Christmas 1965

This photo was taken within the Naval Base in Singapore at Christmas 1965 when I was 4 years old. Beside me on the float is Debbie Sharpe who lived near us at Jalan Wijaya. I remember most of this day quite well. There was a party for the kids with lots of food and jelly and excitement when the Naval Base Santa Claus arrived. They would call out your name in turn and you would then get a present from Santa, who was, of course, someone from the Naval base with a false cotton wool beard! I remember my present was a camera and I think it lasted till I got home and then it fell apart! There were lots of games and then in the evening, there was a film show, shown outside. I remember that the film was Pinocchio and this probably sticks in my mind because a kid nearby was sick after eating too much party food. It was a horrible smell but I think I stayed till the end of the film. Most of the other kids just wandered off! Once the film had finished, it was time for the fireworks. The firework shows seemed amazing then. The rockets would go up and little plastic soldiers on parachutes would shoot out of the end and float to the ground. I've never seen anything like them since. All the boys would run around collecting the parachutists to take home though they could be pretty hard to find in the dark. All the Naval personnel really went out of their way to make the day a happy time for the kids and we all had a great time. It seems strange now spending Christmas on such a warm, humid day. Certainly a lot different from cold, wet England!

Sandycroft Home Movie 1966

Here's another home movie taken at Sandycroft Leave Centre in Penang.
This one starts with the Butterworth ferry crossing over to Penang. I wonder if this was the year my dad hired a car and drove up to Penang from Johore Bahru as I don't think we would have taken the car ferry otherwise. Alan and me can be seen on deck. After views of the river, the film cuts to my dad and Alan in the sea on our lilo at Sandycroft. Everyone had lilos in those days! Alan's got his diving mask and snorkel on. My dad had one and used to go spear fishing with one of those spear guns that you used to see in films like James Bond in the 1960s.

The next shot shows me building a sand castle on the beach and then there's shots of the Leave Centre. Everyone who visited there will remember the red and yellow umbrellas. The seats are where we'd have our breakfast and lunch brought out from the nearby cafe. It's also the spot where we saw everyone run out of the sea when someone shouted, 'Shark!' I think I mentioned before that it turned out to be a school of dolphins!
Next we're blowing bubbles up by the chalet where we stayed and then there's more shots of the Leave Centre which shows the children's paddling pool. We were always in there. Then Alan, mum and me are sat on the front while Alan continues swimming. There are more shots of the Leave Centre and then dad walks me along the beach. Then we all set off to go out and I think we pass that tiny Toyota that dad drove us up in.
Next, we're playing golf in a park. The film of the surrounding countryside shows just how much jungle was still in place at the time. I wonder what it looks like nowadays?
Next, we're back on the beach at Sandycroft and Alan is being buried in the sand by dad. The bucket that ends up on his head is one of those buckets that you used to get free when you bought washing up powder.
Then there's just shots of us swimming in the sea and finally, mum films a water skier going by because she'd been water skiing the day before!
I've never seen any other footage of Sandycroft from the 1960s so I hope you enjoy these short films.

Our Triumph Herald

This photo shows me and Alan in front of the family's Triumph Herald. If my memory is right, this picture was taken in the Botanical Gardens in Singapore in about 1967.

The car had leather seats and a walnut dashboard. We must have travelled all over the place in that car. It's funny, if I ever get in a car when it's very hot and it has leather seats, the smell takes me straight back to Singapore. It's funny how your mind works, isn't it? The same smell also reminds me of the Mercedes taxis that we used to travel in whenever we were in the city.

I have the original receipt for the car. It cost $1,206 when my dad bought it. The receipt is dated 27th June 1966, which is strange, because we moved to Singapore and Malaya in January 1965 and I don't remember us having any car previous to this one. I'll have to ask my dad about it! Does anyone remember the Hong Heng Company?

The car number plate was SP 3040. It was a lovely car and was white with a red stripe down it. It would have probably been very modern then. We went all over in it, I remember one day when we were driving in Singapore and we got hemmed in by lorries on both sides. The driving always was crazy there, it's probably worse today! Does anyone remember how the motor cyclists used to drive with their jackets on back to front? I'm not sure if this was to cut down the wind or to keep the rain off.

Apart from visiting places like Jason's Bay, Johore Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, Tiger Balm Gardens etc, I've also got fond memories of visiting all those Esso garages so we could put a 'tiger in our tank!' I loved all those free gifts especially the Tiger Tail!

It would have been lovely to have brought the car home with us. I can't remember what happened to it but I doubt it's still going today. It would be nice to think that someone in Singapore is still driving it around but I somehow doubt it!

More Home Movies - Tiger Balm Gardens

This home movie starts with a trip to Tiger Balm Gardens. Sorry that the quality isn't too great. You should be able to make out all those statues that you remember from the 1960s. There's one bit where we climb down and ride on the animals, something that was frowned upon by the owners at the time! I think the shot of us sitting in front of the huge gorilla would have been taken on the same day as the photo that appears on the front cover of my book, 'Memories of Singapore and Malaya'.
Notice how close the water was to the park in those days. It's not like that anymore with all the land reclamation that's taken place over the years.

