Amahs

Here's a picture of Azizah, our Amah. All the forces families had an amah and she would help with the cleaning, ironing and looking after the kids. We loved Azizah and I wish that we'd kept in touch after we returned to England. I think she might have had difficulty writing English though and we knew little Malayan. Azizah was 25 years old in this picture and with her is her children, Fadzilah and Fadzil. The photo was taken at our home in Jalan Wijaya. Azizah lived somewhere near to us but I can't remember where. Alan told me that we once went to her house when it was one of her children's birthdays but I can't remember. I wish I could! I remember that Azizah taught us some Malayan. 'Terimah Kashi' which meant 'thank you' and 'sama-sama' which meant 'you're welcome'. She probably taught us some other phrases but I've long forgotten them. My mum would give stuff to Azizah including toys for the kids. She once asked her if she wanted some table cloths which she was very happy with. The next time we saw her, her husband was wearing them! Fadzilah and Fadzil used to come to our birthday parties, I don't think they spoke much English. I would love to know what happened to them all and I hope they remember us as fondly as we do them.

Rambutans

This photo shows how busy the markets were on the streets of Singapore during the 1960s. There were stalls everywhere and they would sell just about anything. It was all fascinating to me and, being smaller, I was on the same eye level as the fruit sellers who were sat next to their produce which was sometimes spread out on wicker mats. This was the first place that I ever saw and tasted a rambutan. I'd never seen anything like them and as we walked by, stall holders would offer me them. I couldn't refuse! I got to love rambutans in the three years that we lived in Singapore and Malaya. I can still remember the taste now, though I haven't had one since we returned home in 1968. I think that they sell them in Sainsbury's in the UK so perhaps I'll buy some one day!

  

From the top picture, it's amazing just how busy the street markets were. Everyone was happy to barter and the seller and the buyer always seemed happy with the final price. I can still recall the smell of those stalls - the fruit, the smell of wicker work and just the smell of Singapore in general which I'm sure is a smell long forgotten by many Singaporeans!

Toys

Here's that tree again, just a few months later in 1967! It's amazing how it grew.

This photo was taken on my 6th birthday and my present is sat beside me. It's a Cragstan tin talking robot. They're worth anything up to £1,000 nowadays but then they cost just a few dollars. There was a shop by the coldstore near to our house that always had toys in the window. There'd be robots, tanks, robotic clowns, battery operated cars - everything a kid could want.

We'd been to friends of my parents and their son had one of these robots and then I got one for my birthday. It could say many things including, 'I am a mighty man with 100 horsepower of energy inside me', 'I am bulletproof too, ha, ha, ha!', I'm leaving now to explore the outer limits, goodbye see you again!' and other things that I've long forgotten. To me it was fascinating. My brother had a walking tin robot that fired guns and we used to have mock battles between them. At the time, there was a Japanese cartoon on the tv called, 'Gigantor', which featured a giant robot. I'd never miss it.

Some inquisitive kids would take their tin toys apart and find that parts had been made from food tins and coke cans. Nothing was wasted over there! The toys there were amazing. I remember having a tin aeroplane, remote control car, trains etc. They all seemed far better than they are nowadays. If I'd kept all of these tin toys, they'd probably be worth a fortune.

I see I've scuffed my knee in the picture and also, I have socks on, we must have been going out somewhere! Incidentally, on the tape we sent to my gran, that I mentioned earlier, I'm saying, 'I am bulletproof too, ha, ha, ha!'

My tree

Here's a photo of me in our back garden at Jalan Wijaya in 1966. I'm sitting in front of my tree which, as I mentioned earlier, had just been a branch I'd found in the road and stuck in the garden. This photo probably wasn't taken too long after I'd planted it. It was to grow a lot bigger though and I'd climb it regularly and I think we even tried to build a tree house in it once.

From this picture, it's hard to imagine how fast it grew. I remember one year, that we had a hornet's nest in it and I can't quite remember how we got rid of it. There seemed to be a lot of biting and stinging insects around. This was by the back door and I'd regularly get bitten by large ants there, that's probably why I'm wearing flip-flops.

I don't look too happy in this photo. Perhaps my brother was off playing Samurai with other kids on the estate. The house behind me belonged to the Websters. It was Gordon Webster who sorted out our snake in the house (it ended up in the bin after being hit by a broom). They had three children - David, Judith and Carol. David was my age and we'd play together though it looks like everyone was out on this day!

