Final Notes From a Great Island

by Neil Humphreys

  The Armenian Church was everything I expected it to be. An elegant, white-washed building with flawless marble floors under grand porticos, it was neither garish nor ostentatious. It was a charming church with a graceful spire on top. I had walked down Hill Street a dozen times before but had not noticed the historic gem. Perhaps that helps to explain its longevity. Out of sight, out of mind, the Armenian Church has been pretty much left to its own devices by the British, Japanese and now Singaporean governments. A little too much perhaps. A collection box proudly stated that the building sustained itself without government subsidies. Now, if central funds can be allocated to build artificial tourist fluff like Raffles Terrace, then surely a few dollars could be handed out to help preserve one of the island’s oldest structures?

  I ambled around its manicured garden and discovered the grave of Agnes Joachim. She died in 1899 and the headstone, rather like the church, paid an unpretentious tribute, with a small plaque acknowledging her role in discovering Singapore’s national flower. Some kind soul had left a pot of orchids by her grave.

  It suddenly started to rain so I took shelter under one of the church’s splendid porticos and watched soaked Singaporeans splash their way through Hill Street. The church did not seem to mind. It has been providing shelter for over 170 years.

  CHAPTER 29

  This island tour is fast reaching its conclusion so I thought I would recognise the people who made this glorious country what it is today. Revered for their honesty, transparency and lifelong commitment to a common goal, their contribution to society is acknowledged across the world. They helped bring a fledgling nation together to celebrate its independence every year. Indeed, the debt Singapore owes these fine, upstanding citizens can never be repaid.

  I am referring, of course, to the Dagenham Girl Pipers. Or more specifically, Peggy Iris, Sheila Nobes and Carole Granfield of the Dagenham Girl Pipers. Those three women helped make Singapore’s National Day Parade (NDP) what it is today.

  As we all know, Singapore celebrates its independence on 9 August with an extravaganza at either the Padang or the National Stadium. (If you are thinking of attending the next one, the colour scheme tends to be red and white.) These glittering occasions give the country a chance to show off their Chinook helicopters and disturbingly energetic hosts who get paid a dollar every time they screech, “Singapore, make some noise!” They earn an additional 50 cents if they cry “woo”, “awesome” or “Are you ready to par-ty?”. These well-drilled affairs display a military precision that betrays a year of stringent planning, choreography and rehearsal. I have heard that even the “woos” are rehearsed.

  But in 1967, it was a different story. In the first quarter of that year, preparations for the next NDP began in earnest. Having declared its independence in 1965, Singapore staged its first parade in 1966 and the show was an unqualified success. So the word from the top was “The NDP is to become an annual event so make sure that the second one is a marked improvement upon the first.” But how do you top an exhilarating first act? How do you make the sequel more entertaining than the original? Simple. You get on the government hotline and call Dagenham.

  That NDP organising committee meeting, comprising military bigwigs, political figures and members of the People’s Association, must have been mind-blowing:

  “We need to top last year’s smash at the Padang. Don’t think Malaysian standard, Indonesian standard or even Asian standard. The world will be watching so think world standard, people. I’m thinking foreign talent for this one. So where do we go to get world-class foreign talent?”

  “Dagenham.”

  “Dagenham? No way! Out of the question! I don’t want anything to do with Australians.”

  “No, it’s in England, sir. In Essex. You know, the world’s biggest council housing estate?”

  “What? Bigger than our plans for Toa Payoh? Impossible.”

  “No, it is, really. It’s also got the Ford car plant, Dudley Moore, Sir Alf Ramsey, Jimmy Greaves and that singer Sandie Shaw. She’s in the charts right now, actually. You know, ‘A Puppet on a String’?”

  “Oh, that is a catchy song. Is Dagenham anywhere near Cambridge? We like Cambridge.”

  “Er, yeah, it’s close enough.”

  “Right then. Let’s call Dagenham and get them to send over some world-class talent. Who knows? Dagenham could become a veritable factory of foreign talent for this country.”

