Part III: Lucy Davis

LUCY: Well, I don’t, well, I’m sure people have fights and all that kind, you know. You certainly get the negative gossip from Lily at the bike shop but at this time of day and in the early morning, you know, it would be a lot of old uncles sitting around, drinking. INTERVIEWER: So early morning, late evening? LUCY: Ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Late afternoon, early evening? LUCY: Ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Oh interesting. Okay so, so we talked about what you liked, talked about what, is there anything that you… LUCY: The only thing that I don’t like is the litter and I don’t know where the litter comes from. I think it’s because our particular track is work, there is a lot of construction going on in One-north, and also a lot of office workers use the track to get to work and sometimes it’s a lot of litter. INTERVIEWER: Oh, so they cross over to get to the MRT station or from Wessex towards… LUCY: Ya, or from Coke cans, you know, plastic bags, take-away, ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Okay, okay. LUCY: That’s really the only… INTERVIEWER: Thing that… LUCY: Ya, ya otherwise it’s delightful and as I said that, you know there’s so much community activity that you don’t even know who’s doing it like these paths, the paths that get built at night and maintained, you know, it’s, it’s community maintenance of public space, informal, nobody telling them to do it. INTERVIEWER: So it just, just pops up? LUCY: Ya, ya, someone would put down a crate; someone would put down a mat. It’s very, very nice, ya. INTERVIEWER: And does anyone ever talk about it? LUCY: I talked to my neighbours and do you know who did it and they say no. It might be some of the guys from the Banyan. There’s a Karang Guni guy who collects cardboard boxes and he has his stuff and he gets told off, it’s a little unfair, he’s got to have somewhere to put it but the NEA have been after him a couple of times because they think he’s breeding mosquitoes because he has cans as well. INTERVIEWER: Oh gosh, maybe ya. LUCY: But he, he might, it might be him. I know when my friends are filming up there, the Banyan guys pull out the carpets to help them get their film equipment. So this is really a gotong-royong kind of sense… INTERVIEWER: Kampong spirit sometimes ya. LUCY: Ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: You, I’m asking this out of curiosity but you mentioned the bifurcation, did you notice interaction between the two sides? LUCY: I think there’s suspicion. So for example, maybe a good reason, I don’t know, the people that we’re interviewing, the Malay guys who have the Zebra Doves, they said, one of them said that we can’t come visit you in your house because if we visit you, we’ve tried, we’ve been, when we walk around the estate sometimes, people call the police. So ya. INTERVIEWER: Okay. LUCY: Why they call the police, I don’t know. I mean I can’t, some of my neighbours are horrible enough to just, they see someone who look strange they call the police. So it’s entirely possible they did it for no reason. It’s also possible they did it for a reason. So there is that, you know, certainly that kind of suspicion ya, ya, and possibly on both sides I don’t know. INTERVIEWER: But did you notice there are a number of, how should we say… LUCY: Ang mos? INTERVIEWER: Ang mos walking around here? LUCY: These, these flats now are let out to NUS foreign students. INTERVIEWER: Block 72 and these, these… LUCY: All the SIT flats. INTERVIEWER: Oh the SIT flats? LUCY: Ya. INTERVIEWER: Okay. LUCY: And so there’s a rumour going on around amongst the people who’re moving out of the 10-storeys because people used to live in these and they were asked to sell them, and they sell them back to the government, and they thought they were going to get knocked down, and then they put students in them. So some of the people who are moving out from the 10-storeys think the same things is going to happen to the 10-storeys INTERVIEWER: That it may be turned into residential rentals or things like that, okay. LUCY: Ya, ya. I mean anyway it would be good if they can keep the structures. It would be much better than if it became condos. INTERVIEWER: Well, I suspect that perhaps they, they, maybe there was an initial plan to tear it down and to build it again, but maybe they decided to intensify development elsewhere in Singapore and just keep this one out. LUCY: I hope so, I hope so. INTERVIEWER: But I have a feeling they won’t build condos, maybe more of those super high rise place. LUCY: Ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Those are amazing, aren’t they? LUCY: Ya. INTERVIEWER: Okay, sorry I just got distracted slightly. Did you, did you ever go to the railway station when you heard that it was about to close? Have you, have you visited… LUCY: Okay, so the first time I went like for heritage reasons was in the, I think it was the second Singapore Biennale and there was an artist called Simryn Gill who did work on the murals in the station and Lai Chee Kian gave a talk at the station at the same time. So that was the, the first time I spent time there in, I mean of course I always thought it was a beautiful building and you know, people know what that is. Okay I have something to tell you. I have a friend who shall remain nameless and she broke up with her boyfriend. She, she have been together with this guy for like 10 years. I tell my students this as well. She will kill me if she finds this especially if it’s going into the National Archives but no one would know who she is. And so she used to have a, can we record some of this? INTERVIEWER: Okay. I’ll, I’ll just pause it. LUCY: Just tape it. No, no it’s just the Communist International. INTERVIEWER: Oh dear. LUCY: Okay, we can go back. INTERVIEWER: And you were, you were saying she broke up with her boyfriend and… LUCY: It’s still going on. INTERVIEWER: They are still going… LUCY: Ya so she used to, she used to, to the point she was going on dates with new guys right or she met someone in the bar and stuff like that, she would have this test and the test would be let’s go to the railway station and if, if they thought that was a good idea, they thought that was like really cool place to go, then she knew that there was, there was going to be another date but if they didn’t and they like, “Why the hell are you going to the railway station?” then it’s like fail. INTERVIEWER: So she’s a, I mean without giving away her identity, she’s a history buff I assume or heritage buff? LUCY: She’s interested in culture, let’s put it that way, ya. But the railway station was the first date test. INTERVIEWER: Was the first date test. And they would go to the station for a date? LUCY: Yes, yes, in the middle of the