The social side of 75 Squadron exercises in Singapore, in 1962 and mid 1970s

While we were in Singapore one trip a couple of us went to Sentosa Island just offshore Singapore.

In 1941 when the Japanese invaded Singapore the cease-fire was signed there, and there is monument there regarding the signing. It was also the site of the British defensive guns that the Japanese moved to Tarawa.

The most unusual thing we found was the ‘On Island’ bus company was called “The Green Bus Company” and most of their buses were ex London double Decker bright red buses.

The Aquarium had water pumped to the top of the building, sent along slotted pipes that stretched across the roof and cover the front of the Aquarium with a sprinkle of falling water, a fantastic display, and it kept the area noticeably cooler.

We also went to the Karangi War Memorial to pay our respects.

The RNZAF had decided that we needed lightweight tropical uniforms while we were there, and were prepared to pay a certain amount towards it.

In the nearby, [five minutes walk away] village was a tailor, ‘Willy’ the tailor. We went into his shop, placed our orders, usually two long trousers, two long sleeved shirts, three shorts and short sleeved shirts.

Willy would write what we wanted in his book, “You come Thursday”. On Thursday everything we had ordered would be ready, fitting perfectly, without any measurements taken at all.

He also did a good trade in casual clothing and suits as well.

One Sunday there was nothing much happening anywhere so I went for a walk down to the village, to fill in time as much as anything.

As I walked passed Willy's shop I heard the sound of Mah Jong pieces rattling on a table inside.

The neighbors were in the process of teaching my wife and me how to play before we left.

I asked Willy if I could go in and watch and learn. His reply was that “No Mah Jong, Mah Jong Illegal, you can watch”.

I stood behind the Chinese guys that were playing and at the end of the game asked why they had done the moves that they had.

At the end of every hand, there was an exchange of money going to the winner, not much, a hand full of coins.

One of the guys would get up and leave, and another one would take his place. After a half to three-quarters of an hour, one of the guys left and there were only three of them left.

They all turned to me and asked me to join in the game. I couldn’t think of a polite way of saying no, there wasn’t that much money changing hands, so I sat in.

A few hands later I rolled the tile holder over and said “I think that is a good one”.

There was a lot of chatter and suddenly there was about fifty dollars on the table in front of me.

I turned to Willy and asked him to get some lunch for those present out of the winnings, he was more than happy to do so, and he also shouted a bottle of Saki.

Fortunately, that was the end of Mah Jong, my luck wouldn’t have lasted much longer.

When we were married we had swapped wedding rings, as you do. My wife had been peeling the evening potatoes at her parent's farm and taken her ring off so it wouldn’t get marked. [ it was all of a week old at this stage.]

My wife was eldest of 10 kids so you can imagine how many potatoes there were to be peeled to feed the whole family.

The peelings had gone out to the hen house for their food, and her father had decided it was time to remove some of the accumulation of droppings in the hen house and spread them over the paddock.

The ring was never found.

I asked Willy a couple of days after the Mah Jong episode if he knew a good jeweler that I could get some rings from.

He said, “You come Wednesday Night. 6 o’clock.” At the appointed time I showed up and he rang his father, there was a long conversation in Chinese and then we left in Willy’s car.

I have no idea where we went, it was to a village that I never found again. We stopped outside the jeweler,s shop, you could tell it was a jewelers shop by the old guard sitting outside, looking like he was asleep.

He was armed with a rusty double-barreled [could have been two single barreled tied together with string] shotgun, most of the butt had been eaten away by woodworm.

He was more dangerous to himself than any robber. On the way to the shop, Willy had been most insistent that I didn’t argue with the shopkeeper.

This was most unusual, bartering is the way of life in Singapore, but I was prepared to agree.

The Jeweler showed me his rings and I sorted out a pair, I had used one of my wife’s rings to see which of my fingers it fitted and how far on it went to get the right size.

I added a watch and some small brooches for the daughters and the jeweler said how much they were worth, he itemized each thing and I was more than happy to pay him. We then went back to Willy’s shop and then back to base.

