Our local postman

Liz Garcia kindly sent me a photo of her postman who delivered to her home at Jalan Chendera at Serene Park, Johor Bahru in the late 1960s.
We weren't too far away in Jalan Wijaya and it would be funny if this was our postman too!
There are a few things that I remember the postman delivering. One was sweets and sherbet from my gran in Seaham Harbour in England. My brother also rembers her sending us Easter Eggs but they were all broken by the time they reached us. I also remember the 'Letters Home' reel-to-reel tapes that would go back and forwards between us and our gran. I wish that we still had them all now. I think that maybe we recorded over the same one over and over again. The only tape that still survives has me pretending to be my toy talking tin robot, singing songs from school and letting gran know what we'd been up to that day. It's certainly a lot different to the technology of today!
Liz remembers a lot of things that I remember and writes;
'I remember the 'gardeners' with their scythes and also the man who cycled around the estate selling bread and cakes and a van in the evening from which I had my first taste of nasi goreng. I'm attaching a photo of the postman - or as we used to call him "the pejabat pos man". He was always a welcome sight bringing letters from my husband when he was away (which was most of the time) and from the UK.'
We took many photos while we lived at Jalan Wijaya but never thought to take photos of the postman, the nasi goreng man or other unusual sights. Film was quite expensive back then to get developed but, even so, we still have many wonderful photos to look back on.

Tiger Balm Gardens

I love this photo taken at Tiger Balm Gardens which shows my brother, Alan, me and our mum. I look very little so I suppose the photo was probably taken in 1965 when I would have been 4 years old. All I remember about the day was that it was quite a job for me getting on that rhinocerous! My dad had probably quickly put me on its back before taking the picture with our Kodak 127 Brownie. I remember that there were signs everywhere, in both English and Chinese, asking people to keep off the exhibits. I don't think that anyone ever took any notice though!
Last time, I was at the gardens in 1990, there was no sign of the rhino and the gorilla at the main gate had also disappeared. I know that the gorilla has been re-instated, with his fierce pointed teeth filed down, but I wonder if the rhino ever made a reappearance?

One for the Birds

Thanks to my good friend in Singapore, James Seah, and Dr Tan Wee Kiat for kindly sending me a lovely book this week called 'One for the Birds'. It features images of banknotes and stamps from Singapore, many of which I can remember from when I was a boy in the 1960s (seems a long time ago now!).
I think I've mentioned before in my blog that I once had a wonderful collection of stamps from all over the world. With my dad being in the Navy, he would send home stamps from every country he visited. I also had a lovely collection of stamps that we'd collected in Singapore, Malaya and Penang. However, sometime in the 1970s, they all disappeared. I can't remember if they were given away, swapped or (hopefully not) thrown away. I certainly wish I had them all now!
This lovely colourful book certainly brought back happy many memories for me. I doubt that stamps are much collected by kids nowadays but back then every boy seemed to have a collection.
It's a wonderful book and I'll certainly treasure it.

Nostalgia sites on the internet

There are many nostalgic sites on the internet remembering Singapore and Malaya as it once was. Many show old photos and include people's memories of the time. There are quite a few such pages on Facebook too but by far my favourite is 'On a Little Street in Singapore'. If you haven't seen it already, please check it out and join. There are many photos that you won't have seen before and every day, more and more people are joining and adding their memories to the page.
Singapore has certainly changed a great deal since we were all there in the 1950s and the 1960s but 'On a Little Street in Singapore' shows it as it once was.

Home movie from 1967

Here's a lovely home movie that's on Youtube which features Singapore in 1967. It's certainly a lot clearer than our home movies! It brings back a lot of memories of that time. I loved the monkeys at the Botanic Gardens and I'd forgotten quite how many of them there were, always pestering you for food.

The next scene shows Tiger Balm Gardens and it's just how I remember it, complete with the huge gorilla at the entrance.
Next, there's a scene of all the sampans and bumboats on the Singapore River. This area has certainly changed over the years.
There's shots of the streets, the cars and the people. It's one of the best movies I've seen of Singapore from that time.
Hope that you enjoy it and hope that it brings back happy memories for you too.

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!).

Foodage

There's an excellent series showing on Okto television in Singapore at the moment. It's called Foodage and is shown at 8pm on Thursday evening. It traces Singapore's food history in the years since independence. Through collective personal memories, home movies and photos, the series recaptures the lifestyle and food trends of the past.
It features many of my friends and bloggers from Singapore reminiscing about food sellers, markets and the many changes over the years.
The show really captures how Singapore was in days gone by. The country has changed vastly and there are many clips of old buildings, kampongs, Tiger Balm Gardens and all the other places that we remember from our childhood.
If all goes well, I'll be in the episode shown on the 18th August (the day before my 50th birthday!). I've seen the first episode but I'm not sure I'll be as good as my other bloggers have been!



Here's a clip from episode 2 showing The Wise Old Owl - Unk Dicko. Dick Yip sings and plays the ukelele. Excellent!



Here's another clip, this time showing my good friends, James Seah and Dick Yip.
If you're in Singapore try to catch it and, if you're not in Singapore, let's hope that it will all pop up on YouTube eventually.