Napoleon Solo

It seemed odd seeing Robert Vaughn appearing in Coronation Street this week and it reminded me when The Man From Uncle was the coolest show on tv. Alan and me would run around the garden at Jalan Wijaya in the 1960s pretending to be Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin. I always seemed to come out the worst if anyone got shot or was tied up! We had all the toys that came with the show including Man from Uncle badges, guns and annuals. The best toy you could buy at the time  was a Corgi Man From Uncle car which I remember our parents buying us at Sandycroft in Penang.

 I've still got it but it's seen better days. It would have been pushed over all the floors in Jalan Wijaya and crashed into walls and propelled up the garden. It got the same treatment when we got back home!

I wonder what other stars of 60s shows still pop up on tv? I can't think of many apart from William Shatner.

The Little Black Sambo

The Little Black Sambo was the first book that I ever read while attending the Royal Naval infant school at Kebunteh in Johore Bahru in 1965. I loved the book, especially its very colourful illustrations. It told the story of a small boy whose colourful new clothes, shoes, and umbrella are taken by four tigers in exchange for them not eating him. The tigers get jealous of one another and chase each other around a tree until they turn into butter. The boy collects his clothes and takes the butter home to his mother who then makes pancakes out of it. As a small boy, I believed that this could happen and there were quite possibly tigers in the jungle further up the street!
I would love to have a copy of this book but haven't seen one since the 1960s although I know it's regularly sold on ebay. The story was written by Helen Bannerman and published in 1899.
Over the years, the book and its title have been seen to have been racist and it has been rewritten and released with such titles as 'The Boy and the Tigers', 'The Story of Little Babaji', 'Sam and the Tigers' and 'Little Kim'. However, it has been republished many times with its original title and seems to be sold all over the internet and is still available on Amazon and other bookshops.
Of course, when I was a boy, I didn't realise it could be taken as being racist. I didn't even know what racism was. We were surrounded by people of all nationalities and we all got on pretty well. To me, it was just a lovely colourful book with characters I could imagine living not too far away from where I lived.

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.