Freehold terrace houses in Bukit Timah District 10 going for only $28,000!!!

No, there is no typo error. Neither am I lying.

However, if you want to grab one of these you really have to rush. In fact you need to hop into a really fast car like this DeLorean from the movie Back to the Future.

Recently I met a retired neighbour during my regular evening brisk walking exercises. We walked past the stretch of open ground near Methodist Girls' School which I blogged about and I asked him if he remembered what this place was like before. Then I told him about Good Morning Yesterday and he told me that he still had a copy of the original advertisement and product brochure of Lucky Park; the estate where we are staying in.

Straits Times advertisement dated 21 May 1968

Looking through the ad and the brochure, I learned a couple of interesting facts. Lucky Park, was originally meant to be part of Anamalai Avenue which, as you can see from the map below was meant to run parallel to Sixth Avenue. Comparing that with a present day map, you can see that there has been a change of plans.

Today, the name Lucky Park is seldom used and several roads have been built in this estate. Interestingly, all these roads bear names of plants beginning with the letter L; for example, Lily Avenue, Lemon Ave, Lotus Ave, Lantana Ave and so on.

Scan of Lucky Park product brochure. Sorry it's torn.


Akan Datang: My neighbour’s 1954 PSLE certificate. I bet the folks at NHB and NLB would like to lay their hands of this one :)

Public Bus Transport (Part 2) - Singapore’s First Air-conditioned Public Bus (by Peter Chan)

When STC was placed under receivership, we heard from the grapevine there were many things that could be salvaged for free. So my cousin and I quickly made our way to the Mackenzie Road office, which is now the secondhand car dealer mart to ask for a specific memorabilia, the Isuzu or Nissan bus.

Were you thinking that we were planning to steal the bus?

We saw people taking away company letter-heads and envelopes, ticket-punchers, uniforms, bus destination screens, badges, conductor journey waybills, unused bus tickets, photos, etc. The STC employees were clearly not interested to keep anything and we sensed they lost all confidence working for the company. For many, it was the only company they had worked for in their entire career. Some 800 workers lost their jobs.

Fig 1: Left Photo; Paint-work schema for the front body. Right Photo; Passenger-seat configuration (circa 1969)

I had my first ride in an air-conditioned bus in 1962. It was the Singapore Traction Company (STC) using the Japanese Isuzu bus. STC used a single-deck, one door and one emergency exit Isuzu bus. Although it was a short ride from Collyer Quay to the Victoria Memorial Hall; for 10 cents it was sheer ecstasy because it was the first air-conditioned bus in Singapore albeit for not more than a year.

More Isuzu were later introduced such as the non-A/C version single deck, dual door and one emergency exit version. These newer STC buses were far better in terms of cleanliness than the Chinese bus companies. You could tell by one look at the stainless steel riveted floors and the passenger seats. The Chinese bus companies still stuck to the non-A/C Albion Victors, Leylands and Dennis Falcon buses.

Fig 2: Left Photo; A SBSTransit double-deck VOLVO bus (2008). Right Photo; STC Single-deck, dual-door and one emergency exit Nissan bus (circa 1969)

My next similar bus ride was during the 1968 December school holidays. My cousin and I took a Service 12 travelling from Airport Road to Bras Basah Road, getting off in front of the Raffles Hotel. 1970 was the very last time on STC Service 18A from Serangoon Gardens Circus to Finlayson Green. Both occasions were a different kind of experience from the one in 1962. By this time the Isuzu buses were replaced by the Nissan buses and were no longer A/C.

The Isuzu and Nissan buses were the first Japanese rear-engine air-cooled models on Singapore roads. Due to frequent break-downs the A/C buses was withdrawn and replaced by non-A/C buses. When break-downs occur the bus driver took out one of the passenger seats and placed it at the rear of the bus to alert other traffic users. So that was the reason why I rode in a non-A/C bus although it was Japanese-made.

If passengers could not find a window seat, the best option was to stand just below the ceiling ventilation ducts. That way when the buses speed, fresh air could come in. Unlike their “poor cousins” like the old Albion Victors, these Japanese-made buses were environmentally-friendly; one never smelled the gasoline or inhale the exhaust fumes.

