Life on Pulau Brani in 1937

Dear Lynne. You have caused me to think a good deal about my days in Singapore. I can but hope that you will find my recollections of interest. Where to start? In 1937 my father was a Sargeant in the Royal Engineers at the Ordnance Depot in Didcot (it's a nuclear power station now!). His job was "works maintenance" -heating, cooking plant, water supply, standby power plant etc etc. He cycled to work every day. I went to the local school. We lived in married quarters. Then he was posted to Singapore. We had our jabs. We sailed from Southampton in March aboard His Majesty's Troopship "Dilwara". I can still remember seeing the Beedles out of a porthole as the afternoon faded. The trip took four weeks. We called briefly at Malta, but we went ashore only at Port Said (to buy topees), and at Colombo. Pulau Brani was of tremendous interest to us -hot, smelly, and strange. We lived at No 10 Tinworks Terrace, but I'm sorry to say that I cannot remember where/in which block that house was. If the terrace consists of two blocks of 5, then the No 10 suggests that it was an end house. Smoke from the tinworks sometimes blew our way and carried fragments of sulphur onto our clothes, mosquito nets, and curtains, burning small holes in them. It made our eyes sting too. After a while, perhaps only a few weeks, was an end house, and it was the end of lovely position. Behind the houses was guns, which occasionally fIred - a were Punjabis of the Hong Kong and have been almost confIned to the Fort because hill was covered with concrete and I now believe (Gibralter has a similar catchment). After a year or two we moved again, this time to No 3 Teregah - the third of 4 bungalows. This might well have been due to my father's promotion to Warrant Officer. His office was on Blakang Mati and he was again on "garrison maintainance" but now that included roads, drains, ammunition hoists and various other things. He was responsible (I believe) for a water-supply dam being constructed on Blakang Mati, and the installation of a power station (diesel driven) on Pulau Brani. We had electric power before that but I do not know where it came. I never remember water supply being a problem. In that, we were fortunate, because the inhabitants of Kampong Saga had to fetch theirs from a spring in Brani Bay, the Malays by boat and the Chinese by carrying pole; while the inhabitants ofKampong Singkir fetched their water by boat from a spring at the back of mangrove swamps across the strait on Blakang Mali. Both races used empty cans of about four gallon capacity. The Malays would load a canoe until it had only about an inch of freeboard, but I only ever saw one sink -in fIve years. The Chinese started young, little girls of 5 or 6 carrying quite a load of water. I remember only girls doing it, not boys, but my memory may be tfmlty. So far as I know none of the children, Malay or Chinese went to school. The Chinese were mostly, if not entirely, shopkeepers. How the Malays earned a living I cannot now imagine. A few of each race were employed of course by the War Dept., and I suppose that a few worked in the city. We got to know the Malay sailors on the launches (RASC!) quite well, particularly the friendly ones, but the serang in his little cabin up on the roof discouraged us from approaching him. In those days the RASC had two or three launches on "bus" duties, running between Pulau Brani, Blakang Mati, and Jardine Steps. They also had a larger boat used for target towing for gunnery practice; there were 15" guns at Fort Serapong on Blakang Mati. This larger boat, the Sir John Anderson I think she was, was also used occasionally to give us a day out on the sea. We called them "health trips". We once went to a Dutch island about 12 miles out - Pulau Carimon. One of the regular boats, the Sir Theodore Fraser, used to make a run up the harbour every Friday evening to dock at Clifford Pier while the married families had a night out, usually to the cinema, followed by a meal at a restaurant or in the Union Jack Club. I believe that the boats were named after onetime Governors of the Colony. We children were officially allowed to buy things in only one of the Chinese shops, the one owned by Ah Hong, one could even buy ice cream there. Unofficially, of course, we did as we liked, and often patronised itinerant sellers of peanuts, fried banana, and fried sweet potato. We bought other things in other shops -particularly fishing lines and hooks. We all went, at fIrst, to an Army School on Blakang Mati. The Schoohnistress was the wife of a manager in the Tinworks, Mrs Hall. She was a proper lady of about 40 or 45 - a little stiff perhaps but a very good teacher. She had to cope with 15 or 20 pupils ranging in age from 5 to 15. And she did it very well. After a year or so she was replaced by two young ladies out from England, one was Miss Croot, I can't remember the other. Since young white women were exceedingly rare in Singapore it is surprising that they had time to teach us. But after a bit my father decided that I ought to aim higher and he paid for me to attend St Andrews School, a Church of England secondary school more or less equivalent to an English grammar school. But I was not there very long - a year perhaps when, seeing that war clouds were gathering. He transferred me to Pitman's Commercial College in the hope, I suppose, that I would quickly acquire enough knowledge to get some