Willy

A few nights later I was at one of the married guy's homes catching them up on happenings in NZ when they said the ‘Best Gold Smith’ was coming that night to show them some stuff. Purely out of curiosity I stayed, and after he had finished his selling spiel I passed him my new wedding ring.

He hefted it in his hand, checked the hallmark inside, asked if it was ‘Chinese Gold’? [22 karats], and then he said “Number one price $ 95. I didn’t tell him I had just paid $110 for both rings, but it was a good feeling to know that I hadn’t been robbed by Willy’s jeweler,

When we returned to Ohakea at the end of the exercise the wives and kids had come to greet the fathers, they were allowed to mix and mingle freely with us before we went through customs.

When my wife came over with a cup of coffee I slipped her wedding ring onto her finger and it fitted perfectly.

Unfortunately being a soft gold the decorations on the ring have almost worn away to smooth now.

NZ made a cheap whiskey called ‘45 South’, it was quite sweet with an apricot aftertaste, and suited the Chinese pallet, we could buy a bottle for a couple of bucks each, take it to Willy and he would treat you like you were a king.

On the second or third trip to Singapore he called out to be at his shop at 6,30 Thursday, so I went.

One of his workers had made him a lot of money and Willy wanted to say thanks to the worker by taking him out for the night.

To show the worker how good Willy was, a European was asked to join the trip. We set off and drove into the middle of Singapore, to another part I have never found again.

We parked the car and started down this dim street, not that unusual as lights cost money and someone has to pay for it.

We walked a little way down the street and I noticed there was a door, a large window, most of them with the curtain drawn, then another door with its large window, and you could see inside a lady sitting reading, knitting, or something. Then a window where the curtain wasn’t properly pulled and you had no doubt what was going on in there.

Then I noticed the little wheelbarrows selling sites in the middle of the street. They had the biggest collection of condoms you could imagine, all for sale.

We went from there to Bugis Street. In the day it as a normal road, used by cars, trucks, pedestrians,
In the evening tables and chairs would come out from somewhere and cover the street.

The average owner would have one table and six chairs, a richer one would have two tables and chairs. Specks was the king, he had three tables and chairs.

Because it was a different layout each night we would start at a table, argue the price of a can of beer with the six-year-old kid who was the waiter, get up and ask for Specks tables.Sometimes they would point you in the right direction, sometimes not.

The beer at Specks was about 50 cents cheaper, but drunken Kiwis drank more, he made more money by us being there.

The toilet arrangements were three Asian squat holes in a room that had a three or four-inch high lip of concrete right around the wall.

Early in the evening, the sewer system could almost keep up with production, by midnight the floor was awash, and by two it was overflowing down the side of the road.

It paid not to wear flip flops/Jandals and be an early visitor. The aim of the Kiwis was to watch the sun rise over Bugis Street.

About 4 am they would take the chair away if you weren’t sitting on it. They had to turn the cafe back into a road ready for the next day.

There were some great attempts to hang on until the sun rose.

Because of the trapped, well-paid guys, getting nicely at Bugis Street, all the sidewalk sellers would show up.

From our side, the sidewalk sellers were an attraction for us.

A little boy after bringing you your beer and change would instantly Ask “You want nice girl?’ . If you replied no, the next question was “You want nice boy”?.

Sometimes we would ask to see his string, about eight to twelve girls of various ages and conditions would be paraded and refused.

Then another little six to eight boy would sidle up “You play naught cross? $1 game”. Who can’t beat a kid playing naughts and crosses?. after about six or eight games you give him a dollar and sent him on his way.

The local watch seller would show up with a long coat that he would flash open [just like a flasher in the jokes] showing fiftyish watches clipped into the inside of his coat.

We would ask if the watches were ‘waterproof’ and were told ‘yes, of course’. The next question had them grab their watches back and depart.

None of the watches were Tiger Proof. [Tiger is the name of the local beer]. The test was to submerge the watch in a glass of beer.