Fig 3: Old versus Junk? Left Photo; A Nissan bus for STC unloading at the PSA Wharf in Tanjung Pagar (circa 1968). Right Photo: A United Bus Company Service 172 passes the STC Depot in Mackenzie Road (circa 1971)

Fig 4: “Second Shot” of the same place but different time. Left Photo; Isuzu bus parked inside the Mackenzie Road Depot (circa 1965). Right Photo; The former STC depot is now a public car park (2008).

Today I can hardly find any non A/C SBSTransit buses, maybe perhaps on a Loop Service. Better still, we have plenty of SBSTransit single-deckers and double-deckers to choose.

**********************************************

Lam Chun See continues ....

It is strange how our brain tends to associate certain objects or names with places and events. Every time I hear the word Isuzu bus, I think of those that were parked at the bus terminus (in the old days we don’t have bus interchanges) at Prince Edward Road just opposite the Singapore Polytechnic Campus. In the early seventies, when I was studying there, we can hear these Isuzu buses noisily warming up their engines like forever in the morning. So loud was the din that even from across the road, we found it a great nuisance.

And then there is the Green Bus. That name immediately brings to my mind Bus no. 175 which we used to take to return to Safti on Sunday nights from Beauty World. In 1969 and 1970, when I was studying at National Junior College in Linden Drive, I used to take the Green Bus.

This is a photo somebody sent to me. I don’t know where he got it from. I suspect it is from the Memories of Singapore website but I couldn’t find it there. Anyway, I believe that green colour bus is a STC bus. Am I right Peter?

Public Bus Transport - No More STC Buses in Singapore!!!! (by Peter Chan)

Recently I did a spring-cleaning exercise and found torn and tattered pieces of an academic assignment dating back to 1971. Ms. Phua Soh Hoon, our Economics teacher gave the class a written assignment for the end-of-year school holidays and it had to be submitted on the first day of school the following year.

Adam Smith’s concept of the "invisible hand" - to refer to the ability of the market to correct for seemingly disastrous situations with no intervention on the part of government – was seemingly theoretical and difficult to comprehend until we found the Singapore Traction Company (STC).

Fig 1: Left; Sunday Times Headlines (circa 1971). Right; Singapore Traction Company shareholders report (circa 1973)

That assignment brings me back to an unforgettable Monday morning of December 6, 1971. A day earlier, the “Sunday Times” front page headlines screamed “No STC buses on the roads today”.

It would be a strange Monday morning. Instead of seeing a Green Bus Company #1, it was #170; #1 was replaced by #170. I saw more changes as more buses rolled into the bus bay. A Green Bus Company #2 was #172 and #171 for #4. Once in a while, I saw that familiar STC Albion bus travelling up to Bukit Panjang with its STC logo and corporate stripes on its green and silver body intact. More students than adults were waiting for buses each day. The bus conductor - each bus was a 2-man operation comprising a driver and a bus conductor - raised his voice to pacify confused passengers who were angry or frantically waving at every passing bus. Those who had read “Sunday Times” would have gotten news about what was to happen on the next day but for many, the public had no idea. There were no early public announcements by the authorities. Only the presence of the white safari suite bus inspectors at the bus-stops helped to calm the situation.

Fig 2: A Guy Arab Mark 4 from STC travelling down Shenton Way towards the Singapore Polytechnic. What is the name of the building is on the right of photo? (circa 1968)

As I lived in the Buki Panjang area, I had to get off at the Rex Cinema bus-stop which was the informal “interchange”1, 30 meters from the junction of Serangoon Road and the Bukit Timah Canal. This was an important place where Tay Koh Yat (#2, #3, #6 & #14A), Green Bus (#1, #2, #3, #4 and #5) and STC (#6) bus routes converged. With so many different and new service numbers, the crowd comprising adults and students swelled. The buses snaked to a halt at the bus-stop with congestion tailing back to Kampung Java Road.

Another change was STC bus conductors and drivers (Indians, Bengalis, Malays and English-educated Chinese were its primary employees) did not wear their regular khaki-colored uniforms and breast-pinned company badges. Instead they wore civilian white shirts and dark trousers. However they continued issuing the old STC tickets until many months later before switching to those issued by the 3 Chinese bus companies; “ABC Ltd, ABS Ltd and UBC Ltd”.