  I am milking this, I know, but my hometown and the adjectival “world-class” are seldom found in the same sentence. But in 1967, the Dagenham Girl Pipers was an internationally renowned marching bagpipe band that toured the world. So when The Straits Times reported in February 1967 that Singapore must have a 36-member all-girl bagpipe band, Dagenham’s Iris, Nobes and Granfield were flown over, on business class I hope, to form the Singapore Girl Pipers and prepare them for the NDP. According to the report, the girls had to play the pipes and the drums and learn to dance the Scottish reel. I have no idea what encompassed the Scottish reel, but I suspect it involved drinking a copious amount of whisky and falling over.

  Dagenham’s coaches had to work with pipers who had good physiques and shapely legs, according to the government, which took time out from its busy schedule of building a country from scratch to discuss young girls’ legs. Dr Goh Keng Swee, the Minister for Defence back then, pointed out that girl pipers are usually attired in tartan skirts so the need for well-formed legs should be obvious to all. In other words, fatties need not apply.

  Dagenham’s finest delivered the goods. The all-new Singapore Girl Pipers made a spectacular debut at the second NDP in 1967 and, by all accounts, stole the show. The girls went on to become a regular, and popular, feature at subsequent Padang parades. Under the tutelage of the People’s Association, the Singapore Girl Pipers evolved into the Singapore Pipe Band, which is still going strong today. And, if I might be permitted to jut out my chest for just a moment, it is all thanks to my tiny hometown.

  I sat on the steps of City Hall and looked across at the Padang. It was Sunday morning and there were a handful of tourists snapping pictures with Singapore’s skyline as their backdrop. City Hall, a glorious building with its imposing colonnade, is steeped in history. On 12 September 1945, the Japanese climbed these very steps before formally surrendering to the dwindling British Empire. Twenty years later, Lee Kuan Yew announced the country’s independence. Again, after climbing these steps. Now, I could pretend that I was pondering the magnitude of these events and their indelible imprint upon Singapore’s history, but I was really picturing several pairs of “well-formed legs” marching up and down the Padang. I once watched the players of Liverpool Football Club jog around this hallowed turf and tried to recall which Reds were there that day. But it was no good. I got as far as Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen before they were swiftly elbowed aside by startling images of the Fat Girl Pipers stomping across the Padang. I had to leave.

  After a quick look at the old Supreme Court, a classically designed masterpiece that will soon be wisely converted into a national art gallery, I drifted down the small side street that separates City Hall and the old Supreme Court and was confronted by the new Supreme Court. Now, I have encountered some pitiful erections on this tour; the green penis in Toa Payoh’s Town Garden will stay with me forever. But the new Supreme Court is spectacularly awful. Not untypical of modern monstrosities, it is covered in gloomy glass and pales in comparison to the old Supreme Court. That stately structure, with its respectful nod to St Paul’s Cathedral via its majestic dome, was preoccupied with a much sillier concern: its appearance. However, its frighteningly functional successor is topped off with a disc-shaped structure that suggests it has just fallen out of a Steven Spielberg film. Irritated that such an incongruous design had ever been commissioned to stand behind two classical buildings, I marched across Anderson Bridge and took a bus down Beach Road to a place where heritage has been treated with a little more respect.

  Kampong Glam (or Gelam) existe
d before Stamford Raffles. Named after the gelam tree that grew in the area, the kampong was located at the mouth of the Rochor River and populated by the Malay and Orang Laut, or sea people, communities. In 1822, Raffles beat the People’s Action Party to its racial quota policy by carving up the areas around the Singapore River into racial districts. Kampong Glam, rather sensibly, was kept for the Malays and Bugis traders. Arab, Javanese, Boyanese and other Muslim merchants soon joined them. Ironically, the population surge put pressure on the land and Kampong Glam’s original occupants moved away to places like Geylang Serai. Today, their descendants are stuck with a crappy Malay Village, so you could argue that they got a raw deal.

