Looking back on the time after my parents passed, I realised that I had inadvertently become a custodian of my family’s collection of photographs and memories.
A stack of antiquated albums, with crumbling and yellowing pages, and the memories they held, were now mine to safeguard, and to share.
These glimpses of a bygone time are part of our collective journey as individuals and the larger Singapore society. These are the times that made us, that brought us to where we are today. These are stories of us.
If you have albums of photos and know the stories behind them, share these memories with us.
Send a sampling of your photos and an outline of your stories to sayhello@silverstreak.sg for a chance to be featured on SilverStreak.
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The Sky’s The Limit
A daredevil feat was part of the celebrations that heralded Cathay Building’s return to life after the war.
Revived and renewed as a cinema and a hotel in 1948, what would be more appropriate for Singapore’s and Southeast Asia’s first and tallest skyscraper than a gymnastic act that made it reach that much closer to the sky?
At 11 storeys, and rising 83.5 metres, Cathay Building was a pioneering landmark when it opened in 1939. The public building had the island’s first air-conditioned cinema with 1,300 seats; enjoying film in such comfort was a rare treat.
The building was so visible, it was used as a landmark for planes landing at Kallang Airport, Singapore’s first civilian airport.
My father, Mr Singapore 1947 and 1948, in white, was part of that event; the post-war return of Singapore to life and new horizons.
How different the nation looked from the top of Cathay Building then. The derring-do was part of the spirit that would pull Singapore out of the doldrums and to new heights in the decades to come, and change the face of the country.
Times of Change
These pictures made me think about the past giving way to the present.
The stakes of a kelong, a giant fishing trap, are a vanishing blur in the background as the energy of waterskiing youth — my father and a young friend on his back — comes to the fore.
This was a time, in the early 1950s, when our coast was fringed by thick mangrove forests, with sea gypsies living among them. Then, so I’ve been told, the waters were so clear you could see 20 metres through it and spot a grouper lurking under a sunken, rotting palm leaf on a sandy seabed.
What’s interesting in the second picture from the same period are women piloting the speedboat. Perhaps a taste of the world that would open up to women in Singapore, as traditional roles of housebound wives and mothers gave way to women in the workplace.
Coming of Age
Before there were franchised gyms, 24-hour gyms, gym pods, and Active Sg gyms, bodybuilding aficionados buffed up in whatever spaces they could find.
This picture shows the garden ‘gym’ at my mother’s family home in the Havelock area, a few years after WWII. It was where my father (standing) met my mother. He was her brother’s friend, part of a cadre of young men coming of age in a post war world, bonding through bodybuilding.
I’ve wondered if the sport appealed to them as a way to overcome the helplessness of the war and gain confidence and control of their lives.
Whatever the reason, the modest garden gym helped my dad earn his Mr Singapore title at the Singapore Amateur Weight Lifting Federation’s annual event in 1947 and 1948, if I remember correctly.
I grew up with an appreciation of fitness and strength. It likely influenced me to weight train for the sports I got into in my 20s. There were few females in gyms then.
I continue to work on maintaining muscle mass as a senior, for the freedom of an active independence and the indulgence in sports old and new.
Romance & Resilience
Every family album has wedding pictures. This one stands out because the bridal headdress worn by my aunt Dorothy was made out of parachute fabric.
She married uncle Siang just after WWII arrived in Singapore, in 1941. It was considered dangerous to be a single young woman in such times. If such ladies were fortunate to have a suitor, they were quickly married to keep them safe. She was 17, and he was 21.
The war made luxuries like lace hard to find, and outrageously expensive even if you could get it. It was an extravagance the young couple could not afford. But with some resilience and creativity, some salvaged parachute material made her wedding headpiece and train possible, and memorable.
In spite of living through the horrors of the war and poverty, I remember them for their kindness and generosity.
My uncle, in particular, was also a ‘lifelong learner’ long before the idea was made popular. He inspired my interest in photography. He had a darkroom in their home, and many photos taken by him sit in my family’s albums.
A Dash of Dean and Kelly
This picture of my parents, glamorous and in love, dates back to 1950-60s Singapore.
In an era marked by the rise of Hollywood, the birth of rock and roll, and epitomised by the likes of Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and Marlon Brando, they look like a couple out of a movie still of the times.
My dad had a love for motorcars and motorcycles. In Singapore, motor racing aficionados had been organising events since the early 1900s along tracks at The Gap (South Buona Vista/Kent Ridge area), Upper Serangoon Road, Lim Chu Kang, Farrer Road and Dunearn Road.
My father had ambitions of participating in Singapore’s early major motorcycle races on his Norton, but a spill put paid to that.
He wasn’t badly injured – fortunately his heavy leather jacket bore the brunt of that tumble, but my mother put her foot down on the dangerous sport as he was about to become a father.
Although their love story took them through many rough patches in the drama of their lives, the torch they carried for each other stayed lit to the end of their days.
These pictures allow me to see them at their best, and explain why my mother’s last words about their life were: “We had such a lovely time.”