Fig 3: Prior to the days of on-line and scriptless trading, this is how a share certificate looks like (circa 1969)

On Dec 16 1971, STC was placed under receivership and as a consequence, 407 of its fleet of buses were sold to the other 3 bus companies. In FY’71, STC recorded a $9 million loss which first began in FY’65 with a small loss of $0.764 million. From 1965 to 1971, the only thing consistent of STC was its losses; each year became far worse than the previous year. In fact the company could have collapsed even earlier in 1967 but it was not in the shareholders’ interest to opt for voluntary liquidation.

December 6 was “Black Monday” for STC shareholders too. The counter was suspended on the Singapore Stock Exchange until its liquidation in 1973, by which time STC shares became zero value. I heard stories of many disgruntled shareholders who burnt their share certificates and laid the blame at almost everybody; the government, stock exchange and STC management.

After STC, we did not live long with the 3 Chinese bus companies because Singapore Bus Services (fore-runner of SBSTransit) was created in 1973 and culminating two years later with the “Restricted Zone” scheme. So I safely conclude that Adam Smith’s concept of the “invisible hand” cannot work in Singapore.

1 Little India is presently an MRT Station and by 2015 becomes an “interchange for the NEL and future DTL

Related Posts:

1) Masuk Dalam, Masuk Dalam

2) On the buses – Brian Mitchell

Where is the location of that artillery gun? The mystery deepens

I just received an email from Roger Hatchy. His email answers half a question, but raises another huge one.

Hello

You have certainly started something. I was with 12 Regiment, known as Hatchy, Roger-Hatchy, on the regimental site. I am also a member of servicepals.com.

I posted a photo of what I thought was the gun site that seems to have started a worldwide head-scratching contest.

I have found the photo that has the two personnel by the gun. I can tell you it was an RAF regiment gun from 63 Squadron RAF Regiment. The gentleman on the left is Archie Cairney and the other is not, at this moment, known. The website I found for this was given to me by a couple of friends while they were member of servicepals.com

If you look on the Royal Air Force Regiment Association website you will find to the left "Photos" with dates, the start photo is in the 1960-1970 album on page 3.

I have a few photos left from around 1963-1966. Lost most of the best ones. To my shame I was asked a few years ago to send them to someone. Peter’s name sounds familiar, I lost the email address.

When the Regiment first moved to Singapore I was with a gun detachment, but have no memories of its location. I then joined the Radar detachment, at the time we overlooked a cemetery and had to access the site past the cemetery. We them move the Radar to a hill to, if memory serves me, to the west /north west of airbase.

I can remember a gentleman trader that used to come around the sites on a bicycle trading soft drinks and snacks. How on earth he managed to get up to us on the second site amazed us all, 4x4 and 6x6 used to struggle, and the radar had to have two scammel wrecker to get it up there.

I will be posting some more photos to the regimental site soon. If you click on any of the photos already posted you will get access to all the photo I have uploaded to the share site.

Thanks for starting this, and thanks for a wonderful time while we were there.

Roger-Hatchy

Thanks to Roger, we now know that one of the two soldiers in Peter’s original Chestnut Drive photo is Archie Cairney of 63 Squadron RAF Regiment.

But where was this photo taken?

According to Peter it is Chestnut Drive. He wrote here:

The photo in my friend's blog was definitely in Chestnut Drive - I have a couple more and they are from Chestnut Drive area. I lived there for 25 years as a child. I had to wait until 2005 before I got hold of the photos from a friend in England. That AA unit was from the RAF but billeted in Tengah. RAF LAD 65 or 66 off my head.


But according to our British ‘lau pengs’ (that’s local lingo for old soldiers), it is near to Tengah. According to Ken’s description, it was off Choa Chu Kang, to the right, through a kampong, and up a steep hill with no proper road; and it had a commanding view of Tengah air base and the runway.

Should I trust the old soldiers’ memories of events 45 year ago or the 11-year old kid? Could it be that the soldiers that 11-year old Peter saw at Chestnut Drive was a totally different detachment?

Aaarh … this mystery is driving me (chest) nuts! I think this is the best time to call in the Second Shot detective, aka Icemoon.

Anyway, I would like to put up my own theory .. which of course needs further investigation.

I think Peter’s photo is in the Chestnut Drive area because if you look closely, there are a couple of red-tiled buildings on the right. When I checked the 1963 street directory, Chestnut Drive was already a developed area and Chestnut Drive was a proper metalled Road.