Incidentally, when I revisited in 1990, it looked like the tree had been chopped down.

Letters home

I recently came across this small reel to reel tape. When we lived in Jalan Wijaya, we used to record messages on to a tape and send them back home to my gran in Seaham. She would then record a message on it and send it back to us. It's strange how the world has changed since with computers, webcams and emails. Back in the 60s, the only contact was through letters and postcards. Even phones were unheard of in people's houses in those days.

Reel to reel tape recorders were relatively new but with electronic equipment being cheaper in the Far East, many forces families had them. We only had a few tapes - Carousel, The Sound of Music, the Black and White Minstrels and an episode of Steptoe and Son which I remember involved him eating pickled onions in the bath.

Recording our own voices was great fun for me and Alan. We had many of these 'Living Letters' tapes but over the years, they've either been recorded over or disappeared when technology changed. It's amazing that this one has survived. I recently had it transferred to CD so that I could listen to it again. Unfortunately, there's not too much on it but we're telling our gran how we've been to Johore Zoo and I sing songs that I've learnt at the infants. One is 'Little Bird I have heard' which I knew all the words to then but have since forgotten. I'll add it to the blog at a later date if I can. The tape is quite clear and I can even hear a scooter going by outside our house. What amazed me most though, was just how well spoken we were. Maybe the tape has distorted things but Alan, in particular, almost sounds posh. Did we really speak like that? There's also a clip on the tape where I impersonate a talking tin robot that I'd seen at a friend's house.

My gran is now long gone unfortunately but I can imagine her getting the tapes and taking them around a friend's house and the excitement of them listening to our voices, recorded in a place so far away. I remember with the returned tape, our gran used to send us sherbet, something that probably wouldn't make it through customs nowadays!

Orchard Road

Here's a lovely old photo of Orchard Road from the 1960s or perhaps, a little bit later. Some of the cars look like they could be early 1970s models.

When I went back to Singapore in 1990, the skyline of Orchard Road had certainly changed and I'm sure it's changed a great deal since.

In the background are signs for, 'National Optics', 'Sony', 'Teac' and 'Cathay Pacific'. The large building on the right is the Hotel Phoenix near to the Orchard Building. A signpost on the left reads, 'Bideford Road'.

Back in the 1960s, the main shops that I can remember in the area were Tangs and Robinsons. I think that Robinsons was air-conditioned and we used to go in just to cool down! Anything we bought had to be taken across the causeway to get it back home to Johore Bahru and this involved 'duty' being paid on items bought. If you tried to hide the items and they searched your vehicle and found anything, the fine would only be a few dollars anyway. Every time we went across the causeway, they would ask us if we had anything to declare but the question was in Malayan. My parents and most of the forces families knew the reply for, 'I have nothing to declare' but I can't remember what it was.

Of course, there was a game to see what could be taken across the causeway without paying duty. This included buying bikes and cycling them across, sitting on new cushions so they looked like they belonged to the car and wearing bought clothes and other items. I can't really remember anyone paying duty on anything.

I loved our trips over to Singapore in the 1960s. It seemed that there was so much going on there. Of course, it was the place where my dad worked and we regularly went to the Naval Base for cinema shows, firework displays, Christmas parties and other events. There always seemed to be something going on when you were part of a Naval family.

Grass Cutters

Every so often, Alan would take the family's bakelite Kodak 127 camera and wander around the estate taking pictures. They were all quite interesting because they would be pictures of things that were happening at the time rather than just family photos, I remember he took the photo of the Satay man which I featured on a previous post and also some newly hatched ducklings. There were quite a few chickens and ducks about and we used to watch for their eggs to hatch. I think that some of the photos that Alan took might have been lost over the years but here's an interesting one of a grass cutter near our home. I don't remember anyone having a lawn mower at the time and if they did, they certainly weren't electric. For $2, the grass cutters would cut your grass. They had huge scythes which they used to swing over their heads. It all looked pretty dangerous. The area of land shown in the picture was between us and the row of shops, including the cold store, where we got our shopping. I remember one day, when we were returning from the shops and I found a branch which I took home and stuck in the back garden. Amazingly, it grew and continued to grow over the next three years. I had great fun in that tree, I'll post some photos later!