Originally Posted by
Seekingasylum
Singapore on your posting was grappling with the consequences of the British withdrawal but my sojourn there probably marked the high point of Lee Kuan Yew’s relations with the British.
I had a great teenage childhood there and similarly my parents always regarded it as their best tour of duty.
I did my Duke of Edinburgh Bronze qualification in the jungle of Kota Tinggi where we held our overnight expedition - awful two days, dehydrated, bitten to buggery by mosquitos and tics while our sleeping ponchos collected rain water during the night and we lay there expecting to die with endless insects crawling down the trees to see what was on the menu. The rain made our wood sodden so we couldn’t light a fire to boil the stream water to make it sterile. Drank it as was and ended up with an infection that had me off school for two weeks with a fever of 104f and a throat so sore I could hardly drink water.
Great times though, flown to Pulao Tioman as bogus air scouts by a mate’s squadron leader RAF father for a four night stay as the only European folk on what was then a desert island. Practically lived independently of my parents who gave me sufficient pocket money to travel the island at the weekend to see mates and get up to all sorts of mischief, each claiming to be overnighting at someone else’s house while we stayed out all night at the Paya Lebar airport drinking in the bar.
The Chinky staff at the various base club bars at Seletar and Changi served us frozen Tiger draught lager at $2 a pint supplemented by a shared bottle of Tolleys brandy which would fortify us to hit the youth club dances and see if we could get ourselves that elusive ‘finger’, losing our cherries was a holy grail none expected to find. The RAF musicians would double up on dance nights as pop groups playing the hits of the day and were great to bop to, and then by 1030 hrs we would stagger outside and throw up the beer and brandy.
Ah happy days.