitant to post them on this blog for 2 reasons:

1) Bt Gombak is a highly sensitive military area.

2) I do not have any stories of these 2 places to share with readers. Apart from a meeting at the Air Logistics Unit in the 1980’s when I was working with the National Productivity Board, I have never set foot in Bukit Gombak.

Anyway, these photos are more that 4 decades old, so here they are. Hope readers can add some of their own stories.

The first 3 are of Bukit Gombak, no. 2 being from Whirlwind helicopter.

The next 3 are of Bukit Panjang viewed from Bukit Gombak.

These last 6 are simply views from Bukit Gombak (probably).

I cant’ say goodbye to you (Peter Chan)

You say it would be better
if we stopped seeing each other
if you had only met me first
when you were free
'cause now you've got commitment
I should not expect things from you
that you can't give to me
oh, but baby, can't you see………………………

The above is an example of yesterday’s lyrics which is so meaningful, smooth and so touching, quite contrary to what I listen to these days.  Am I biased towards 21^st Century music?  Maybe, especially when I perceive it to be based on “killer” physical looks, dance movements and taped music. 

Photo 1: Park Hotel at the corner of Cameron Road and Chatham Road, Hong Kong (c 1969). Complete refurbishment only took place in the late 1990s.

When I did this 1981 Helen Reddy number with a 3-man band in Hong Kong one evening winding down after a busy business day, an off-duty Hong Kong based air stewardess came up to me and asked: “You play that song again?” her voice cracking and eyes tearing at the same time.  She must have thought I was the resident musician at the Park Hotel’s Marigold Bar but it wasn’t the case.  I can’t say I remembered her name because that was so long ago.  Don’t ask me how I knew about her broken relationship:  When you work long enough in the professional music circuit, you know the saga of girl-friend and a married man. 

Now would you like to know what I was doing at the Park Hotel? 

In the 1980s, Cathay Pacific (CX) offered its passengers on trans-Pacific flights free accommodation/free airport transfer.  To cite an example take the Sing/HK/SFO return ticket.  It was a great travel arrangement whereby CX allowed one to break a long haul journey twice and to spend some time in Hong Kong.  To go back to my original story, I bumped into a good friend, Josie at the Park Hotel.  Josie Varghra, a talented Filipina singer and I worked together at the Club Elite in Singapore in the mid-70s when I was her back-up musician.

Photo 2: Captain of this CX flight guides his Tristar for a smooth landing at Kai Tak International Airport (c 1989).  Even CX has a great commercial called “Love’sTheme” with a distinctive Sounds of Philadelphia (SOP) touch. 

As a one-time lounge pianist of the 1970s, I whole-heartedly agree that music and love is one and the same thing.  Though we can share our feelings through writing, painting or sculpture, love expressed through music is so different.  It is not just the feelings of the singer/instrumentalist but of the lyrics and the tune harmoniously coming together conveying a powerful message. 

Photo 3: Though music scores were pricy, they were appreciated by music enthusiasts who needed them to learn new love songs.  I didn’t have much use for them as I “depended” on my ears to recall the songs (c 1988)

There were songs for being in love or when there was a breakup.  You could feel the passion and tempo of romance or loneliness up in the air.  I have found lovely couples of all ages starring at each other eyes, you find the guy pulling the girl closer to him and holding hands.  Sometimes a light kiss on the lips was even planted.  Over at the long bar, lonely drinkers would just stare hard at their half empty glass of Jim Bean.  This is all so awesome. 

