Happy days in Singapore and Malaya in the 1960s

When I was putting together my book Memories of Singapore and Malaya in 2007, I asked my mother to write down her memories of our time there in the 1960s. I should mention that both my father and brother are called Alan:

'The weather was very hot and humid most of the time. When the Monsoon season came, it was heaven! We use to stand out in the rain splashing around just to cool down. The Amah thought we were mad as she was so cold.
The first week out there, I had Alan and Derek with me and we saw what looked like a float for a carnival. It was very colourful, covered in flowers and pictures with lots of singing and chanting and dancing around. I picked Derek up to see it and took Alan's hand, and said, 'Let's watch the parade!'.
We were enjoying it until someone said, 'You're not watching a parade - it's a funeral!'
We bought a Triumph Herald car which was white with a red stripe, SP 3040, from Hong Heng's in Singapore. We kept it for the three years we were there. Before that we hired a Toyota to go to Penang, it must have been one of their first models. Alan's knees almost touched the steering wheel and it had no petrol gauge. We never knew when we were going to run out!

We were never burgled but this happened to a few people. We had windows, with fancy steel bars, which meant you could leave them open at night but nobody could get in. However, the burglars would get a long bamboo pole, attach a hook to the end and put it through the slats and hook trousers to take money from them! Any small items that could be hooked disappeared!
The house opposite was owned by a Mr Lee and family. He had two wives, an older one and a younger one. He asked me over one night and I met Tunka Abdul Rahman, the first prime minister of Malaysia.
We hired a TV and, when we had it on, the local children would sit on the gate and watch it through the open doors! I think that’s where we first saw Star Trek. The programmes were hilarious. A prize in a quiz show was described as, 'A lawn mower - just the thing for lawn mowing!'.
They also had talent shows but they all came out and sang the same song, 'I went to your wedding', which was popular at the time but we grew to hate it! On another night they would all sing, 'Fly me to the Moon' and we were wishing they would, they were terrible!

Alan would spend his pocket money on Satay sticks from a Malaya man who made them on two biscuit tins filled with hot charcoal. He carried them across his shoulders on a long pole!
We would sometimes get a taxi from JB to Singapore, it only cost a dollar, which was two shillings and four pence, in English money. It was very cheap and we travelled in a Mercedes. We'd go to Orchard Road and visit the cold store at Robinsons, just to cool down. Next, we'd visit The House Of Tang, an oriental Aladdin's Cave. It was full of camphor wood chests, carvings and all sorts of things you'd never see in England at the time. We still have a Bali wooden figure that we bought there.

We often used the Brit Club. We'd all meet up there and enjoy the facilities. It was opposite Raffles Hotel, famous for it's gin-slings and also for the famous people who went there. Not that we ever ate in there, it was too expensive! Only the famous could afford the prices! Instead, we would have a swim at the Brit Club and they served meals as well, what a lazy and enjoyable life it was!
Change Alley in Singapore was a great place for bargains. You could barter all day and still get seen off! It was still cheaper than at home and that was all part of the fun. The Amah’s Markets were great as well. We use to go to one up the Bukit Timah Road, they were very colourful at night and the lights attracted huge moths. I bought two round green chairs there for the equivalent of 5 shillings each at English prices. We brought them home and we had them for years, they lasted well.

Once through the Naval Gate, we came to Sembawang with its small interesting shops. They would make a dress the same day for $2.50, about 6 shillings in English money. They would also make the kids' sandals for school. It was also the cheapest place to have suits made. In the evenings, the outside would change and eating stalls would be set up, Nasi Goreng was our favourite!

One of our favourite trips out was at the weekends. Les Sharp, who was a diver, had the use of a boat and a crowd of us would go on a banyan to a deserted beach, taking barbeque stuff with us. We had an old parachute that we managed to drape around for shade. We had a go at water skiing which was great until you had to let go then you thought of all the 'nasties' lurking beneath and wished the boat would hurry back!
I still remember the awful smell of the Durian fruit, it was supposed to taste great but the smell put us off! All of Jalan Ah Fook didn't smell very sweet. I think it was partly to do with the market there and the heat. We named it 'Sweet Water Canal'! At night, outside the market and all the way along Jalan Ah Fook, the shopkeepers just opened up their canvas beds and slept outside their shops. They
didn't seem to suffer from insect bites like the rest of us. I think they had them trained to just bite the foreigners!
We had three wonderful years there. We could have stayed longer but wanted to get back. As soon as we were hit by bad weather and icy cold wind when we returned, we all just wanted to go back!'

Eating out in Singapore in the 1960s

When I was putting together my book More Memories of Singapore and Malaya several years ago, my father recalled eating out in Singapore in the 1960s:

'One of the pleasant benefits of the upheaval of moving to Singapore was being able to eat out more. There was a huge variety of foods from all corners of the world - Malaysian, Singaporean, Thai, Indian, Chinese, French and even English if you were hard up. Nowadays, all of these different dishes are fairly commonplace but I doubt that any of them have the original flavours and spices that you found in Singapore and Johore Bahru. Our favourite eating place had to be George's Steak House in

Johore Bahru. During our time there, I must have worked my way through the whole menu! There were no steaks that I didn't try including fillet mignon, chateaubriand, fillet steak and carpetbaggers to mention a few. Then there was Lobster Thermidor, sweet and sour prawns and sweet and sour pork. We tried many times to get the sweet and sour recipes without success. I suspect they simply didn't understand us. Their curries were terrific and the curry on a Sunday lunchtime was out of this world. After being up at the Mess to the open-air cinema, we would call in for a barbecue outside the hotel in the garden. It seemed like everything it was possible to barbecue ended up on your plate. The only problem with the barbecue is while you enjoyed your food, the mozzies made a meal of you! Of course, all of these meals had to be washed down with copious amounts of Tiger Beer! The ladies seemed to prefer a Tom or a John Collins. Well, in such a warm climate, you had to make sure that you didn't get dehydrated!

The food everywhere had to be tasted to be believed. As always, Chinese food was always a front runner. Chinese New Year was celebrated in the Senior Rates Mess. Apart from the usual band, dance, raffle and so on, there was a ten-course meal. It sounds far too much to eat but over the evening, with frequent intervals for dancing or simply talking and joking, it was surprising how much you ate. I remember that three of the courses were different soups. One was bird's nest soup. I didn't like the look of it and didn't try it. The second was shark's fin soup. Again, I was a coward. The third was chicken soup. I've never been a fan of chicken soup but this one was really nice. Each soup was served in a tureen with a ladle and we helped ourselves. Everyone was enjoying it until a friend dug deep with the ladle and came up with a chicken foot!
Food stalls cropped up everywhere in the city. The tables and chairs were very basic and placed on the sidewalk or anywhere convenient. After making your choice, the food would be cooked adjacent to your table with flames and smells erupting from the fires and pans. I don't remember having anything I didn't like.
In town for the night, the ladies usually had a Singapore Sling - a mixture of gin, cherry brandy, cointreau and soda. A lethal mix! The main bar was run by Lingha. He was a friendly bloke, Chinese and very well made. He usually wore shorts that were very large and flapped around his legs. I'm sure that he must have been the inspiration for that Eric Morecambe sketch. He always rode a scooter. Not only did he ride his scooter to and from work, he also made 10am deliveries to all of the Malaysian Naval base. He would chug-chug in, wearing his voluminous shorts and flip flops, with many boxes perched precariously on the back. His curry puffs were

legendary. On nights when I was on duty, he would bring in my supper - usually Nasi Goreng and prawns wrapped in a banana leaf.
The prawns were huge, the Nasi Goreng delicious and the Tiger Beer wasn't bad either!'