My Views on life

My Long Lost Memories

By chance or accident, I flipped through my bookshelves, and found two aged-old postcards. One of which is a photograph of Katong Beach, the other is the Bedok Simpan Beach.

I believed these photographs were taken in the late sixties. At that time, I was a secondary school student then. I still can remember on every Saturday afternoon, after my school curriculum time (We had lessons on Saturday's morning!), I used to go out with a group of school mates and roam these areas.

To what I could recall, the company were Paul Ho, Young Y. L., Chu Y.K. and Lau H.C. We used to go to Katong Beach, strolled along the sandy beach, ate Ice Kachang in the shades of the coconut trees, then went for a Chinese Movie at Roxy Theatre 乐斯戏院 or New Palace Theatre 丽宫戏院 (May be the name is not correct!).

Otherwise, we would take a short trip by bus to Simpan Bedok Beach (Where SAF 3rd Guards Camp is now), and waited for the tide to subside, then walked around the stretch of long, flat beach and picked up shells along the way. We used to capture blue sky, white cloud and warm breeze in the late afternoon. With the coconut farms around, it was almost the same scenery as in Hawaii beach, but of course, without the high rise hotels.

As time goes by, the nation developed into a metropolitan; all these lovely scenes were replaced by man-made concrete jungles. Our younger generations lost all these luxuries of enjoyment. There goes my Bedok and Katong sweet memories, as well as songs from Connie Francis, Elvis Presley and Cliff Richards. Most of all, my youth!