Our Bedok Kampong House Singapore

We recently uncovered this rare 1960 photograph from our family archives, now gently enhanced with AI. It captures a stretch of Bedok Beach, further up from the Bedok Rest House and just beyond the Sultan of Pahang’s former holiday home - a short walk from our Bedok kampong house. Taken at low tide, the image shows washed‑up flotsam along the right edge of the frame. A fenced compound visible here once housed the police quarters. Continuing in the direction of Sungei Bedok (Bedok River, now a canal), we see a row of standalone colonial‑era government bungalows. A recent chat with our former neighbour, Mr Ronald Ho, revealed that there were six of these bungalows in total. Each featured a kitchen on the ground floor, with stairs leading up to the living room and bedroom. Painted in the classic black and white, these wooden structures sat on cement floors.  Beyond them, a lush fringe of coconut palms lined the shoreline, many of their crowns leaning seaward.

 Another beautiful work by Dr Gilbert Tan - this time in watercolour. ‘ Near Bedok Corner’ , completed just last week, was inspired by one of our earlier posts on Upper East Coast Road, which featured “a beautiful tropical beach view of the pre‑reclamation coastline.” “I wish I could take a dip to escape from the heat,” Dr Tan quips. May 2026, inspired by circa 1957-1959 photo

We are deeply grateful to Mr Sutari Supari for sharing with us a screenshot of Bedok Corner, also featured on his Facebook page. This image is taken from the classic 1963 film Darah Muda . We hope it is alright for us to share a short clip from this particular scene, which shows a food vendor walking out onto the road that would lead to the main Bedok Road corner (with a slight slope) and the other way would have led to our Bedok kampong home, numbered 10J. A chat with our old neighbour Ronald Ho revealed all the details of this scene starting with the left of the photo: The vendor walked by a lane that would have led to the morning wet market. Then the first corner house to the left would be the bicycle shop, after which the ice block seller, then the prominent 6C Bedok Road where the Ho family lived. Then (not seen here) a cluster of houses with a large zinc gate belonging to the proprietor (Mr Chia) of the sundry shop, then the sundry shop itself, before the road turned sharply left...

This Mother’s Day weekend, we turn our spotlight to our beloved Ma Um - our father’s elder brother’s wife - who, together with the rest of the family, once lived at Jalan Haji Salam near the Bedok corner (as shared in an earlier story). Hers is truly a story of triumph over adversity. Ma Um gave birth to eleven children, yet only three survived. We can scarcely imagine the depth of sorrow and strength such circumstances demanded of her. Life with her mother-in-law presented its own challenges, but Ma Um was no pushover. She faced each day with a resolute, never ‑ say ‑ die spirit. Against this backdrop, she discovered a passion for cooking and baking. She mastered the art of making all kinds of kueh and sold them to neighbours in the surrounding homes - out of necessity, to supplement a depleted household income. Her mantra was simple and unwavering: “Never go home until the basket is empty.” She worked with such determination that she could well be considered the family’s main bre...

It was past 9pm, and an eleven ‑ year ‑ old me was making my way home from a Mandarin tuition session. My teacher was one of Ah Yam’s daughters—the owner of Swee Aun provision shop along Bedok Road—and lessons were held at their place. The fastest route home was a shortcut through the back lane, though it meant pushing my bicycle where the paths were too narrow to ride. Back then, bicycle lights ran on dynamos pressed against the wheel, which only worked when you were moving fast. So I pushed my bike as briskly as I could, trying to coax some light out of it, passing the now ‑ closed and darkened ice ‑ ball cum tikam ‑ tikam shop, a cluster of banana trees on my left, and then cycling past the famously haunted kapok tree on my right — careful not to glance in either direction. Such were the low light levels we endured in the kampong after nightfall, lit only by weak incandescent street lamps. The fluorescent glow spilling out from nearby houses offered some reassurance of human pre...

We counted ourselves blessed to have a black ‑ and ‑ white television in our kampong house. Our father had already been working at RTS (Radio Television Singapore) in the Radio Department since August 1953, on rotational duty. By then, our grandmother was non ‑ ambulant and unable to move around much, so having a TV at home became a cherished way for her—and for all of us—to enjoy our evenings together. As daylight faded and the lights outside our kampong house grew dim, and after we returned from school and finished our homework, television became our stay ‑ at ‑ home entertainment. This short clip is a small testament to those days of TV Singapura, and to some of the programmes we loved — English, Chinese, and even Malay shows (especially the Pontianak ones!).