We watched a young family walking through the street and they had been bailed up by a local salesman. We were on the watch, ready to help if necessary.

This salesman had the biggest dildo you have ever seen, and he had it turned on and was quietly rubbing it up the forearms of an about sixteen-year-old girl, and then her eighteen-year-old sister.

The late thirty/ early forty-year-old mother was looking quite perplexed, none of them had any idea of what it was.

Suddenly the sixteen-year-old turned bright pink, her sister screamed, and mother grabbed an arm each and they were running away up the street, we all thought it was funny.

Most evenings there were Kaitai’s walking up and down between the tables. They were some of the most attractive looking girls you will ever see.

Beautiful makeup, well-filled dresses in all the right places, then they would sit down by you and say “HELLO DARLING’ in a deeper voice than ours, again they would sit and talk, and some of their stories were very moving.

Occasionally the Navy was in town, the sailors would also gravitate to Bugis Street, the place was like a magnet.

About 1 am they would start doing the dance of the flaming arsehole. A length of toilet paper was wedged between the bare buttock cheeks and the loose end was lit.

The contest was to see how close the flame would get before the dancer insisted that the fire be put out. Usually by spraying beer in the general direction, in a hit or miss option.

When Willy was shouting we stayed in the outskirts and mainly watched. Eventually, we went back to Tengah and the worker thanked me very much for going out with him and making his night such a success.

A retired Meteor that was then “Gate Guard” just inside the main gate. During the late English rule and the early Independence of Singapore, these were used as drogue towers for the RAF and the early SAF.[Singappore Air Force]
This one is retired and sits just inside the main gate of Tengah.

Alongside the main barrack block was this water tower, a closer inspection revealed holes in the lower structure.

When we asked about it, we were told that some soldiers had holed up the top of the water tower for two weeks when the Japanese invaded.

The Japanese didn’t want to fire at them and risk losing the water in the tower, so they starved them out.

By the main gates of Tengah is a section of the original fence showing the bullet holes made by the attackers and defenders during the invasion of Singapore in 1941

Because money is everything on the Island of Singapore, and as the Singaporeans are usually much shorter than Europeans, the rear of a truck's cab was removed and moved as far forward as possible, this increased the length of the deck by an extra foot to one and a half feet. Imagine how much extra freight could be carried on that extra deck space over the long life of the truck. For free.

Doors weren’t important, they slowed the driver getting out. The rain was warm and everybody apart from the driver was happy.

This one also has a load space over the cab Roof.

We also watched them erecting some new barrack blocks, there were two women carrying bricks up to three bricklayers, the women were trotting to keep the layers supplied, and the layers were trying to get the women to run faster.
The difference between one day labour and the next were very noticeable.

The lady is carrying 16 to 18 bricks in each basket and would work for 12 to 15 hours a day.

There was one man who spent his day making the mortar that the bricklayers were using.

All the scaffolding was bamboo and string.

A finished barracks block looked like this.

The road repair gangs were also a lot different to home. We were used to the road gang blocking off a large section of road that they were going to repair.

They would use machines to dig up the old road, followed by truckloads of stones being spread over the area.

These were then rolled, graded and re-rolled until eventually, a tar seal truck would lay a layer of tar over the repair, quickly followed by the chip trucks applying the top coat.

The road was then opened and left until the next repair in many years time.

In Singapore, while travailing down a road you would see an old lady waving a flag at the traffic.
The traffic would all steer clear of her and go around the road crew.

First on the scene were the men with their pickaxes, they broke up the top tar seal, and started shoveling the debris into baskets, two of which a lady would carry on the end of a long pole over her shoulder.

The ladies would carry this either to the side of the road where they wanted to extend the width of the road or up a ramp onto a parked truck.

When they had dug a big enough hole the debris truck would drive off and another couple of trucks with different sized stones on the back would show up.

The ladies and their baskets would carry the stones over to the hole where the original diggers would spread the stones out to their satisfaction.

When the hole was slightly over full everybody would disappear until tomorrow.