  But Kampong Glam’s new settlers gave the area an exotic feel still discernible today. With road names like Baghdad Street and Muscat Street, the Arab Quarter is certainly one of Singapore’s most unique places. As you leave Beach Road and wander down Arab Street, you enter a Middle Eastern world of two-storey shophouses selling the finest silk, fabrics, handicrafts, rattan, willow and bamboo. Arabs invite you to peruse their Persian rugs, tourists snap up batik shirts, sarongs and saris and locals come to be fitted out in traditional ethnic costumes. I even noticed elderly Malay fishermen haggling with a shop owner over some archaic-looking fishing tackle. But this is nothing new. In the 1950s and 1960s, Kampong Glam was the place to be on balmy nights when shoppers from across the region hunted down the cheapest textiles and hawkers pushed food carts selling rojak, popiah and, of course, satay. In 1989, the Urban Redevelopment Authority wisely declared Kampong Glam a preservation area and many of the pre-war shophouses around Arab Street, Baghdad Street and Bussorah Street were renovated.

  The only problem was that the place was more or less empty when I visited. The pedestrianised Bussorah Mall had a slightly manufactured touristy feel, sprinkled with the usual backpackers’ essentials: Internet cafés, cheap egg and bacon breakfasts, postcards and, most important of all, soap. The restored street looked great but, apart from a handful of backpackers, an expat family and some locals eating lunch at a halal coffee shop, I had the street to myself.

  I also had the Malay Heritage Centre largely to myself, too. I originally had no intention of visiting the museum. I drifted over only because the building was the former Istana Kampong Glam, built in 1840 by Sultan Ali, the son of Sultan Hussein Shah (Singapore’s first sultan). But the girl at the counter stared at me with such imploring eyes that I went in. I had reservations. I suspected that the museum would be nothing more than old kettles, some artificial timber boats and golden artefacts from royal ceremonies. That pretty much summed up the contents of the first floor, but the second floor was superb. The Malay community’s cultural contribution to Singapore was its central theme and the gallery displayed Zubir Said’s handwritten music and lyrics for “Majulah Singapura”, the country’s national anthem no less. There they were, right in front of me. I was impressed. One of the other galleries focused on the prodigious work of actor/writer/director/composer P Ramlee, an extraordinarily talented man who dominated Asean cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. Singapore’s most recent artistic offering to the region has been Phua Chu Kang. I suppose that is progress.

  My favourite exhibition centred upon Malay home life and the evolution from kampong to HDB flat. Although it banged the government drum a bit, the museum had recreated a generic Toa Payoh flat from the 1970s, complete with cheesy furniture, a television the size of a car and a wireless that must have required the services of a crane to get into the flat. I know it is kitschy but I am a sucker for this sort of stuff. With no one around, I sat in one of the dusty armchairs and imagined that I was wearing bellbottoms and a polyester shirt, drinking warm Anchor beer and watching West Ham’s Trevor Brooking knock one in on the Star Soccer black-and-white highlights show. It was fabulous.

  I returned to Arab Street and had another look around the shops. They were all very exotic, but I did not urgently need a silk scarf, a tablecloth or a wicker basket so I shuffled back to Beach Road. On the way, I spotted a shop sign that read “Oriental Biggest Belly Dancer Boutique”. I was intrigued. I had never seen a belly dancer’s shop before and was not aware that Singapore had one. But the shop’s name was ambiguous. Did the retail outlet promise an extensive range of costumes or did it just cater to fat dancers? Besieged by images of obese belly dancers, I went to Raffles Hotel for a quick pee.

  Raffles Hotel is a charming hotel, a national landmark and the birthplace of the Singapore Sling. It is also a great place to have a pee. So let me give you an invaluable tip here. If you are caught short anywhere in the City Hall or Beach Road area, pop over to Raffles Hotel to relieve yourself. If you are going to go, you might as well go in style. A few years ago, I discovered that the toilets that serve the famous Long Bar (where the Singapore Sling was originally concocted) are outside the bar and just down the corridor. They are even air-conditioned, which is rather ironic as some of the bars and restaurants in the courtyard are not. So I sauntered casually along the red carpet at the hotel’s grand entrance, took a sharp left past some fountains, perused the meagre selection of books in the hotel’s gift shop, climbed the stairs, nipped past the Long Bar and whipped the old willy out in the most luxurious of surroundings. I will only pee in the best. And Raffles Hotel is my kind of toilet.

