Our Bedok Kampong House Singapore

Our grandmother really enjoyed eating the wantan mee from the coffee shop at the corner of the row of shops facing Bedok Corner along Bedok Road at the turn. Almost every day, our cousin - whom Grandma had raised from infancy and who lived with us in our Bedok kampong house - would head out to buy this meal for her. She was in her early teens then, around 1964. On the way to the stall, she would pass the sundry shop and the Ho family’s house at 6C Bedok Road. She remembers clearly how, time and again, music spilled out from that home - guitars strumming, a band rehearsing, and a young female voice rising above it all. It was only a year later, when Silver Threads and Golden Needles became a hit in 1965 (her favourite song), that she realised she had been walking past the home of one of the members of   Singapore’s 1960s music royalty: The Crescendos . All she knew back then was that she had a teenage crush on one of the boys, Raymond Ho “he is so handsome!” Many thanks to Ra...

One of the quiet treasures of our old Bedok kampong house was an 11‑page commemorative booklet marking the public celebrations of May 1935 in honour of the Silver Jubilee of His Majesty King George V - the maternal great‑grandfather of the present King Charles III. Once belonging to our paternal grandfather Tan Piah Eng , this fragile programme is more than a keepsake; it is a window into the civic life of pre‑war Singapore. Its pages map out routes and landmarks still familiar to us today - Orchard Road, Connaught Drive, the Padang, Jalan Besar, to name a few - and reveal a city alive with parades, lantern processions, fireworks, and community pageantry. Most strikingly, it records four centres across the island that served free meals to the poor, a reminder that even amid royal celebration, the spirit of communal care ran deep. This book has since been donated to the National Library Board / National Archives of Singapore for preservation , ensuring that its stories -  and the ha...

A visit by cousins from our first step‑grandmother to our cousin - the second step‑grandmother - at her Jalan Haji Salam home was never complete without a short stroll down to Bedok Beach. There, a photo would always mark the day. We’re so glad they took this one - seated just outside the fenced police quarters, on a perfectly placed rock that seems made for the moment. Decades later, it still feels as if they’re waiting for us to join them, inviting us to sit, smile, and remember. Our heartfelt thanks to Winnie Goh and Yap Teck Gim for sharing this lovely photograph - a window into a gentler time and the enduring ties of family.

On lazy weekends, the songs of old - especially those beloved Chinese melodies from the 1960s like Lover’s Tears - would drift through our Bedok kampong, carried from someone’s Rediffusion box or a Radio Singapura AM set. They invited us to hum along to their beautiful tunes, even when the lyrics were heartbreakingly sad. Ann Froud remembers this song well, and she even kept her original 1963 record. Here is Poon Sow Keng (Pan Xiuqiong) once again lamenting her lost love for us, her voice as tender as ever. Thank you, Ann, for sharing your 45rpm EP cover, this lovely memory, and for opening this gentle doorway back to the world we once knew.

We feel so honoured that our former neighbour, Daniel Koh , has shared glimpses of his childhood and growing‑up years in our Bedok kampong - at Padang Terbakar , where he was born and raised with his family. This lovely video offers an intimate look at his family of origin , including a touching segment dedicated to his paternal grandfather, Koh Sek Lim . Watching how Daniel enjoyed life in our kampong — especially that unforgettable ‘outdoor swimming pool’ just outside his home - brings back a whole era now long gone, yet still rich with memory and affection. His stories remind us of the simple joys, the freedom, and the neighbourly warmth that shaped our childhood landscape. Kam Siah, Baba Daniel (Peranakan speak) — thank you for keeping these memories alive.

What sat beneath a kampong house? For many of us who grew up in these raised wooden ‑ planked homes, that shaded under ‑ floor space became our own version of an attic - a cool, half ‑ lit world where old furniture, tools and forgotten belongings quietly settled over the years. In this 1961 photograph of the back of our former Bedok kampong house (614 ‑ 3, later 10J Bedok Road), you can see how the timber structure rested on a concrete platform, creating a natural storage space beneath it. Within that low ‑ slung area, a narrow passageway allowed the adults to duck ‑ walk their way to whatever they needed - but for us little boys, it became a perfect looping tricycle track. We pedalled round and round under the beams until the day we finally grew too tall to fit. By around 1967, our uncle - ever the skilled carpenter - enclosed a small section facing the front. That tiny nook became our toddler cousin’s playroom, and for us older boys, a cherished corner to play ‘house’ long before...