sort of job if the worst came to the worst. I studied shorthand, typing, book-keeping and "commerce" for about a year then got a job as an assistant in the Accounts Dept of the General Mining and Agency Co Ltd., just off Raffles Square. The Army worked from 7 am to I pm. I had to work from 8.30 am to 5 pm. To keep eyes open in the afternoon was very difficult. There were fans, but no air-conditioning. . -III a:: 0. III iE . From 1937 . By Bob Pattemore ... we moved to No.1 Silingsing, which the block that looked out to sea. A Fort Silingsing with a battery of 9.2 frightening experience. The gunners Singapore Artillery. But they must we saw very little of them. The top of the that perhaps our water came from there. While we were in Singapore the Cathay Cinema was built and opened. It was air-conditioned. It was one of the wonders of the world! Army quarters had no refrigerators -just wooden chests with a lump of ice inside, renewed each day. The size of the lump varied with the rank of the occupant! Well, in the Army it would wouldn't it ? Vegetables were brought round each day by "Green john", a Chinaman with a carrypole. We had meat, but I cannot remember how it reached us. The same goes for bread. We were not short of either. Surprisingly perhaps, fish was more rare. One of father's workmen used to send us an ekan merah from time to time, (a bribe?). I don't ever remember mother buying fish. We had quite a bit of fruit. Pomeloes often, limes every day, sometimes rambutans, mangosteens, pineapples or bananas. There was also a tree on the island, near the gate leading into Fort Silingsing, with a fruit like a plum which we boys used to steal and eat regularly. The bungalow at Teregah was spacious, with a garden all round it. And below the garden there was a grassy slope running down to Kampong Singir. The view in that direction was over the Kampong to Blakang Mati. The Kampong was destroyed to make way for the new Naval Base. We had a marvellous life. We could go where we liked when we liked in perfect safety. Anywhere on Pulau Brani, except the Tinworks which I never penetrated but also the back streets of Singapore, the docks, the country areas, downtown, uptown - it made no difference. Except the Forts of course, I never got into them, nor the Ordnance Depot. The Island was park-like. Here and there were large trees, beneath them there was grass, which was regularly burnt off by gangs of Tamil workmen. The natives kept to the Kampongs and never trespassed near the houses of the Europeans, except for a few Chinese women who pulled dead branches off the trees for firewood, or gathered a small plant in the grass. It looked a little like clover and they used it to make a drink. There was virtually no crime. In five years there was only one break-in that I can remember. There were no vehicles on the island, just the odd bicycle belonging to an itinerant trader - a Chinaman or an Indian trader. Indians sold brass-ware and were tailors. Chinese sold all sorts of things. What did we do with ourselves in that lotus-land existence? Of one thing I'm sure, we never said, as many youngsters do today "Mum, I'm bored!". On most days we went swimming, always in the pagar, the time depending on the tide. On most days we went for a walk - more often than not onto the coral reef. The reef was a treasure trove when the tide was out. We collected shells, we often found creatures stranded --jelly fish, sea snakes, eels. We drew pictures, we painted, we read books, we played games (cards, draughts, ludo, Halma, snakes and ladders). We made toy ships out of wood, sticking them together with resin from the trees, we climbed the trees, we made a tree house, we made bows and arrows, we made catapults, we once made a ukelele. After I acquired a canoe (a kolek in Malay) we went sailing and fishing. We fished off the piers and the pagar and the beach. We bled the rubber trees and made balls with the trickled latex. We played football and cricket and hockey. We played the gramophone (you had to wind it up!). We trespassed in the Kampongs. We teased Amah. We played badminton. We walked endlessly round the island, even in the dark. We made things with Meccano. We did jigsaw puzzles. We made paper airplanes and launched them into the sea from the cliff and hill tops. We swung from the trees on ropes. We went aboard ships in the docks and asked for matches -we collected matchbox labels. Dutch ships, French ships, Italians, American, Japanese, Russian, Swedish -they were all the same to us! We went into the tourist offices in Singapore and asked for postcards. My brother had a different life. He went to school at Alexandria, he made friends there and visited them on Mt Faber, at Tanglin and other places. He became a boy-scout and went to camp (I cannot now remember why I did not). But after the acquisition of the canoe we spent much time together sailing out to sea. We visited St Johns, and Chiknkor, and the two little islands beyond now known as the Sisters. I have since wondered how we survived. It was a small canoe. We took lots of chances. The Good Lord must have been keeping an eye on us. Looking back on it now I expect that the furthest we got from base was 3 or 4 miles. We did not go near the docks however because we feared the sharks that were rumoured to lie near the big ships waiting for rubbish to be thrown overboard. We knew they were there. Standing on Ordnance Pier one morning waiting