Malcolm Road Memories

Oh, the stories we would hear if the walls of black-and-white houses could talk! Luckily for us, we don’t need to rely on the brickwork of this beautiful Malcolm Road home to reveal its secrets, as we had the opportunity to meet some past and present tenants, who told us more about the property and its history.

- Amy Brook-Partridge

I was seven years old when we first came to Singapore. My father had worked at the BBC, then during the war he joined the Royal Air Force and became a squadron leader; but he retained his links with the BBC, and after the war they decided to post him out here.

My mother, along with my brother, sister and myself, arrived in Singapore from Yorkshire in May 1947, leaving behind the worst winter we’d ever experienced. I remember pushing my doll’s pram down the drive, and playing with the two girls who lived with the team of staff that looked after us; this included a Chinese cook, who I remember being rather bad-tempered!

I think my mother was the happiest she’d ever been – and, coming from rations and the cold to cocktail parties and warmth, that’s really no surprise! My brother seemed to always be getting into trouble: he once fell out of a window at the back of the house, and got stuck in the monsoon drain. There was also a lot more jungle when we were here, and we didn’t go down to the lalang (jungle grass) because we were always warned about snakes. The trees were definitely smaller back then; it has been 70 years, after all!

At first I went to a little preschool up the road, then my parents moved me to a Chinese Methodist school where I was the only European. As I was still young, I wasn’t taken into town much, but on Sunday mornings I would go with my father to work; he would read the news, and I would sit there and use the typewriter and attempt to type a letter to my mother. I remember Bukit Timah Road being full of old trucks, and it being dirty and noisy – but you have to remember they were rebuilding Singapore; it was so different from now.