Our Bedok Kampong House Singapore

There is something about rattan furniture and linoleum flooring in those days. Just used so much at our Bedok kampong house back then! In vogue then, still in vogue now... agree?   1962 1963 1963 1964 1964 1966 1966. Colourised by Nusan N

Late 60's. We were young kids and one day our father came home from his morning shift back to our Bedok kampong house armed with 2 blue and yellow pullback cars! We were so excited like puppies greeting their owner. Soon we got our own radio controlled racetracks and cars and then into the era of die-cast toys and Matchbox cars! Our parents would bring us to the shop at the corner of Ceylon Road and East Coast Road in Katong to buy these (the shop is gone and in its place now "328 Katong Laksa") absolutely wonderful cars, with their racetracks and accessories. We boys collected them each week we visited and we still have them now! Happy to share this collection along a glimpse of the 1971 catalogue (also kept till now)

This post is all about our late father who almost single-handedly held the family together when we first moved into our Bedok kampong house in 1954 especially since our grandfather passed away 3 months from the time we moved in. Born in 1930, he attended the Anglo-Chinese school at Coleman Street (now National Archives of Singapore) from 1936 to 1940. It was only after the war ended when he began his secondary school education from Oct 1945 to 1949 at Victoria School. He then redirected his education into the technical vocation at the Junior Technical School at Balestier Road in 1950, graduating at the end of 1952. August 1953 saw him employed as a radio Technician at the Dept of Broadcasting at Radio Malaya (current day Mediacorp) at Caldecott Hill. He worked 3 rotating shifts (5.30am to 12.30pm, 9am to 4.30pm and 4.30pm to midnight) then an off day was given (in those days radio operated daily from 6am to midnight only). (Radio Malaya became Radio Singapore in 1963, then Radio Televi...

Outings happen on a weekend when our father was off duty, so here are two trips we took from our Bedok Kampong house - a visit to the National Theatre in 1967! (photos by the estate of Tan Kim Suan) 1967 - With the our aunts, our cousins, and friends. 1967 - Us 2 boys with our mother, our father was the photographer

Our older cousin who was part of the family that moved into our Bedok kampong house from day one recalled this memory of Mr Lee Kuan Yew coming to our Bedok kampong and passing by the house! There were a lot of people and crowds then and the entourage moved through the kampong towards Sungei Bedok and the RAF flats there. She was so excited she hopped from one window to the next to see until he was out of sight! Checked the records and found that it was 1963 and part of his nationwide tour of the rural parts of Singapore. This photo of him visiting somewhere else is not ours and belongs to the National Archives of Singapore. But it conveys the same excitement we felt then! Colourised by Nusan N

Living in our Bedok kampong house had our challenges, particularly at night! Lizards would crawl on our asbestos ceiling, especially happy with the giant swallowtail moths that would make their home up there too. The lizard sounds were quite loud actually! Couple that with the flying ants before it rains that swarm around our fluorescent tube lights and the mosquitoes buzzing around and biting (we sleep in mosquito nets), we had to adapt to what we faced then! (We shared some of these experiences in our YouTube interview with Chronicles of Old Singapore ). The asbestos ceiling boards would definitely be a thing of the past, knowing their toxicity today! Here is a 1967 photo showing that ceiling with the younger of us at just 4 years of age... Colourised by Nusan N

Remembering by the time we were 8 and 10 years of age in 1971, we brothers would take a short walk from our Bedok kampong house to the nearby mama corner, a small wooden shack-type structure to get our ice ball fixes! The vendor (he also sold tikam tikam games) would use one hand to collect the ice shavings while his other hand would manually turn the ice shaving machine. Then using both hands he would pack the ice into a neat and nice ‘ball’. We would pay him 10 cents, as he passes the ice ball from his hands onto ours (no plastic gloves etc no problems!) and a slurping we would go. Then coming back home (but passing by the ol’ kapok tree on our right) we would listen to the radio to the hits (with quirky lyrics) like Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep! (all photos not ours) Photo credit (cropped) - National Archives of Singapore

Today is the birthday of our grandfather Tan, born on Sep 11, 1878. Thanks to him we now have the memories we cherish from our Bedok Kampong house. He passed away in 1955, aged 77 barely a few months since moving into this place with his family. A detailed tribute post can be seen further down this page but for now, we'd like to share an August 1950 photo of him along with our grandmother at the then Old Kallang Airport, on route to Penang for a short vacation. He would have been 146 years old today if still around, so happy birthday Ah Gong! Photo of August 9, 1950 at old Kallang airport, before flying off to Penang 1953 receipt of the purchase of the house he purchased for us

She moved into our Bedok kampong house and joined the household when she married our father at age 22 in 1960. Over the years us brothers were born and the family thrived and prospered. This day of her 86th birthday we along with all her nephews and nieces, our families and her grandchildren are wishing her the very best of health and ‘panjang panjang umur’! Happy Birthday Mom!

A few years before our grandparents, father and aunts moved to our Bedok kampong house in 1954, our father’s eldest sister and her friends visited the area we believe to be Bedok Hill (along Upper East Coast Road) as seen in these photos. Having fun at the beach (not yet reclaimed then) and taking photos to remember the day by. This area was also infamously known to be the place where 90 World War II local prisoners of war were massacred by the Japanese soldiers in 1942. The area is now Temasek Primary School, thanks to conversations with Yeo Hong Eng and from his book ‘The Little Red Cliff’. Based on his book, these photos probably reveal the reddish laterite soil of the ‘little red cliff’, exposed from the constant bombardments of the waves; and characterised by a a long flight of concrete steps (100 steps Mr Yeo says as he remembers using them as a child). Imagine then that a few years later our family would take up residence, just less than 2km away, at our kampong house at Bedok ...

The first and second generation of our family moved into our Bedok kampong house in 1954 but soon the children grew up, got married and the third generation began joining the family household. Here is a 1968 photo of these cousins, all offspring from all 3 siblings. Two more little ones will come soon but for now we have four sitting by the steps of the upper house's verandah.