for the launch to take us to school, we saw a sad little flotilla of canoes returning to Kampong Saga. Old JoHari, the lookout man, had gone down once too often. The shark came up between his legs and removed a large chunk. He was lying on his back with his knees up and bits of entrail were hanging over the side. They used to dive for coins. I wonder if they still do? And from time to time people were taken by sharks in the dock area and at other spots around Singapore Island; sometimes in quite shallow water. So we feared them. Every day a Malay dived down into 18 feet of water just off the pagar to inspect his fish traps. We watched him in awe. We credited the Malays with a knowledge of sharks that we did not have. When barbed wire entanglements were erected offTeregafa Beach we bravely swam once or twice inside them, but we were then within a few weeks of leaving. The pagar consisted of a fence with no more than two or three inches of space between the vertical palings. And with barbed wire nailed to that.. Even so a black -and-yellow banded sea-snake would, occasionally penetrate and we would then leave the water hurriedly. Every one present would throw stones at it until it was driven off. Tiny jelly fish could get in of course. The sort that you can't see but which feel like stinging nettles. They too caused evacuation at times. The pagar also had a diving tower and a chute. Plus changing rooms and a covered area. Was all that gone by your day? In our early years there we were never allowed out without a topee. But the coming of the Australians and various other factors eventually weakened the belief that ten minutes in the sun would give us sun-stroke and the use oftopee then declined. Needless to say the British Army did not give them up so easily. When I went back three years ago there were still one or two concrete uprights remaining of the old pagar fence. Major Puru's friends, who gave us a conducted tour ofthe island, tried very hard to fmd something that I could recognise. On the hill above where the pagar used to be, they took us to an old house. This, they said, is the oldest house on the island, you must remember this! I asked when it was built. 1950 they said. It seemed to be useless to keep on telling them that I left in 1941. A date so far back was beyond their comprehension. But Ordnance Pier I did recognise, and the little crane on the end of it, and the miniature railway lines that used to carry the shells and explosives into the Ordnance Depot. Also the ancient cooling tower that lay between the Ordnance Pier and the pagar (it fell into disuse long before my time; I would think it might date trom about the time of the first world war). But, as I expect you know, a causeway has now been constructed to PB at about that point so no doubt it's all gone now. I went back just in time........ I'm still in regular correspondence with my Chinese chum from St Andrews School, he now lives in a luxury flat just behind the Hyatt Regency Hotel. My Chinese housemaster, Tan Lye Watt, came in trom the Suburbs to buy us lunch. He was then in his 80's. But to return to PB. I have already mentioned the barbed wire out trom Teregah Beach. Then, there was a boom across the harbour mouth. All the Amahs had to have their photos taken (they objected!). We practiced wearing anti-gas gear and using stirrup pumps. We were enjoined to grow vegetables, which we did. We grew sweet potatoes and maize, and we tried bananas and papayas. We had some success. All the liners that came in were painted grey. Suddenly there was nothing trom England - no chocolate, no tooth paste, no corn flakes. We had to use substitutes, some of them trom Australia. We thought them poor exchange. There were Australian troops in the city. They didn't know how to behave -they put the rickshaw wallahs in the rickshaws and got between the shaft's themselves - and had races down the main streets. They drank beer out of bottles in public, and sat about on the edge of the pavement, and they didn't wear topees. The air was full of Brewster Buffalo fighter planes (we thought them superb but they turned out to be no good against Japanese planes). We saw troops marching around in the midday heat; on route marches (and didn't they look hot and bothered). An air-raid shelter was constructed against one wall of the bungalow. Obviously something was up! Then came the first bombing raid (on Dec. 8th). Within three weeks the Japs were at the gates of Kuala Lumpur and we were on a Dutch ship sailing for Batavia. Except Dad of course, he had. to stay behind and do his duty. The family farewell on the quayside was pretty grim. I was 17. I don't suppose Mum and Dad expected to . see each other again. He was still there when the city fell but he did escape, by sea to Sumatra, and then to India where he then served until the end of the war. He ended up as a Captain in the Indian Engineers. (Editor's note: read his father's story in next edition). We; Mum, me, brother, and sister; were taken across the Indian Ocean to Durban, where we trans-shipped to an English boat and so, eventually, to Liverpool. England was a terrible shock -blacked out, food rationed. My brother went to Grandparents in Chard (Somerset) and the rest of us to Grandparents at Yatton Keynell (near Chippenham, Wilts). I did a year with the Westinghouse Brake & Signal Co and was then called up for four years as a Radar Mech in the Air Force................