Photo 4: The Marigold Bar with Lana and Kris, two Filipina singers back-up to Josie during their afternoon rehearsals (c 1985)

Here is what I think are some of the great love songs of my generation - you probably can make your own selection too; 

Para Decir Adio – Jose Feliciano

The Greatest Love of All - Whitney Houston

Feelings – Albert Hammond

I don’t Know How To Love Him –Helen Reddy

I Just Want To Stay Here - Edyie Gorme and Steve Lawrence

Torn Between Two Lovers – Maureen McGovern

Love Me For A Reason – The Osmonds

I Won’t Last A Day Without You – The Carpenters

Feel Like Makin Love – Roberto Flack

The Way We Were – Barbara Streisand

I’ll Never Love This Way Again – Dionne Warwick

I’m Stone In Love With You – The Stylistics

If I am asked to pick, I believe The Stylistics had the most number of popular romantic songs like, Loving You, Let’s Put It Altogether Again, I Can’t Give You Anything But Love (good for Salsa dancing), You Are Everything, You Make Me Feel Brand New, Star On A TV Show, Miracle, You Are Beautiful, Sideshow.  What was their unique selling proposition?  Singing in harmony – one is a falsetto voice - with strings and brass backing.  My personal favourite has to be “I’ll Never Love This Way Again” by Dionne Warwick when I listened for the first time in a hotel room in Union Square, San Francisco.  This song set me reminiscing of one person I really (2) liked.  Thanks to Facebook, we bumped into each other again. 

Why not try Youtube to listen to all those memorable love songs again, including those from Billy Ocean, James Ingram and George Benson.

Whilst the 1970s thru the 1980s offered diversity in love songs, this progressively disappeared by the mid-1990s, probably when people went crazy over Michael Jackson hands-on-his-crotch dancing.  There was no more “live music”.  It became piped-in and DJ music.  You couldn’t find a good crowd size except at noisier places like pubs, clubs and skyscraper bars. 

Photo 5: Love at the sky bar.

Where there used to be music in the hotel lounges, they have changed to become more business-like; you only go there for business discussions.  There are worse situations I have seen such as when a lounge is turned into a holding area for tour groups.  I guess in Singapore people are getting more into the eating fad instead of listening to music.  By doing so, they could be driving up the calories instead of the testosterone level.  Perhaps I might after all stumble on the problem with our national procreation strategy.

What was it like inside that machinegun pillbox?

When I took that photo of the machinegun pillbox at Pasir Panjang Road in my previous post, it did not occur to me to go near and take a shot of the inside or even try to see if it was still possible to go inside.

Anyway, reader Peter Stubbs has kindly sent me two photos of the inside of this particular pillbox which he took in 1995 to share with readers of Good Morning Yesterday. Thank you for the photos Peter.

“I apologise for the quality, but I did not have a decent camera in those days - 1995. Not only that, but the ones I had did not have wide angle lenses which is what I really needed inside. For some reason, which I cannot remember, I could not photograph inside the commanders copula in the centre of the pillbox. No. 1 is the right-hand side and No.2 the left-hand side. The white area on No.2 is the partition wall. I keep meaning to try to get inside and take some new photos when I visit Singapore, but never remember. Maybe next time.

Just below the firing slit is a wide shelf on which weapons would have been placed. The weapons used inside would have been the Lee Enfield No. 3 or No.4 Rifle, which were standard British issue and the Bren Light Machine Gun. Both fired the .303 Round, and both were very accurate weapons indeed.

I believe that this pillbox would have been manned by men of the Malay Regiment in February 1942. It was in their area of operations - see attached map."

By the way, Peter hosts an interesting website about Military History. Do check it out here.

Views from Singapore’s tallest building

In my previous post, I asked you for the identify and location of the ‘Nishat’ building in this photo by George Shaw taken around 1947. Well some of you correctly said that it was a cinema. In George Shaw’s photo album, he has these words neatly written next to the photo; INDIAN CINEMA (Hindustani only)

As for its exact location, we can confirm that it was indeed at Waterloo Street from this picture taken by Arthur Poskit in 1947. It’s the one with the dark roof. In Arthur’s album, these words were scribbled below the photo; “View from the Cathay directly down Bras Basah Road.

In fact, from this photo, we can see a few familiar buildings:

a) The Saint Joseph’s Institution – now converted to Singapore Arts Museum
b) The Cathedral of the Shepherd, and
c) The Raffles Institution – sadly demolished years ago to give way to Raffles City

Can you identify other places from this photo?


Below are a few more photos taken from the roof top of Cathay Building around 1947. Again, we should thank Arthur Poskitt, Russ Wickson and Peter Chan for generously sharing these photos with us.

