Remains of my kampong

I have often been approached by students; usually from NUS or NTU, to assist them with their projects. Usually they found me through this blog or my Goodmorningyesterday Facebook Page. 

Much as I enjoy speaking to young people about the Singapore of my childhood, I usually turn down their requests because I simply could not afford the time. Besides students, my fellow nostalgia/heritage bloggers and I also get requests from media professionals and documentary producers. Usually, I would tell them that the information they are looking for; for example what it was like to visit the New World or Great World Amusement Park, can easily be obtained from their parents or older relatives and neighbours. If for certain reasons, they are not able to do that, I would accede to their requests. Here are two recent examples.

The first was a Malay boy from NUS who wanted an oral interview about the Chinese operas that used to be organised in our kampongs. The second was also from NUS. He interviewed me for his project about the everyday life of Chinese kampong folks. As part of his assignment, he produced a short video of the place where my home once stood. I share it with you here.

Post by Yang Sheng Syamsul.

PS - One thing I have always wanted to tell anyone who approached me for such assistance; but was too shy to say so openly, was this; if you want me to spend a few hours of my time to assist you with your project, shouldn’t you at least show your appreciation by purchasing a copy of my book? Even if you don’t read such books, you could give it to your parents as a gift, right?

Lost Roads – Lorong Panchar

Take a look at this photo. Do you know where it was taken?  The next time you travel along Sixth Avenue, from Holland Road towards Bukit Timah, look out for this place. It is near a bus stop before you reach the junction with Jalan Haji Alias and Laurel Woods Avenue.

(Former) Junction at Sixth Avenue

Did you know that this is actually the start of a road that used to run from Sixth Avenue to Holland Road? The other end of this ‘lost road’ was at the winding stretch of ‘old’ Holland Road, between Holland Green and the unnamed canal that flows from Bt Timah Canal to Ulu Pandan Canal. This second entrance has just been erased by ongoing construction; presumably to widen the canal as part of the Bt Timah flood alleviation project.

Former junction with Holland Road

And the name of this ‘lost’ road? Lorong Panchar.

 

A section of Lorong Panchar (From 1981 Street Directory).Click on image to see an enlarged view.

Lorong Panchar probably did not exist for long because I could not find it in my 1963 street directory. In fact, at that time (1963), Sixth Avenue was only a tiny side road that branched off Bukit Timah Road and did not join to Holland Road. And in my 1993 street directory, only a tiny section of Lorong Panchar was left. Hence I conclude that Lorong Panchar only existed for about twenty years or so. Unfortunately, even though I have been living in the Sixth Avenue area since 1986, I don’t have any recollection of this road.

From 1963 Street Directory. Lor Panchar not shown.

From 1993 Street Directory. Only a tiny section left.

A couple of year ago, my neighbour and I tried to bash through the forest that had covered Lorong Panchar, starting from the Sixth Avenue junction. He told me he had seen some durian trees there and also the remains of a huge tomb. Unfortunately the vegetation was too thick and we never found anything interesting save the shed skin of what must have been a pretty large snake. We finally emerged from the forest at a point near the canal next to Holland Plain.

 PS - Read about two other lost roads that I have blogged about in the past:

1) Lorong Jodoh off Farrer Road

2)  A stretch of Pioneer Road.

The old Pioneer Road

Here is the answer to the Old Roads Quiz (1).

This road was part of Pioneer Road near the junction with Tanjong Kling Road. I took this photo recently when I happened to stop at the SPC station for some petrol.

This petrol station used to be a BP station. Unless you are very young, you’d probably know that at one time, BP used to operate a number of petrol stations in Singapore before they sold their entire fleet of stations to SPC, the Singapore Petroleum Company.

This BP station was located near a sharp bend in Pioneer Road. Here is a 1981 map of the area. Can you spot the changes?

1) A part of Pioneer Road was straightened and joined to Jalan Buroh to form a straight multi-lane highway. Instead of a sharp bend in the road, it is now actually two roads at right angles to each other at this new traffic light junction. But both roads are called Pioneer Road.

2) Tanjong Kling Road has been shortened and part of it ‘taken over’ by the new Pioneer Road. Thus a short stretch of the old Pioneer Road has become redundant and fenced up.

In the old days, this stretch of Pioneer Road was a very dangerous place with high volume of heavy vehicles (traveling at high speeds) and no central road divider. It was also a bottle neck with many vehicles waiting to turn right into Tanjong Kling Road.

Can you guess what road is in the photo below?

It is Liu Fang Road viewed from Pioneer Walk. I took this photo this morning. As you can see, tremendous changes have taken place. There used to be many old factories here. One of them was called Guthrie Engineering. While waiting to get re-enlisted into national service, I spent few months doing a temporary job there. This factory, which manufactured electrical switchboards, wanted to fine-tune their costing system. So they hired me and another fresh Industrial Engineering graduate to do time and motion studies and set standard times for their operations. The factories have all been cleared and lots of civil engineering works is going on.

I also remember this place because it was where I did my 10 km running test during the final days of my OCS course in Safti. I have described this before here.

