Our Bedok Kampong House Singapore

He would have turned 95 this week, but left us 2 years ago. Looking back at his old photos, one can see vibrancy and vibes, so we’d like to share one photo of our father in 1958 while on holiday in Malacca, Malaya.  He was just 28 then.. Happy heavenly birthday Dad!

Our Bedok kampong house indeed had many treasures, especially when our late father felt the need to keep the documents and belongings of his father and elder sister after they both passed on. Even after we moved from the kampong to our HDB flat, he still kept them. Since his death in 2023, we made the conscious effort to go through these documents to see if they still hold any historical or social impact values.  To our delight, the National Library Board (NLB) accepted more than 70 items including letters, receipts, documents, photos and books. Recently we attended the NLB Donor's Appreciation Night, graced by Minister Mrs Josephine Teo. 3 sets of his collection were on display. All these 2024 donations are available for viewing and research at the main library's reference section in Victoria Street. We know that our dad would be so proud, given his expressed wish to have these donated but somehow unable to do so in his lifetime.  Among the artefacts on display was a 1942 Jap...

12 October 1960. Our parents were in the midst of their honeymoon in Peninsular Malaysia when they got the shocking news. Beloved Mama Blakang had died within a week of being ill (she caught pneumonia then was felled by a heart attack) and she had attended their wedding 10 days earlier! She was just 53 years of age. Mama Blakang occupied a room in the lower section ‘at the back of the kampong house’ thus her moniker. Yes, she was one of our grandfather’s wives but got along so well with our grandma they lived and did things together even prior to moving to Bedok. Our father showed her a lot of respect referring to her as his step-mother. Abandoning his car in Kuala Lumpur, both returned home by train for the funeral the next day. Mama B was buried at the Hock San Teng Cemetery at the Somapah area (with that area later being developed into the Simei housing estate, her grave was exhumed in 1979 and she is now interred at Yishun Columbarium since). Mama Blakang or Mdm Oh, her real name...

1967 with us boys (one six, the other four plus) posing for our dad after a nice swim at Bedok Beach. Our kampong house is a few minutes’ walk away but this photo is telling as behind us boys, one can see the reclamation projects in full swing. The beach front where Upper East Coast Road is is gone and soon our own place in the sea and sun would be consumed by the frenetic pace of progress and development. Originally in black and white, this version is colourised

Our late father passed on to us many wedding photos of his or his older sister’s friends whose wedding they attended in the 1950’s. Here is one of a lovely Malay couple we’d like to share.. The wedding date was 25 March 1951. If you know this couple, please contact us so we can connect with you!

One of the wonders of starting this blog and FB page is being able to connect with former neighbours who were older than us and thus had experienced our Bedok kampong living in a different manner. Mr Ronald Ho, 13 years our senior, who lived across from our house (near the kapok tree), has kindly given us insights into a small river creek that flowed right up to where our house was (we can see a concrete embankment around the house in some early photos). This creek connected to the actual Bedok River, passing by the Sultan of Pahang’s holiday home, the Police quarters and several government black and white holiday bungalows. He recalls that around 1958 the creek became a rubbish and trash landfill that gave out a putrid smell in the air, which our family and those living nearby had to endure during those times. Earth was poured over the landfill and thankfully by 1959 the work was done, looking at some photos of our young mother posing in the house garden, standing in front of the ar...

For the first generation of our family at our Bedok kampong house (encompassing the years prior to and leading up to the 1950’s), the traditional idea of “men manage outside, women manage inside” holds true for our household and the extended families it encompasses. The womenfolk, while managing the house and all its matters, also interact within the siblings’ structures, especially if they are sisters and at times, when circumstances call for it, also among the wives themselves. For our paternal grandmother, having a good relationship with her siblings was key to the eventual closeness we have within our current generation #2 and #3 of siblings, cousins and second cousins as the years go by. In this circa 1946 portrait photo (thanks to our second cousin Irene who provided this), we can see our grandma (she is Sis#2) with her two sisters and some of their biological and adopted children (not all children including our father are in this photo). Interactions were frequent as well wh...

Sleeping arrangements at our Bedok kampong house in Nov 1954: The house had 4 bedrooms of varying sizes, 2 at the upper house and 2 at the lower section where the kitchen and toilets were. When our family first moved into the house in November of 1954, the main upper room was occupied by our paternal grandmother and grandfather along with our 4-year-old paternal cousin while the other bedroom at the upper house belonged to our paternal aunts. Our father occupied the smallest room (that was also a common store area) nearest the ‘jamban’ (bucket sanitation system) and the last room next to the kitchen was the bedroom of our other grandmother “Mama Blakang”, so named because she slept at the back of the house. Yes, in those days polygamy was an accepted practice – and our grandfather indeed had principal and secondary wives, with other wives living elsewhere. We know that both our Mamas living here got along very well actually and that will be another post to be shared soon!

We wish to extend a warm welcome to all new recent followers to this blog. Thank you for joining us! This blog was created as an ode to our old kampong house at Kampong Bedok Laut, just inside Bedok corner, behind the Bedok Rest House (now the Eastwood residences). This blog forms the basis of all our Facebook posts in a related page of the same name, ie "Our Bedok Kampong House - Singapore" (The other FB page without the 'dash' is no longer active due to administrative issues).  This wooden plank, zinc-roofed house had its address firstly as 614-3 then became 10J Bedok Road, Singapore 16. Our stories and posts are not just archival/historical, but we wanted to also layer in the aspects of personal lives lived there from 1954 to 1974, that period of the three generations of us residing here. We do have many old photos and documents that give life to our stories and memories.  We believe this is part of the experiential heritage and legacy of the Singapore community. G...

Who among the readers and followers here, like us brothers, were also born at the former Kandang Kerbau Hospital in Hampshire Road? With three of its old blocks recently collectively gazetted as Singapore’s 76th national monument, we found some documents our parents kept! Happy to share both our birth discharge certificates of 1961 and 1963, and the older one’s hospital bill ($12.24 for 6 days stay) – all before we got discharged and moved into our Bedok kampong house. July 1961 (Mother was actually 22 not 24 years of age) Jan 1963 Hospital Bill $12.24 for 6 days Receipt issued by the State of Singapore Photos by Straits Times

We are grateful to Michael Hall for alerting us to this photo of the British defensive pillbox found at the mouth of Sungei Bedok. This photo taken by Tony Holt of the RAF Changi Association was found on their website and with permission given by him, we are thrilled to share this with you. On the left of this pillbox, interestingly was once the home of Daniel Koh, with the house on the right belonging to his uncle. This angle is interesting because in past shared photos the pillbox was at the back of the photo with the Sungei Bedok bridge upfront – sharing these late 50’s early 60’s photos again where our family members strolled from our Bedok kampong house for about 5 to 10 minutes to reach this bridge, the link to bring one all the way to the Koh Sek Lim estate.

65 years ago today, on 2 October 1960 our parents got married. Our mother joined him in residence at our Bedok kampong house thereafter. With Dad having passed away in June 2023, our mother has stoically carried on. We continue to remember them both as one and so this lovely honeymoon photo (and now colourised) they took in Penang is one to be especially fond of.