The team would reappear, the old lady would wave her flag, the ladies with the long stick and baskets would carry more stones over so the men could refill the pothole that was now there.

Again the hole was slightly overfilled until tomorrow.

This would continue until there was no subsidence from the day before, then a different crew would spread some ‘hot seal’ over the hole to seal it and turn it back into a roadway again

At four thirty pm, it would rain, really rain, the drains were about six to seven feet deep and they still overflowed. By six o’clock the rain would stop until four thirty pm tomorrow.

The rain had been falling less than five minutes here.

Like all readers of books about the area of Singapore the thought of going to Raffels Hotel was on the ‘to do’ list.

The doorman looked us over, asked if we were officers, and suggested we left before he got some heavies to help.

There was Roscher Canal that passed through the bottom of the city near the ocean, the boat people lived on these sampans all their lives, transporting cargo from the visiting cargo ships to shore.

In 1962 when the English were in control of the island you could see which wharves had been worked that day, and where the goods had been carried.

The carriers would chew a leaf that was a mild narcotic, easing pain and hunger, but it produced large quantities of scarlet saliva which was spat onto the road as they walked.

This made it easy to see what had happened, and where the goods went to today.

Now, after the times of Lee Quon Yew the place is almost spotless, dropping anything could be a fine of up to $50, this included cigarette butts and lolly papers.

There are now lots of people whose job is to keep the streets spotlessly clean,

During the war, the story says that the Japanese mounted at least one head for each upright on the bridge, both sides.

The outskirts of China Town, even in daylight we wouldn’t go anywhere near unless there were at least eight of us, sober.

Another corner of China Town. Because there is no room for clotheslines the washing is placed on long bamboo poles and mounted out the window. This cuts theft as well.

The RAF and then the SAF were using Changi airfield as the freight airfield. When RNZAF had Bristol Freighters [B170] in Singapore they had the area where the last aircraft on the right is.

This is part of the main runway built for the Japanese invasion forces by the prisoner's of war during World War 2. It is at right angle to the prevailing winds and is now used for dispersal areas for the various Squadrons stationed there.

This was 41 Sqns dispersal while the Sqn was in Singapore

The cheapest way of getting around the island was by ‘pick up taxi’, because Tengah is quite a way from the center of the city usually you were the first person into the taxi.

The driver would then head towards your destination, he would honk his horn at everybody he saw on the side of the road, trying to get their attention and get them to also travel in his taxi.

They would have a discussion, and if we were going in the right way, they would climb in, travel as far as they were going, get out and pay. The taxi would then carry on to town.

One trip, I was by myself in the back seat, the driver had ‘picked up’ a local lady with a small child under one arm and a piglet under the other.

We progressed for a short while when the child started to fret, as kids do. Without a moments hesitation the lady pulled out her tit and stuffed it in the baby’s mouth.

Having seen my wife feed our kids that didn’t surprise me that much, however, unlike at home, in public, there was no effort to hide what she was doing.

But when the piglet started to wriggle and squeak she pulled the other tit out and stuffed it into the piglet’s mouth as well, I was a bit surprised.

She reached her destination, paid the driver, reclaimed her tits and went on her way as if it was a normal thing to do. What a sheltered life I had lead.

There used to be a bus route from the city to Changi, called the Changi Flyer. The 41 Sqn guys reckoned you hadn’t been to Singapore until you had made that run.

Curiosity got the better of me, I had to have a go. Instead of doing the late night, 1 am run I decided to to do a mid afternoon run so I could see the sights as well.

I got on and paid the fare ok, found a rear facing set, looked around and on the opposite seat, inches away was a ten to twelve year old local girl.

I continued to do the sight seeing bit when out of the corner of my eye I noticed she was giving me the ‘Churchhill’ gesture with her two fore fingers.

Initial thought was ‘cheeky little girl’, so I ignored her. She continued to gesture and I noticed she was saying something as well.

So I started to pay attention to her, she was saying “two bucks”, I don’t know what she was offering, or who would be performing, I got out at the next bus stop and never did to complete the Changi Flyer ride.