Our Tua Ee (maternal eldest aunt) celebrates her 92nd birthday this month. She had always held a loving presence in our Bedok kampong
house. Each Saturday after her weeklong work as a nanny, she would go to Katong
and get her hair done, then pop over to either Cona Confectionary or Chin Mee
Chin to buy a box full of either buttercream cakes or cream horns. Then she
will come over to our house and spend the weekend with us. That’s not all,
because she knows of our love for music even at that young age, so once in a
while, a gift of an EP vinyl would be brought over as well. This writer most
clearly remembers this 1968 EP by Tom Jones when Delilah (I was only 7 years old
in Primary One) a big hit at that time. Here she is hovering lovingly over my
8th birthday party I was celebrating in 1969 (she is on extreme right). Tua Ee
we want to wish you a splendid and blessed birthday and wishing you ‘panjang
panjang umur’ (long life) and great health!
1969 at the garden of the house
Chin Mee Chin in Katong and their cream horns (photos from Chin Mee Chin)
Old-school Buttercream cakes (this photo by Cooking with Lu)
Each Thursday evening around 6pm, our grandmother would have someone from the household burn some kemenyan incense on a holder and carry this burner to every room and corner in our Bedok kampong house. We knew this was a spiritual practice but just recently informed by our mother that this act appeases the spirit owners of the house.... can still recall the distinct smell and incense smoke as this post is written.... 1955 photo of our Bedok kampong house with our grandmother (58 years old here) posing.. Kemenyan incense burner/holder (photo not ours)
“What? You brought him back from the barber without him having his hair cut?”, this writer’s (the older brother) mother asked my father incredulously as he brought the by-now dried eyed little boy back from the ‘frightening’ experience at the barber’s to our Bedok kampong house. “He refused to have his hair cut, so I brought him back…” was my father’s honest reply. Babu (or Mr in Indian terms as explained by former neighbour Ronald Ho) was our preferred go-to barber for all the male-folk in the family, not the Chinese one situated a little farther along. Babu’s shop was located near (or next to) Ah Yam’s provision shop, along Bedok Road (Ah Yam's story was posted on October 16, 2024) and just where the bus stop is (now Cold Storage). He was mostly dressed in a white short sleeved shirt and had a genteel and calming way about him. He was great, but not the aura of his shop and equipment! As a little me recalled, I intensely disliked seeing the chair which had a fear aboding loo...
He used to walk about 2km to school every day — Bedok Boys — from his home at Padang Terbakar (later renamed Siak Kuan Road in the 1970s). His house was the second one next to the old Sungei Bedok bridge, (855M Padang Terbakar, later 222 Siak Kuan Road) looking out toward the British pillboxes guarding the river mouth. And of course, another 2km home again after school. On those daily walks, he would have passed right by our Bedok kampong house at Kampong Laut, making his way out toward Bedok Corner before turning right. We were just babies and toddlers then, but how lovely that all these years later, we’ve connected with this neighbour from across the sungei — Daniel. Daniel shared with us this precious family photo taken around 1960, with him at the extreme right. Behind them, you can see the Bedok beach where the river met the sea, and at the right corner, the familiar silhouette of the pillboxes. He also remembers a huge, rarely-seen butter fruit tree in his compound — bearing ...
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