Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. Joel Chandran, who is retired, recalls the sheer feeling of joy growing up in Old Sembawang in the ‘50s and ‘60s. He lived with his family in a kampong house at Jalan Sembawang Kechil. He frequently sneaked into the nearby Naval Base, which felt like a totally different country. His friends were Chinese, Malays and Indians – they were all colour-blind.

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Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. ‘We are the bodoh ones’, some of the struggling children of Bukit Ho Swee told Anne Lim Siew Kim in the early ‘80s. In this podcast, we discuss education and self-help among low-income families.

Anne Lim Siew Kim was the assistant project coordinator at Nazareth Centre in Bukit Ho Swee in the early 1980s, a generation after the great fire in 1961. She tried to help the at-risk children there, even as some of them tried to climb through the window and disrupt the class. She wrote about her experience in a book, Face to Face: The Street Children of Bukit Ho Swee, published in 1991.

To get a copy of Anne’s book, email me: [email protected]

YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@ChroniclesOldSG

Spotify | https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/loh-ks

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/61551786759344/

Patreon | https://www.patreon.com/ChroniclesofOldSingapore

Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. Anne Lim Siew Kim was the assistant project coordinator at Nazareth Centre in Bukit Ho Swee in the early 1980s, a generation after the great fire in 1961. She tried to help the at-risk children there, even as some of them tried to climb through the window and disrupt the class. She wrote about her experience in a book, Face to Face: The Street Children of Bukit Ho Swee, published in 1991.

To get a copy of Anne’s book, email me: [email protected]

YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@ChroniclesOldSG

Spotify | https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/loh-ks

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/61551786759344/

Patreon | https://www.patreon.com/ChroniclesofOldSingapore

Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. Koh Boon Long continues his memory stroll along the hills and farms of Jurong Road. Teaching at a modest school like Jalan Lama profoundly shaped his thinking on streaming and education in Singapore. He is also writing his memoir, which will be published in 2025.

Koh Boon Long is a retired educator, with more than 50 years of experience in teaching, leading and consulting. Beginning as a PE and GP teacher, he then served as a HOD, VP, and Principal at two secondary schools, before becoming the Director of National Education. His formative experience was as a trainee teacher at Jalan Lama Secondary School along Jurong Road. In 1982, he moved to Jurong East, where he still lives today.

YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@ChroniclesOldSG

Spotify | https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/loh-ks

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/61551786759344/

Patreon | https://www.patreon.com/ChroniclesofOldSingapore

Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. ‘The Salt of the Earth’, as Koh Boon Long calls his former students at Jalan Lama Secondary School in rural Jurong. He remembers Jurong Road as a young trainee teacher in 1968-1971, before the region was transformed by the industrialisation programme.

Koh Boon Long is a retired educator, with more than 50 years of experience in teaching, leading and consulting. Beginning as a PE and GP teacher, he then served as a HOD, VP, and Principal at two secondary schools, before becoming the Director of National Education. His formative experience was as a trainee teacher at Jalan Lama Secondary School along Jurong Road. In 1982, he moved to Jurong East, where he still lives today.

YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@ChroniclesOldSG

Spotify | https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/loh-ks

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/61551786759344/

Patreon | https://www.patreon.com/ChroniclesofOldSingapore

Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. C. Kunalan, one of the all-time greats in Singapore athletics, talks about running the mile in his schooldays. This changed when coach Tan Eng Yoon spotted him playing as a winger in a football team. Kunalan tells us why he decided to train for the sprints under Tan and how he got his first pair of spikes. He then takes us to his first major race – at the 1966 Asian Games in Bangkok.

Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. Retired publisher Fong Hoe Fang relives the idealism and sense of social justice that led him to form Pioneers Club with his friends during his secondary school days, and to publish Breakthrough magazine at the University of Singapore. Between the late 1960s and early 1980s, there was still space for such student and youth activism in Singapore.

YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@ChroniclesOldSG

Spotify | https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/loh-ks

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/61551786759344/

Patreon | https://www.patreon.com/ChroniclesofOldSingapore

Charles Ngui, 71, talks about growing up at 105 Clementi Road and the elephants of Kampong Gajah nearby. Further north was the famous Beauty World Market. Ahead in time were the development of Old Clementi and Charles' efforts to find closure with it.

Charles was one of the young officers who joined the early Economic Development Board. He has a deep working knowledge of the tool and die industry, and the businesses, big and small, in Singapore in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. As an ‘involuntary migrant’, Syamala Senan joined the Sree Narayana Mission in Singapore and became part of the local Malayalee community. She compares her generation of migrants from Kerala to the new citizens who have arrived in Singapore in recent decades. Today, she is, in her own words, half Singaporean, half Indian – and happy.

Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. Syamala Senan was an ‘involuntary migrant’ from Kerala, joining her husband in Singapore in an arranged marriage in 1979. She talks about her struggles to adapt to a foreign land, find a job, connect with the Malayalee community, and raise her children. Today, she is, in her own words, half Singaporean, half Indian and happy.