Reliving the kampung spirit in Seletar Hills

July 18, 2008
UPFRONT
Reliving the kampung spirit in Seletar Hills
By April Chong

SELETAR Hills Estate today is that residential pocket comprising rows
of bungalows, terraced or semi-detached houses with gardens,
interspersed with newer condominiums.

The residents' committee there, the Seletar Hills Estate Residents'
Association (Shera), celebrates its 40th anniversary tomorrow.

With anniversaries tending to make people wistful, some of the
estate's old-timers are looking back on the past, hoping to recapture
the old spirit of neighbourliness.

Retired engineer George Pasqual, 79, who sits on the Shera committee,
said: 'We thought nothing of going to each other's houses and
standing by the gates to chat, but now relationships have become more
distant.'

He added that those of the newer generation 'no longer need to depend
on one another'.

But Shera is trying to rebuild that kampung spirit.

It already organises gatherings and excursions and puts out a
quarterly newsletter, Shera-News, which keeps everyone informed of
estate activities, gives news of estate improvements and publishes
snippets of history.

In 2005, Ms Yippy Chew, a retired physiotherapist and residents'
committee member, started a 'greening' movement by going door-to-door
to urge residents to transform the pavement outside their homes into
garden plots.

More then 170 households responded. Today, these plots have not only
brought more nature to the estate, they have also set new friendships
blooming.

Another resident has set up a heritage blog for the estate.

Back in the TV-less, computer-less days, when the rudimentary bus
system made travelling elsewhere inconvenient, and there was no
Central Expressway to the city, neighbours got together more.

For their children, the rubber plantations that used to cover Seletar
Hills for a good 50 years from 1910 were a playground.

As a child, Mr Pasqual visited the area with his friends to net
fighting fish in the ponds in the rubber plantations, play in the
stream along Yio Chu Kang Road or shoot down mangoes and guavas with
home-made catapults.

The rubber plantations, all 3,200ha of them, belonged to the Bukit
Sembawang Rubber Company and stretched from Seletar South to Ang Mo
Kio, and from Serangoon Gardens to Ponggol.

During the Japanese occupation, some plantation houses were used as
barracks; some housed imprisoned British prisoners-of-war.

From 1949, Bukit Sembawang started developing houses in the area, so
the rubber plantations and farms slowly disappeared.

When people started moving into the area, their friends were
incredulous at their choice of these boondocks.

It did not help that the stench from the pig farms across the road -
where Sengkang now is - were a constant.

Around the time when Mr Pasqual moved in, some 40 years ago, the
parish priest of the Catholic Church of St Vincent De Paul in the
area thought it was time to foster neighbourliness.

Under the leadership of Father J. Troquier, Shera was born and its
first committee set up in 1968.

It had its work cut out for it: Safety was a concern, as were better
street lighting, pest control, better roads and a transport system.

Long-time resident and retired principal Eugene Wijeysingha, 74, said
he was nearly a victim of a robbery along the estate's dark streets
in 1959.

Two men pointed a sharp object at his back, but he just swung his bag
at them and they fled.

He signed up as a member of the first Shera committee to do his bit
to improve the estate.

The association has been helmed by ordinary folk and more well-known
persons - including the late Mr Ong Teng Cheong in 1972, the same
year he entered politics. He eventually became Singapore's fifth
president and first popularly elected one.

Among the residents in the estate's estimated 3,000 households,
retired teacher Maureen Lim, 61, lays claim to having lived there the
longest - 48 years.

She remembers the days when the estate was served only by Yio Chu
Kang Road, and one bus service.

Four generations of her family, including her own parents,
are 'Seletarians'. In 1960, they were one of three Chinese families
along her street, with the other 40 houses occupied by Britons
working at the nearby Seletar Airbase.

Most of the pioneering batch of residents have either moved away or
died.

But some shopkeepers are still around after 30 or more years, like
the neighbourhood's grocers, food-stall holders and hairdresser.

Mr Loong Heng Goon, 58, runs a 36-year-old traditional laundry shop,
which he took over from his father. He still uses an old-style 10-
pound iron to make those perfect, knife-like pleats on clothes.

Some of his customers go way back, including those who have moved
away but still go to him.

The 'bread man' is also still around. Known to residents only as Mr
Foo, the now 69-year-old has progressed from selling bread on a
bicycle to doing it in a van. He also peddles snacks, eggs and
drinks.

But even as the residents in Seletar Hills estate go about
reawakening the kampung spirit of old, the outside world is
encroaching.

Neighbouring Sengkang West has been earmarked for a recreation hub,
and an aerospace park looms at the Seletar Airbase.

'I think it may be an uphill task building that kind of close kampung-
like feeling now,' said Mr Wijeysingha.

The anniversary will be marked with a dinner and dance at the Seletar
Country Club for 280 past and current residents tomorrow.