night, ya, just to check it out. No, you know, just you know they had to respond in an appropriate manner to the railway station INTERVIEWER: You, you know many interesting characters that are connected to the railway station. But did you witness the closing, I mean not the closing but the last days of the station? LUCY: No, we stood, we were on the tracks. I teach in a design school and so one of my students managed to copy the Singapura sign so I, we were holding it and waving and some, some, all our neighbours… INTERVIEWER: For the last train? LUCY: Ya, we were all along the tracks and we put coins on the tracks, you know the, they… INTERVIEWER: So they press… LUCY: Ya, so all that, ya, we were all there in the middle of the night. It was funny though, a lot of people but by the time we go down there, there was all the way along. INTERVIEWER: But this was the last train? LUCY: Yup, ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Oh okay. So you were there to witness the last train going out of Singapore in your area, Wessex Estate? LUCY: Ya, ya,all the neighbours went down. INTERVIEWER: And all the neighbours went down? LUCY: Ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Oh, fascinating LUCY: Both sides of the track. INTERVIEWER: Both sides of the track? LUCY: Ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Was the mood jubilant or was it a kind of nostalgia? LUCY: Oh, everyone was a bit sad right, ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Ya, okay. LUCY: Ya, you know people around here, they missed it because you set your clock by it. You know certain time, alright okay, you get up in two hours’ time, you know, you have a rhythm of the trains going, ya. INTERVIEWER: But now you don’t. LUCY: Ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Because it’s gone, it’s gone quiet. LUCY: Ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Okay. LUCY: Of course from a biodiversity perspective, it’s great now as well although I hear that in Jalan Hang Jebat, the monkeys are coming back along the tracks. INTERVIEWER: You mean the mosque, near the mosque? LUCY: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: I can imagine, I can imagine. Well, there’s a question here that asks about photographs or videos. Did you take anything, take any photos or videos? LUCY: Ya, I think I have some pictures on Facebook, ya. INTERVIEWER: Okay. LUCY: Ya, ya by the train and I was waving, we look very silly but ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Cool, alright, maybe I, I, one of the last few questions, you can just sing along and say, one of the last few questions that we always ask is, as you know, there aren’t concrete plans for the station yet and also there’s still some discussion about what’s going to happen to the railway corridors. In your personal opinion, not that you represent any institution or anybody… LUCY: Oh but I do, myself! INTERVIEWER: Yes, but in your personal opinion… LUCY: My great authority… INTERVIEWER: Great authority. What would you like to see for the future? LUCY: Okay, tow things. One of my dreams, basically it’s not going to happen because the train’s gone already, okay there’s another thing I wanted to say but we’ll say later. One of my dreams which is my fantasy right, which is not going to happen because the train is gone, your mum is calling you… INTERVIEWER: No, no, it’s okay, just express yourself. LUCY: It was that the last train coming back to Singapore would carry the whale from the, that used to be in the National Museum, you know the whale that used to, the National Museum of Singapore used to have this big whale, a big whale and when they closed the collection, the whale disappeared. They think it’s in Taiping somewhere but a lot of children who grew up in Singapore can remember this big thing right in the, you know the sort of big, you’ve got the big train, the train station, so I had this dream that the last train will bring the whale back and then we will house the whale in the station and it would be some kind of museum. Well, I wanted the Natural History Museum to be there. I thought the National, because Singapore’s natural history is so tied to raw materials, agriculture, it was the train that was bringing, you know, the rubber, the tin, the whatever. Our, the knowledge we have about natural history in this region is, was kind of the engine of that, was the economics, it was you know, the colonial natural historian who was sent out to find what we can use and what we can plant there and all that kind of thing. So there is a relationship between natural history, transports and raw materials. Second to that, now we have a Natural History Museum going up in NUS anyway so that’s not going to happen and with dinosaurs from Utah but, but Transport Museum, you know, ya, I mean transport heritage and you know, it could be both maritime and train or just trains, ya. Much, much better to have something like that than some stupid night club, café, theme don’t know what fashion, I mean enough of this already. We don’t need another Tiong Bahru, ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Oh okay, comments reserved on that as well. LUCY: Ya, ya. Transport you know, or raw materials or agriculture, you know, something to do, some sort of museum that has a, something to do with Singapore’s relationship to the hinterland, ya, the, without calling it “entreposeum” or… INTERVIEWER: It was an important part of… LUCY: Ya, ya. INTERVIEWER: Do you have any final comments for posterity that you can speak officially on an official record? LUCY: No, but I just hope that of course, we all do, we all hope the railway tracks, not just the station but the railway tracks are kept intact. INTERVIEWER: One way or another. Are the tracks still there? LUCY: No, okay so that was the funny story because it’s like typical Malaysia right. I mean the logical thing to do would be like, you got the train and the train is going back to Malaysia and you pick up the railway, you know, the last, it doesn’t have to be the last fancy train but you have a carriage right and you pick up the rail and you stack them up and you take them along and you stack up, no, no, no, no, no, they have to send in like thousands of Bangladeshi workers to dig, dig the rails up, make paths all the way along, drag everything out by hand… INTERVIEWER: And then carry… LUCY: Yes, I know and the sterns as well. They took everything, they took the rail and the cable. INTERVIEWER: So it’s now just grass? LUCY: Yes, grass and mud that’s it. It’s like Singapore is not going to have anything. INTERVIEWER: Maybe they want to recycle it or something. Well, on that very interesting note, thank you very much for, for giving us your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you Professor Davis.