On the other hand the Choa Chu Kang area described by Ken Nichols was a kampong area without proper road. So how can there be red-tiled houses like those of Serangoon Gardens (in Hokkien it is called Ang Sar Lee or red roof).

1981 Map of Jalan Lekar – Choa Chu Kang Road vicinity. In this map, Jalan Lekar and Jalan Semangka are dirt tracks. But in the 1963 street directory, only a short stretch of Jalan Lekar is shown

My own guess is that the site our British friends referred to as H Sub was around the Jalan Lekar/Jalan Semangka area. According to my 1963 street directory, Jalan Lekar was just a small track of the main road which was probably a kampong then, and thus fitted Ken’s description. In fact even in my 1981 street directory, Jalan Lekar and Jalan Semangka were dirt tracks.

Ken also mentioned a nearby cemetery. I think that is still there today at Track 14 I have been to the nursery called Woon Leng at the upper end of Jalan Lekar and from there you can see the nearby hill where Farmart is located today. If time permits, I would go there this weekend and do a bit of recce to check out my theory.

Ex-British Servicemen visit Good Morning Yesterday

These past few days, this blog received many visits from ex-British servicemen. Apparently they were alerted to Peter’s article about the gun battery at Chestnut Drive. In particular, Ken Nichols and his friends recognized Peter’s photo and remember serving in Singapore in the 1960’s. This is what he wrote in the comments section:

Thank you for responding to my post, and to answer your question,…I found the link to “Good Morning Yesterday” here and I immediately became interested in Bukit Timah Heritage Trail - Gun Battery at Chestnut Drive because I am one of those British soldiers who served on one of those guns and I still have some very happy memories of those days in Singapore in the 1960s.

You have said the photo wasn’t taken at Tengah so perhaps my memory isn’t as good as it was, after all, it is 45 years ago since I was there but when I saw the photo I immediately thought it was of my site which was located some distance to the right of the road which you would travel on when approaching Tengah from the Singapore city direction.

To reach the site that I remember, you would need to follow a track leading off that main road which wound its way through a kampong and then you would negotiate a steep hill which was very difficult for the trucks to ascend until several truck loads of course gravel could be laid down. Once at the top of the hill the site had such a commanding view of RAF Tengah and the runway that I can remember actually tracking larger aircraft such as the American B52 and a British Vulcan bomber which visited Tengah about 1965 as they trundled down the runway during take-offs and landings.

And I remember there were kampongs located towards the base of the hill on three sides, but on the fourth side, although not visible to us from the top of the hill, was a cemetery which I can vaguely remember being instructed to avoid.

Incidentally, as a point of interest, if the photograph wasn’t of one of the Bofors gun deployed around Tengah then it would have to be either at Changi or Seletar because these three airfields were the only three locations where guns of that type were deployed

Cheers, Ken
Ken also remembers speaking to young kampong boys who came up to him. I wonder if he ever imagined that not much later, these boys would take over their role in defending Singapore.

At the same time, there is a discussion going on at this forum. One interesting question been discussed, with Peter actively participating is the location of this photo posted by Roger-Hatchy which I have downloaded below for your reference. I hope some of our readers here can recognize this place and help us to confirm where exactly it is. You do realize of course that this photo is 45 years old!

From my Inbox

On a different matter, I received a very pleasant email from Fred Steele who served in the Royal Military Police from 1961 to 1973. He was probably stationed at Gillman Barracks. This is what he wrote:

“I would just like to say how much I enjoyed reading your blog and bringing back happy memories of my days in Singapore and its wonderful people, they were perhaps the best days of my life, a thought which is shared by many of my friends as every year we hold a Singapore Reunion to chat about the ‘Good old days’. Perhaps you may like to view my own website.

Thanks Fred. I have visited your site and noticed that the photo of the kampong with pigs roaming about which I used in my previous article is in your photo gallery. I hope I have not inadvertently infringed on your copyrights. I did get permission from Tom O’brien to use images from his wonderful website Memories of Singapore for my blog.


Anyway, as Singaporeans, we feel honoured that our British friends have such strong and endearing memories of our little country after so many years. We thank you guys for your service in protecting this country, a role that we took over and have since passed on to our children.