  I stumbled upon the agreeable public facilities beside the Long Bar quite by accident. In 2001, the former Manchester United and England midfielder Bryan Robson was in town for a charity football tournament. His job as Middlesbrough manager was under threat at the time and I, the intrepid sports reporter, was tasked with tracking him down to find out if he intended to resign. A phone call informed me he was enjoying dinner at the Long Bar Steakhouse so off I went in hot pursuit. When I arrived, the head waiter said that I had no right to interrupt Mr Robson while he was eating and ordered me to wait outside. Unperturbed by this setback, I improvised. Captain Marvel had to empty his bladder at some point so I staked out the toilets. I stood at the door and smiled at each patron who entered. My appearance suggested a high-class rent boy. One or two visitors even went to give me money, which I quickly refused. What kind of service did they think they were paying me for?

  The more I perspired in the sweltering heat, the more suspicious I must have looked. Ninety minutes passed and we were well into extra time, but old Robbo failed to make a late appearance. His assistant manager Viv Anderson, however, did. When he saw my reporter’s notepad, he tried to bloody autograph it. But Captain Marvel steered clear of the Long Bar toilets. He was a combative midfielder in his day, one of the all-time greats, but Bryan Robson’s physical attributes extend beyond the football pitch. He can hold his bladder for England.

  It was a relatively cool evening so I took a slow walk across Esplanade Drive and watched the festivities below. There was a decent country band giving a free concert outside the Esplanade Mall. The band played to a full house. The Esplanade’s design may leave a lot to be desired but there is no doubt that the Theatres on the Bay concept has brought a much-needed vibrancy back to the Marina area.

  The casino should do the rest. After visiting one of Singapore’s oldest urban centres at Kampong Glam, I wanted to see the location of a glittering metropolis yet to be constructed. I hurried through the ghostly Clifford Pier, which had recently been closed down and moved to Marina South, and sat at the end of a jetty. Although it was now dark, I could make out the twinkling lights on the cranes across Marina Bay. On the left of the Bay, work has already begun on the Marina Barrage, which will eventually create a 48-hectare reservoir to host water sports events and perhaps even National Day celebrations. On the right, another construction site marked the colossal condo project The Sail @ Marina Bay. Sandwiched between the two, of course, will be the roulette wheels and the blackjack tables.

  After years of debate, Singapore’s government finally allowed the building of two casinos: a smaller one at Sentosa and a major integrated resort here at Marina Bay. The Bay’s complex should be ready by 2010. Ap
parently, an integrated resort houses conference centres, artistic venues, hotels, galleries, restaurants and high-end retail outlets. That is all window dressing, of course, because if there was not a casino at the heart of the project, bidders from Las Vegas to Genting would not be queuing up to get a piece of the action. Not that the government really had a choice. Singaporean gamblers flood the casino in Malaysia’s Genting Highlands and they are not spending their weekends on Star Cruises to spot marine life either.

  And, dare I say it, the integrated resort is probably what Singapore needs. If it attracts the right nightlife, Marina Bay promises to be everything that Orchard Road is not. Urban planners are finally recognising that glass and concrete will build towns and shopping centres indefinitely, but they can destroy a country’s soul. To avoid this, the National Parks Board recently launched an international competition for planners to come forward with their designs for three waterfront gardens. There will be a 54-hectare garden behind the integrated resort, a 30-hectare water-themed park in Marina East and a 10-hectare park that will neatly line the waterfront of Marina Centre. Now, that is more like it. The gardens should be ready by 2010 to accompany a twisting, 280-metre-long pedestrian bridge that will stretch across Marina Bay. It will be the longest bridge in Singapore. By that stage, the Singapore Flyer, an observation wheel modelled on the popular, if rather overrated, London Eye, should be packing them in. At 170 metres, it is projected to be the world’s tallest revolving structure. This is Singapore. I would expect nothing less.

  Honestly, it all sounds rather exciting. Singapore has to get the Marina Bay project right and it will. It has no choice. The government now accepts that a five-roomed flat, decent education and pristine trains that always run on time no longer impress younger, restless Singaporeans. They need to have some bloody fun in their own country and should not be forced to travel to California, Queensland or Genting to find it. Singapore may be a tiny country, but it can still accommodate both the history of Kampong Glam and the hedonism of Marina Bay. And as I stood on the edge of an empty, gloomy Clifford Pier, I promised to return to sample a bit of both.