Saturday 20 August 2011

Who's that on the telly?



When I was a little boy, lying in my bed in Jalan Wijaya at night, listening to the chirping crickets and the croaking toads in the monsoon drain, I couldn't have imagined the future - returning home to England and living a totally different life back there. I couldn't have imagined future inventions such as colour televisions, cassette players or walkmans. Now, there's mobile phones, ipods, ipads and, of course, the internet. All this weird modern stuff would have seemed like something from one of the many tv shows, that I loved watching as a kid in Singapore and Malaya, like Star Trek or Lost in Space. I certainly wouldn't have imagined that one day I'd  be on the telly myself talking about our life back then.
So, it was a strange experience when Sitting In Pictures asked me to record a bit for their show 'Foodage'. Sohkiak Chang had already sent me the first episode via the internet and I was pleased to see all the people that I'd made friends with in Singapore appearing on the show. To me, they seemed natural speakers and I enjoyed every minute of it.
My bit was recorded and put together with photos and cine film of my idyllic childhood and appeared on the show last Thursday. Sitting In Pictures did a very good job of making me look not as bad as I was (like a startled rabbit in the headlights of a car!) and I think that it all turned out okay.
Watching everyone else's memories and experiences of Singapore past just makes me want to return even more!
Hopefully, people in the UK will one day be able to see the show (you can close your eyes when my bit comes on!).

1 comment:

  1. Hi Derek,
    The snippets which featured yourself, family and childhood friends revived a lot of memories and nostalgia for the older viewers. We lived through those similar times and years albeit at different parts of S'pore island.
    Hopefully you get to see the other episodes too.
    Cheers!

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