Penang 1960s

I loved visiting Sandycroft in Penang for our holidays in the 1960s and we used to have a great time touring around the island.

Many servicemen and their families were stationed there and their lives were very similar to ours in Johore Bahru.

David Yap kindly sent me some photos from Penang in the 1960s recently and I hope to include them in this blog over the next few weeks.

The first photo shows two girls queuing for a cone from the ice cream man. Although, this is a different contraption from the one in my dad's cine films, there was one of these bike-type trolleys that toured the estate where we lived at Johore Bahru.

The second photo shows the Balloon Man. Now I've seen this photo, I'm reminded how there was a similar trolley bike that came around our estate and inflated balloons with helium, ideal for parties and Christmas. This street looks so much like ours did, that it could almost be the same place.

It's funny there seemed to be someone supplying every service that you needed at the time, all from the back of a bike!

The third photo shows the local fruit seller who appears to be selling oranges, bananas, melons, rambutans, durians and all the other fruits you got in the Far East at the time. From this picture, I can imagine that smell of fruit on the market stalls that were so common in Singapore at the time.

There are many more of David's photos and I hope to include them soon.