Memories of Bedok corner entrance from 'Darah Muda' clip

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We are deeply grateful to Mr Sutari Supari for sharing with us a screenshot of Bedok Corner, also featured on his Facebook page. This image is taken from the classic 1963 film Darah Muda. We hope it is alright for us to share a short clip from this particular scene, which shows a food vendor walking out onto the road that would lead to the main Bedok Road corner (with a slight slope) and the other way would have led to our Bedok kampong home, numbered 10J.

A chat with our old neighbour Ronald Ho revealed all the details of this scene starting with the left of the photo: The vendor walked by a lane that would have led to the morning wet market. Then the first corner house to the left would be the bicycle shop, after which the ice block seller, then the prominent 6C Bedok Road where the Ho family lived. Then (not seen here) a cluster of houses with a large zinc gate belonging to the proprietor (Mr Chia) of the sundry shop, then the sundry shop itself, before the road turned sharply left. (Our cousin remembers being sent on errands to buy things from this shop for our grandmother and aunt. She remembers the stacks of large tin containers selling all kinds of biscuits!)

On the right side of the video clip would be the car park and long backwall and gate of the Bedok Rest House (the Rest House itself is out of frame here) that extends all the way until you see a single storey house, then the three-storey Sar-chan-lau building numbered 2B, where the Munros lived (all out of frame here). The road curved to the left, with the two-storey concrete house of our immediate neighbour, Kak Min, Abu Bakar and their large family from Gujarat, North India, numbered 4E, lived with their front gate on the right of the road. You can see this large house right at the back of the video clip.

Unseen when the road turns left would be the home of Ah Leong and his brother, then the infamous large kapok tree. By now if you can picture yourself standing on this spot, just turn around to four o’clock and you would have seen our house.

Back to the video clip, the vendor is walking out towards Bedok Corner, and the sarabat stall under the large tree to his left where the customers are seated at the end of the clip. The Bedok Rest House stood on the right (out of frame). The concrete wall on the left in the forefront belonged to a long row of terrace shophouses. The first unit in that row was a coffee shop fondly remembered by many followers for its beloved food fare. That same blank wall would later house a mama shop that also rented out books - the beginnings of Jodhi Book Store, under the same owners.

What an incredible jolt of memories from such a simple clip - so precious and meaningful. Our heartfelt thanks once again to Sutari for sharing this with us. With the details shared by Ron with us, this post is dedicated to him and the Ho family.




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