Welcome to our Bedok kampong house!

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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in a related page of the same name, ie "Our Bedok Kampong House - Singapore" (The other FB page without the 'dash' is no longer active due to administrative issues).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. Glad that the National Library Board has included us in their web archival collection as well. We invite you to join us in the retelling of our stories. You may also likewise contact us to share your own photos and stories, as some followers and former neighbours (now friends) have and along the way enriched this journey into the past that can influence our future stories and the generations to come. Contact Dennis at dtanes@gmail.com



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"I Play And Sing" at our Bedok kampong house

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Here is some ‘claim to fame’ for us: In 1971, we (at aged 10 and 8 then) were thrilled to turn on our black and white TV at our Bedok kampong house to watch Mel & Joe Ferdinands compete in the RTS Talentime then. We most remembered them singing the song “I Play & Sing”. At that time, they lived further up from our place at Bedok Road at the Bedok Walk area and we took the same bus to our primary school then, St Stephen’s (at Siglap Hill). Unfortunately by the time the school bus arrived at their place, all seats were taken and they had to stand but Joe was really friendly to us and smiled mostly! (these days standing not allowed but those were the days) (photos not ours)
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Hair, There and Everywhere.. at old Bedok kampong

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“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...
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The Ritual of burning Kemenyan

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