In the seventies, as you approached Pioneer Circus, (no AYE or fly-over in those days) you will see 2 big factories on the left. One of them is Black and Decker. What is the other one?

Hint: It belonged to a well-known US multi-national company. At that time, they were the biggest investors in Singapore, having (if I recall correctly) a total of 7 plants in Singapore. Do you know the name of this MNC?

I give you a hint. The plant in Pioneer Road was known as XX Hermetic Motors, and they had a plant in Toa Payoh called XX Consumer Electronics. The Toa Payoh plant was located somewhere near the present SPH complex.

Answer: GE or General Electric.

Well there you have it – a history-cum-geography lesson of the old Pioneer Road. I must say, I am a bit disappointed that none of you got the correct answer to my quiz in spite of the many hints. Let’s hope you do better next time.

Places I Remember (5) – Farrer Road

The photo below is of another roundabout in Singapore which had a fountain in it? Do you know where that was (assuming you have not read my earlier post)?

Yes, it was Holland Circus and it was located at the Junction of Holland Road, Farrer Road and Queensway. Today, this area looks very different. Holland Circus has been replaced by an underpass and flyover. And many new changes are taking place at Farrer Road. A great deal of construction work is going on to build the Circle Line and a new MRT station. And Farrer Court will probably be demolished soon.

Would you like to know what this area was like in the 1960’s and 70’s? I happen to be quite familiar with this area because I stayed in Farrer Road for 14 years up to 1986.

After our home at Lorong Chuan was acquired by the government under the Land Acquisition Act, we moved to an HDB apartment here in 1974. At that time, we heard that the HDB (Housing and Development Board) was introducing a new type of flat called a Five-room point block flat. (Non-Singaporean readers would be surprised to know that by a uniquely Singaporean method of numbering, there are actually only 3 bedrooms in our five-room flats) The first ones were being built at Bendemeer Road. The price was about $28,000. We applied but were unsuccessful. The second batch was being built at Farrer Road and we succeeded this time, but the price has gone up by a whopping 25% to $35,500. In case you think that was ‘peanuts’, I would like to put things in perspective. The compensation that we got from the government for our home in Lorong Kinchir - including the land, house, fruit trees .. everything - was only slightly more than $7,000. I seem to recall that there was some kind of balloting process. I am not sure if we got some priority because we were being evicted from our kampong.

Took this photo when I went for lunch with my siblings at Farrer Road last week. There’s a famous Westlake Restaurant which used to be very popular. We went to the nearby Chu Kee Cuisine instead.

I liked living in Farrer Road. But we were rather sad to have to leave our beloved dog Barney behind in the care of our cousins. They didn't move out until a few years later. Each time we went back to our kampong, he would be literally jump with joy to see us. But our cat Mimi was more fortunate as we were able to bring her along.

We lived in Block 5. Our unit was away from the main road. Very quiet and nice. Unlike the other HDB estates, there were a total of only eight blocks here, including the market and food centre. This area was quite exclusive, being in the prestigious District 10 area. All the other houses here were private homes. Not long after, they built the Farrer Court under the HUDC model.

Over the last twenty years, a lot of changes had taken place. Let’s see what I can recall.

Lorong Jodoh - I don’t think I even want to test you readers if you knew where was Lorong Jodoh. I bet none of you know the answer. Lorong Jodoh was a small Malay kampong just beside our flat at Block 5. I recall hearing some animal sounds (probably an orang utan) coming from the kampong in the mornings. It joined Farrer Road to Holland Road. I have jogged through this kampong a few times. I cannot recall when it was redeveloped.

Petrol stations - Next to Holland Circus, there used to be two petrol stations. One was Shell and the other BP. Next to the BP station was the BP recreation club. My brother-in-law worked for BP at that time and occasionally he brought us there to enjoy the facilities like table tennis, badminton and billiards.

American School – Along King’s Road, there used to be an American School. We often saw groups of American students waiting for taxis along Farrer Road opposite our flat. We told ourselves, these American kids must be quite loaded since they didn’t need to travel by buses. One interesting thing about the American School that I remember was the evenings when they had football matches – that’s American football, not soccer. The field was brightly lit up with floodlights and a lot of cheering and so on could be heard; like what you see in the movies.

Other changes at the stretch of Farrer Road near to the Adam Flyover, I have already blogged about earlier; like the post office and so on. So I would like to end by telling you a bit about Farrer Road in the fifties and sixties. I don’t know much actually, but I have visited my cousins who stayed in Farrer Road in those days. They lived in a kampong at what is probably the Queen’s Road area. I remember plucking the buah long long from a tree in front of their house. I also remember crossing the road to where the present Waterfall Gardens is to watch a Hokkien wayang show. Other than that I don’t recall much about those days.

Finally, before I go, I have another quiz question for you. You have probably heard that the apartments at Farrer Court were recently sold at the unbelievable price of $2.5 million. Do you know how much it cost when it was first sold?


Photo credit: Thanks to Tom O’Brien of Memories of Singapore for permissionn to use the photo of Holland Circus