Our Bedok Kampong House Singapore

We started this blog and Facebook page to share stories of life at our Bedok kampong home at 10J Bedok Road during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Many former residents began following our page and reaching out to us. It became our privilege not only to recount our own memories, but also to tell the stories of others who had lived in the same kampong community before the tide of relocation and redevelopment changed the landscape forever. What many may not know is that, in the early days of this page, we received an unexpected comment that took us completely by surprise. It came from our former next-door neighbours from the Rumah Bombay house at 4E Bedok Road. That remarkable discovery led to an initial reunion, and just last month, two former neighbours, both among the surviving residents of that bygone era, were reunited after fifty-two years apart. We were warmly welcomed by Abu Bakar Haji Ibrahim and his family into their lovely home, where we enjoyed their generous hospitality and ...

Today, we dedicate this Children’s Day post to all the little ones who once lived, played, and breathed in the old Bedok kampongs and their surrounding villages. There was truly something different - something magical - about being a child in our kampong from the 50's through the 70's. Childhood was not an age; it was an adventure. For Ron Ho , the kampong was freedom itself - roaming the beach, digging for shells, hunting for crabs and prawns at low tide, and “attacking” fruit trees that definitely belonged to someone else. Those were, as he often says, the best years of his growing‑up life. For Saadiah Ahmad , the memories still spark joy. She learnt to ride a bicycle along sandy lanes, caught banana‑tree worms to feed the family’s monkey, followed her mother to the beach to collect cockles, crabs and seaweed for homemade agar‑agar . She remembers catching tiny fish at the big drain near the army camp and watching mudskippers dance at the mouth of Sungei Bedok. For Marc...

Indeed, it was a lovely day to be married - 2 October 1960, the day our parents tied the knot. After the groom fetched his bride and returned briefly to our Bedok kampong house for the traditional tea ceremony, they set off for their studio portraits at Studio De Luxe, located at 33 Stamford Road. Only after the photographs were taken did they continue on to their wedding high tea - a modest celebration at Robinsons Café in Raffles Place, back when the Robinsons Department Store stood as a landmark of the district. A dinner was beyond their means then, but the joy of the day was full and unreserved. This photograph was taken just outside the studio, capturing the moment the couple prepared to leave for Robinsons Café after the photo session. Our mother, the bride, is seen being gently helped into the wedding car by her bridesmaid - her younger sister - and the best man. It is an iconic image for our family: not only for the splendid Pontiac that carried them through the day, but also...

In our earlier post, we introduced 30 Bedok Road, the modest shophouse known as Fang Rong, remembered by many as a half‑tailor, half‑barber establishment before redevelopment erased it from the landscape. What makes this little building especially meaningful to us is that it carried a connection to our own family. Houses can be owned, like ours at 10J Bedok Road – but we still had to pay monthly ground rent to our landlords, the Queks. And if we failed to make the monthly rent, the landlord reserved the right to have our house demolished – such was the precarious nature of living in kampongs in those days. Others like this shophouse was rented and the owner pays the ground rent on its behalf. Well, the owner of this shophouse at 30 Bedok Road was our grandfather. Before the renumbering exercise of early 1964, the property was known as 630‑A Bedok Road. Our grandfather purchased it in September 1950 for $4,700. He owned the structure, but still paid ground rent to the landowners of ...

The experience of having the neighbourhood Indian bread mama - our familiar uncle on wheels - come right up to our kampong houses was truly on another level. It always began with HEARING him before anything else: that bright bicycle bell, sometimes a cheeky horn, ringing through the stillness of our gravel paths. Only then would you SEE him pedalling steadily toward the side of our houses, easing his bicycle to a gentle stop. He would dismount in one fluid motion, flick the kickstand down, and flip open the wooden bread compartment behind him - transforming it instantly into a makeshift cutting table. And with that simple gesture came the unmistakable SMELL of freshly baked roti perancis (baguette), its crusty, golden aroma drifting toward us like an invitation. Our mother remembers that whenever she ordered an entire perancis , he would slice it horizontally from end to end, opening the warm loaf like a book. One side received a generous spread of Planta; the other, his own h...

Many in our Bedok kampong community will remember Fang Rong, at 30 Bedok Road - that modest little house which once operated as half tailor, half barber, sitting just to the right (from the orientation of this photograph) of Uncle Velu’s Indian barber shop at 34 Bedok Road. From Jayne Krishna’s years living with her grandfather Velu in the 70’s and 80’s, we learn that the barber‑owner here was Hainanese, living on the premises with his family. Jayne also recalls that several tailors came and went over the years - a reminder of how trades in the kampong shifted with time, opportunity, and circumstance. From our conversations with Ron Ho, a more intimate portrait of one of the earlier tailors emerges. In the late 1950s, the tailor was a man named Ah   Kow, married with two young children. He was part of a tontine community - known variously as hwei ( 银会 ) in Chinese, duit kutu in Malay, or kootu in Tamil - a communal savings system that helped families manage their finances long b...