Seen in the film are the statues of Confucious, the huge Buddha which everyone rubbed his belly for luck, and the giant Cobras! It didn't look like the same place last time I visited in 1990.
The movie ends up with me on a beach, I think, in Sandycroft in Penang.
This joins up to another movie which, if I haven't posted it already, I hope to add to the blog very shortly.

Water fight

Here's a photo of Alan and me, in our back garden at Jalan Wijaya, having a water fight! The year must have been about 1966. This was certainly a good way to cool down though I always seemed to end up the most wet! Our den is on the left of the picture. We'd made this out of old packing crates that we found outside a house in Jalan Dato Sulaimin where a new Naval family had just moved in. I remember us rolling these crates all the way home. Mum and dad didn't seem to mind at the time though I can't remember how long it stayed there for. Also, in the picture, you can see the open drain that led around the house to the monsoon drain at the front. I remember that I had a pet fish that I'd bought in one of the shops nearby. It died but mum decided not to tell me and flushed it down the toilet. Of course, we were playing in the garden and we saw it's journey along the drain! I wasn't that attached to it though - I'd only had it a week! Someone reminded me how all the kids in Singapore and Malaya used to just wander around in their pants because it was so hot and here I am proving it. I never wore shoes either though I wore flip flops if I was going over to the shops. Maybe that's why my feet are so big and wide now!

More Tiger Balm Gardens

Here's a few postcards from the 1960s featuring Tiger Balm Gardens. It's been knocked around a bit so probably doesn't look quite like this anymore! The first picture features the lovely ornate entrance to the garden. In the 1960s, this had the words, 'Tiger Balm Garden' written on it though, in later years, this was changed to 'Haw Par Villa'. Above the writing was a brightly painted tiger. As you walked up to the gate, you could see the sea on your left but, with land reclamation, the water is now much further away. I think on the right of this picture was where the gorilla statues stood. Every visitor to the gardens probably had their photo taken there!

The second photo shows the bottom entrance. The park seems very busy and most of the people are Chinese and I can only spot one Western visitor. There's a stall selling cold Coca-Cola on the right hand side of the picture and the stall on the left seems to be selling fruit. The third photo shows a temple in the middle of the park. There's a statue of a Buddha on top. I remember playing inside this pagoda when I was small and my dad filmed this on his cine camera. I'll add

the movie later. The bridge on the left of the picture was above where all the animal statues were and these included a giant frog, a turtle, a hippo and a walrus. We loved playing on them when we were kids, even though there were signs saying, 'Keep Out!' The final picture shows my favourite statues in the park, the gorillas. The statues here have barbed wire in front of them, not to keep the gorillas in, but to keep the visitors (probably English ones!) off the exhibits! This deadly barbed wire was later replaced with a fence. In the background is the Buddha statue that appears in the previous picture and what looks like a statue of a toucan. The gardens had several different areas. I remember there was an Antipodean part featuring kangaroo and emu statues and other areas that incorporated Chinese legends, history, folklore and mythology. There were also statues of Confucius, reindeer, rhinos, zebras and many other brightly painted animals.

 Also, there were giant Buddhas and the notorious Ten Courts of Hell which was not for the squeamish! I think there was a warning outside. I don't think children were let in anyway and I never bothered with this part of the park even when I went back in 1990. When I returned in 1990, the gorilla statues had disappeared, there was a huge dragon ride and a statue of a tiger driving a car. It seemed to have lost a lot of its appeal since the 1960s and almost didn't seem like the same place. It's recently been refurbished but I don't suppose it'll ever quite be the same as the place I have such fond memories of.

More photos of Sandycroft Leave Centre, Penang 1960s

I was asked to upload a few more photos from Sandycroft Leave Centre in the 1960s, so here they are! If you attend Dalat School which stands on the same spot, you may be able to recognise some of the areas in the photos. The first one was taken by my brother with our Kodak 127 camera looking down towards the children's swimming pool. I believe the cinema was off to the right. Just past the pool was the area where the beach was and we took boat trips from a jetty on the right.

The second photo is of the bar area. You can tell that all the Forces personnel here have just come straight from the beach! Plenty of Tiger Beer on tap and a juke box on the right. The bar faced towards the sea and I think that the cafe and restaurant were joined to it. Look at that mural of the beach at Tanjong Bungah. I remember walking past the bar on the way to the arcade, I think that it had large windows looking out towards the sea.

The third photo shows the children's pool area again. We used to always play in there, it wasn't very deep. Sometimes, we would even take the lilo in! The fourth photo shows the area on the right that, I think, was the arcade. Lots of 'shoot-em-up' games and slot machines. If you were lucky to win, you had to find the arcade owner, who was Chinese, and show him the machine to verify this before he would pay out the money.

 The problem was, and he knew this, that someone always wanted to play the machine in the meantime! The tables,chairs and umbrellas are where people would have their breakfast and lunch from the nearby cafe.

The final photo was taken by my parents friend, George Holden. His three children can be seen playing on the swings on the right. Incidentally, if you click on any of the photos in the blog, you can see them much larger. I hope to post more photos of the Leave Centre and Penang shortly.