I returned to Seletar and lived in a tent for a few days and then I was posted to No.7 Motor Transport Base Repair Depot.
This unit was down on the coast very near to Singapore and just below Kallang Airport runway. The runway has now been made into a dual carriageway leading to Changi Airport and it is called Westway.
No.7 M.T.B.R.D, was on Fort Road and it was a very large garage, as big as a hangar, right on the edge of the beach (It was then, not now!) and very near to the Chinese Swimming Pool (that is still there!).
We lived at 28 Fort Road, a rather nice modern house, facing the sea. I have some recent photos of Fort Road (I took them passing through Singapore) and the new properties are rather splendid.
I was put in charge of the carpentry shop. There were two Chinese woodworkers there who repaired the vehicles. When work was light we used to make trick joints for each other, just to show off our skills; they thought it was great fun.
I had a very nice relationship with them and I was invited to a family party at one of their homes. This was a very nice gesture and I felt that I ought to go, although it was out of bounds, in the Chinese quarter. We sat round in a circle on the floor and ate the Chinese meal. It was a new experience for me.
Because I was now an E.V.T. Instructor, I used to teach at Singapore Central School for two afternoons a week. I taught Geography to a very mixed class, comprising officers, N.C.O.s. and airmen and I was still only a Leading Aircraftsman, as my sergeant’s stripes had not come through!
Dad later told me that the two Chinese refused to believe that when he went to town, he was going there to teach officers. Apparently they would shout, "You go Singapore ****in'!! You go Singapore ****in'!!
Our C.O. told us that we were to stay on and suggested that we found things to do that would be interesting and useful.
We built a stage in the corner of the hangar and in this little theatre we produced a play called,’The Silent Witness’. I was the prompter. It was well received and we had good audiences from other units when we took it round the island. It was tiring.
I found a wrecked Japanese motorboat and decided to rebuild it. It had had a Ford V8 engine in it. It would have used a great amount of petrol and was designed to be used as a high-speed suicide boat. It would have been filled with explosives and crashed into a ship to sink it.
Obviously my boat had never been used, so I put a Morris 12 engine in it that I took out of an abandoned Post Office van. Although the boat would only do about twelve knots, it did use a lot less petrol.
We were only supposed to use Japanese petrol in our boats, there was some in a fuel pump on the forecourt, but ultimately it ran out.
Our boats were inspected to check that we had adequate flotation gear arid that we only had Japanese petrol in the tank. This became a problem, so when I was on guard duty I would siphon half a pint of fuel from each vehicle and then put some blue paint in it. Everyone thought it was Japanese petrol.
I became quite friendly with the Engineering Officer. I used to take him and his wife over to an uninhabited island on Saturdays. Early in the morning a Jerrican full of petrol would be left on the back doorstep of the house where I lived; no one ever said a word.
When we arrived on the island, he would light a fire, roast potatoes and they would provide a picnic for me. His wife would sunbathe on the boat, it was mind-bending!
Every morning at eleven o’clock, we would walk a hundred yards along the path at the top of the beach, to the restaurant at the Chinese Swimming Pool. There we would have a coffee and a sandwich.
One day a crate containing the parts of two hundred bicycles arrived from England. We were asked to assemble them, so that they could be sold to the troops through the N.A.A.F.I. I used to build the wheels, it required a fair degree of skill to make them run true.
Unfortunately, we discovered that some of the parts were being stolen and we had to build a cage around the area where we worked. I think that only one hundred and sixty five cycles were actually completed.
My colleague and I made a canoe, by cutting two holes in a large Japanese petrol tank that had come out of the wing of an aircraft. We made two paddles and one lunch time we decided to paddle out to one of the sunken ships in the Strait
We got along very well and went around the wreck, but when we started to paddle back to the beach we made no headway at all. We had not realised that the tide was running out. We had to paddle frantically for half an hour, to get back. We collapsed on the beach, utterly exhausted, We had no idea of the danger that we had put ourselves in.
I made a photographic darkroom in the kitchen of our house. We would go into Singapore, take photographs, process them and sell them to the other airmen. I made an enlarger from old Japanese aircraft parts, I still have it and have used it for many years. Dad's workshop resembled Heath Robinson at his best. I had no idea that his enlarger was made from old bits from a Japanese plane!! Typical Dad that.
One evening when I was working in the darkroom with just the red safelight, I had not noticed that someone had left the top off the lamp-box; I put my hand onto it and received a tremendous electric shock; it was because I was standing on a damp quarry tiled floor.
I remember going to the Cathedral on Christmas night for the midnight service, It must have been 1945. There was an enormous congregation, people were sitting on the steps and floor. I was appalled that many of the officers were the worse for drink.
I also went to an orchestral concert one evening. Again, it was very well attended. I cannot remember which orchestra it was, but I recall that the concert opened with the overture to RussIan and Ludmilla by Glinka.
Although it was hot during the day, the nights were cool and Singapore became alive, There were three fun-palaces, the Happy World, the New World and the Great World. In each there were stalls, with vendors selling watches and jewellery, stalls with hot stir-fried food and others selling large pineapple slices.
The main attraction in each, was a Chinese theatre. The traditional, historical plays went on for hours, the musical instrumentalists sat on each side of the stage, banging cymbals and scraping away on stringed instruments, making a dreadful noise.
The only tall building in Singapore in those days was the Cathay building. It had a large modern cinema on the ground floor. There was also the famous Raffles Hotel that had traveller palm-trees in the front garden.
I cannot end without mentioning Changi Prison, where the prisoners of war were held. It was a gruesome white building, so many died there.
In the mid 90s I was transferred to Singapore from Hong Kong. I'd visited a few times and taken a few photos for Dad, but when I lived there I took loads more. He was amazed the Bailey Bridge was still being used, years after it's 'best before' date'!! The Chinese Swimming Club was essentially unchanged apart from not being on the beach any more!
Sadly, Dad's health meant he was unable to visit me there.