This photo by George Shaw is in the direction of the National Museum (Thank God they did not demolish it when they built that tunnel)

This photo by Arthur Poskitt is in the direction of Selegie Road and Prinsep Street.

This photo from Peter Chan was taken in 1945 and its shows Selegie Road viewed from the balcony of the Cathay Building.

More views of Singapore’s tallest building

In my previous post, I showed you several views of the Cathay Building in 1947 or thereabouts. Below at two more photos.

Photo No. 1

This was sent to me by Peter after reading my article. These are his comments (in blue).

This was taken in June 1946 from an RAF aircraft. Cathay Building is viewed from Kirk Terrace. There is Amber Mansions and parts of Clemenceau Avenue in the background. Notice that the site where the Supreme House (now called Park Mall) along Penang Road is empty land.

You can also see:

a) The Sacred heart Church @ Tank Road,
b) United Engineers (tall chimney) around Mohd Sultan Road,
c) Orchard Presbyterian Church,
d) Fort Canning.

From what I read in my grandfather's notes, the British Army requisitioned all the warehouses/godowns around Pulau Saigon, Mohd Sultan Road, Roberston Quay for their logistic base after the recapture of Singapore from the Japanese, The tongkangs will sail up the Singapore River after collecting all the military cargo from Keppel Harbour.

Later the British Army decided to build their own base instead of renting from the Chinese merchants. This new place was called Alexandra Camp which is now Dawson Estate and Prince Philip Avenue.

Talking about the Amber House, I recall an experience there in the 50’s. My father brought me to visit a dentist at a unit facing the Orchard Presbyterian Church. I remember the building being very ‘solid’ and having green colour stained glass windows. The name of the dentist was Dr Woon (or maybe Oon). Anyway, I was so terrified that I absolutely refused to let the dentist remove a rotten tooth. Thank God, my teeth today are still in good condition. And my children have no fear at all of the dentist.

Photo No. 2

Here’s a quiz for you. This photo shows the Cathay Building in the distant background. It was from the George Shaw collection sent to me by Russ Wickson.

Next to the photo were scribbled some words. I will reveal them later. First, can you identity the ‘nissen hut’ building and the street shown in the foreground?

Tallest Building in Singapore

Which was the tallest building in Singapore in 1947? Without even checking the history books, I daresay, it was the Cathay Building. Looking at the old photos taken by Arthur Poskitt and George Shaw in and around 1947, I saw several of this grand old dame.

According to its official website, up to 1955, pilots flying into Kallang Airport often used the 79.5 metre-high Cathay Building as a landmark for their final approach. It was also Singapore’s first air-conditioned theatre.

Below are three photos taken by Arthur Poskitt in 1947. Descriptions by Peter Chan.

Photo no.1 - Viewed from Raffles Museum at Fort Canning

Photo no.2 - Viewed from Stamford Road near Orchard Road Presbyterian Church

Photo no.3 - Viewed from YMCA now SMU campus.

Below are two photos taken by George Shaw. The year was around 1946 to 1948. Descriptions by George Shaw.

“Cathay” – HQ of Nippon War Staff. HQ of British (SACSEA) … anyone know what is SACSEA?

“Cathay” – from Bras Basah Road

Below are two photos taken by Lam Chun See in April 2010.

Viewed from Bras Brasah Road

Viewed from Orchard Presbyterian Church

Recently, during the Chinese New Year period, I joined my ex-colleagues from NPB for a ‘lo-hei’ dinner at the Cathay Restaurant. I was truly amazed at how much Cathay has been transformed. It is now an ultra-modern shopping complex with lots of young shoppers. The restaurant itself is much smaller than in 1986 when I attended my younger brother’s wedding dinner.

As for the movies, I can only recall two, Chariots of Fire and Pete’s Dragon. And of course there was the memorable Kodak advertisement with Paul Anka singing Times of Your Life.

Akan Datang (coming soon) … views from Singapore’s tallest building

** History of Cathay Building at Singapore Infopedia