Our Bedok Kampong House Singapore

Kampong folk sometimes mistook them for Arabs, but the residents of Rumah Bombay - as the house at 4E Bedok Road (formerly 614) was affectionately known - actually hailed from Gujarat in India. (Yes, Gujarat was part of North Bombay before 1 May 1960.) They were one large extended family, led by their patriarch, the late Haji Kassim bin Adam, who ran a thriving dates business at 29 Arab Street under the company named “Kassim bin Adam Pte Ltd”. They lived just next door to us, separated only by a simple fence. Abu Bakar, Haji Kassim’s grandson, still remembers vividly the day they moved in - January 1957 - and how the family transformed the former hostel/boarding house into a home spacious enough for the families of Haji Kassim’s seven children, their children, and grandchildren. The house eventually held nine bedrooms. At its peak, more than forty family members lived together under that magnificent two storey roof fenced with beautiful, yellow-flowered Australia Gold Vine creepers...

In February 1968, the Hall family arrived in Singapore when Michael’s father - serving with the RAF - was posted here. Michael still remembers the stark contrast between the cold, grey skies they left behind in the UK and the sunny, amazing Singapore that greeted them when they arrived. October that year saw them move from their Serangoon Gardens home over to Bedok Road, near Simpang Bedok. Evenings were often spent at the hawker stalls at Bedok Corner. Thirteen-year-old Michael recalls, “I remember the pressure lamps hissing away,” he says - a sound and glow that defined the hawker nights of that era. But what he remembers most fondly is Bedok Beach. “My youngest sister thought it was great jumping around the sand and seeing those washed up sea cucumbers!” he laughs. At low tide, the shoreline came alive - sea creatures emerging with the ebb, the sand rippling with movement, the beach revealing its hidden world. Thankfully, Michael’s father had the presence of mind to capture a ...

In the days when the Sungei Bedok tributary still flowed beside our Bedok kampong house, long before it was filled with landfill around 1960, a handful of small bridges linked one bank to the other, carrying neighbours, bicycles, and the small routines of kampong life. One of these crossings was this distinctive curved hump timber bridge , built for pedestrians and cyclists. Kampong folk fondly called it “Jambatan Hitam” , the Black Bridge, after its dark‑painted trusses and the structures that led toward the police quarters. For many, it was simply part of the daily route; for others, including our own family, it became a favourite spot to pause for a photograph. Taken in 1959 , this photo captures the bridge at a time when water still ran beneath it, the stream moving gently through a Bedok that has since vanished. With a little help from AI, we can now focus on the bridge itself, letting its shape and memory stand clearly once more. Our thanks to our former kampong neighbours...

Shelter — just as the houses in and around our Bedok kampongs once offered a roof and refuge to the families within them, our fathers did the very same. They found for us a place we could call home, a place where we felt safe enough to live, to grow, and to experience all that life had to offer. And like the homes they built or provided, our fathers themselves became our shelter — the place we turned to for guidance and advice, for provision and restoration, and most of all for the comfort of knowing we were safe in their presence, wrapped in their arms whenever we needed them. Many of them are no longer with us, yet we look back with tenderness and gratitude at the sacrifices they made — carrying the weight of being the family’s breadwinner so that we could go to school, play freely, and enjoy the simple joys of childhood that kampong life gave so generously. To all the fathers reading this, thank you. May you be blessed each day, knowing that the labour of your hands has neve...

Here on the shores of Bedok Beach once rested a handful of sampans -  among them, one belonging to Ahmad, husband of Salmah and father to Saadiah and her family of 35M Jalan Greja. Humble and unadorned, his vessel held more than nets and oars. Within its frame lived the story of a man who carried responsibility, devotion, and the weight of being his family’s shelter. By day, Ahmad served as a lab technician at the Singapore General Hospital. But in the evenings, and whenever time allowed, he would push his sampan gently off the shore, rowing into the calm to fish - steering with the same steady hands that guided his family through life’s shifting tides. When his sampan lay pulled up along the coast, it became a quiet landmark. It beckoned family to come closer to admire, and to mark their visit with a photograph, like this one. We remember and honour Ahmad , along with brother‑in‑law Mohd Noor and Jalan Greja neighbours Iazim and Leman - all sampan owners of Bedok Beach in...

A rare, quietly beautiful glimpse of Bedok Beach in 1951 taken from this angle. Our paternal aunts, cousin, and grandaunt sit together in the sea breeze, taking in a shoreline that belonged to another Singapore. Behind them, the familiar silhouettes of the three‑storey Sa‑chan‑lau and the British WWII pillboxes stand watch, markers of a coastline still shaped by the post‑war years. Even the roofline of the former Bedok Rest House peeks into view, completing a scene that feels both intimate and historic. This is the kind of photograph that lets us step back in time to the 1950s for a moment - when Bedok was quieter, the sea closer, and family outings like this were simple and precious.