Public Bus
When I was about 11 years old (1980), I started to take public bus from School in Queen Street to Toa Payoh. Once I was seating on a public bus and when the bus turn in a corner, the emergency exit door of the bus gave way and I saw an elderly woman (probably 60 plus years old then) flung out from the door as she was leaning on the door. I was shocked as she was seating only a couple of seats in front of me. The bus stopped and the driver went to check on the injured. I could not remember whether an ambulance was called.
The location of the corner was the junction between Kallang Road and Lavendar Street. (Near the present ICA Building). The bus was number 145.
Fire
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| 14 & 15 Queen Street (from Google) |
When I was Primary 3 or 4 (around 1978/79), we were studying in class when suddenly someone noticed a fire broke out at an abandoned house a few block away from the school. We were so excited that we ran out of the classroom to look at the burning house. The fire was so intensed that the flames were seen flying off the roof of the building. The abandoned house was so dilapidated that walls had collapsed and bricks were seen lying on the floor. The fire engines came fast and we were told to go back to class. It was not common to see fire and it was memorable.
The location of the abandoned house is currently around 14, 15 Queen Street.
The other time I saw a fire in my childhood happened in a provisional shop at the ground floor of my childhood HDB flat. I could remember going to the shop a few days/weeks later to find the blackened walls and a smell of burning.
Musical Instrument
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| A Recorder |
We were representing the School in nation wide competition and also played in normal school days in assembly playing the national anthem and the school song. A great highlight was to be able to perform at various locations including the demolished old national theatre, Singapore conference hall and being filmed by the then Singapore Broadcasting Corp (SBC). I recalled that there was a rumour then we would go overseas to perform. That was an incredible rumour as I was honour to represent the school. However, it didn't materialised.
As member of the Ensemble, we were wearing a white shirt with yellow sleeveless jacket and a red checked short pants. I could recall there was a hat too as we using the recorder to spin the hat.
Up till today, I am not sure why my Music teacher picked me to represent the school. But some how playing the recorder is simple enough with few notes to master. I was lazy to learn to play musical notes involving staff, clef etc. How I learn to play was through musical notes represented by A, B, C etc.. and also by memorising the tune of the song.
I learned that Ms Lee had passed away. Thank you Mdm for the coaching and teaching us to play this simple musical instrument.
Soft Drink Cap
In the late 1970s, soft drinks were in glass bottle. The bottle has a metal cap and these caps have 2 functions for children. The bottle caps were firstly used in a game and the objective was to roll the caps over and above the oponent caps. If you were good, you could collect a bag full of bottle caps. Back in the 1970s, these were cheap and entertaining games for children.
Secondly, at the underside of bottle cap, they used to have an elastic liner which could be scraped up. Marketing companies wanted to increase sales and sometimes used the liner as a lucky draw tool. If you were lucky, you could scrape a liner that had printed notification of a free trip overseas. I recalled that Pepsi had a lucky draw for a free trip to San Francisco. At that age, I had no idea where San Francisco was but was interested in this city. Of course, I didn't win any lucky draw. It was only in later part of my life in year 2000 that I visited San Franciso.
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