Do you Remember..

I took a short break from writing the background story to this blog, the beginnings of reuniting ANZ Military Brats of Singapore, not only because its a long story (and can't be told any other way - i've tried) but also because i wanted to try something i've wanted to for a long while.. create a wmv, a video.

I heard Paul Anka's song 'The Times of your Life' for the first time again after many years while the newly created brat group was beginning to grow and the song took on a new meaning to me.  It wasn't just a hit song which was released in 1975 (coincidently the year we arrived in Singapore) nor that it was the song used in the Kodak ad.  It was because it fitted how i was feeling at the time, it resonated and struck a chord within.  

The video, my first attempt, is very amateurish and won't mean much to those who didn't experience what is seen in the photos.  It is a creative way to express when words just won't do.

It is only for us who do remember ... because we want to.  

I hope you enjoy it as much as i did making it.

What's in a name? -part 4

So i decided to create an online group but what should i name it? I took weeks to ponder this  because it needed to be something which would be self explanatory at a glance and easy to find online with a search.  

The other dilemma was that although i went to a School operated by the NZ Armed Force under the New Zealand school system, i am an Australian.  Would the kiwi's appreciate this aussie girl managing a site for predominately ex dependants of NZ Service men? I wasn't sure and i wasn't sure for a very long time how that would be received.  

There was a contingency of Australian Service families in Singapore in the mid 70's, albeit a small one, of around 40 families and the kiwi's outnumbered aussies averaging 1 to every 20 kids per class.

The choice of name was crucial, i wanted to do this right, figuring that you only get one shot to make something a success, something worthwhile.  The name couldn't be changed once started, a group like this needed to be consistent and have structure, sound base. This couldn't be a one hit wonder, i wanted it to last for as long as it could.  It would take time, years, to find everyone and it would be a good thing if the group was around still for the late comers.

I took this responsibility very seriously and i still didn't really understand why, only that this was important.

So, i put the A in ANZ as it was inclusive to brats from both countries who lived in Singapore during the mid to late 70's.  Little did  i know...or rather, it took me a while to realize, that i had unintentionally  used the beginning of the name of the school before the New Zealand take over.  ANZ Service Schools, Singapore, something i will talk more about at a later time.

In the 70's we referred to the Airforce, Army and Navy collectively as the Armed Services or The Services.  Later we said they were our Armed Forces and then Defence Force..ugh, which one to use, the old and the new were a mouthful.  I wondered if the word Military sounded too ... American.  I checked with my Dad, a man who is against Americanizing our vocabulary, if he said it was ok then it would be ok and it was... at least in this case and for this purpose.

Brats, well Brats had to be used didn't it.  Known as or introducing myself as a RAAF brat, more in my adult years, it was my identity.  I didn't know if other ex dependents felt the same, there has been a mixed reaction to the word Brat over the years since we started. I think it has created a sense of pride amongst us now so I'm happy i used it.  

Besides, "Ex dependents" - another mouthful.

Singapore goes without saying, no need to explain that one.

With a name, some facts and some photos, i created a yahoo group, just as i'd seen for the britbrats.  Using ICQ in the same way i found Glen, my '76 school year book at my side as reference for names, i sent out messages and brats began to join.

Slowly, very slowly, they came.  Brats were gathering to this place created on this relatively new concept to the home pc user called the internet. 

There was a murmur of something building, a wave of  energy i was yet to fully comprehend.

I was ready though, ready to understand...it was time.

How to bring back the Past-part 3

Altavista was the search engine to use in my new days of the internet and i sat looking at the search box thinking about what words i should type into it. I wondered if there was anything out there about our old school and tried different words and combinations.

Woodlands          Singapore            NZ         Service School          Brats

...nothing, there was nothing.

However, i did find a yahoo group called Ex South East Asia Brit Brats Schools which was managed by a lady named Jean Rontree. I remembered that the Brits occupied Singapore with their Forces for the years before, since WW2. My Mother often referred to the British Army wives she played cards with in Penang and Singapore because with both postings we caught the very end of their withdrawal from those posts.

Jean's group talked about growing up in South East Asia and Singapore was there in the discussion. I could relate to their stories and memories and smiled as i read, so i joined the group. Jean was very welcoming to this little colonial as were her other members and it was through them that i started to see the big picture of Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom Armed Forces in Singapore and where we fit in to that picture.

A scene from our classroom flashed through my mind, it was the end of the first year at NZ Service School, Woodlands (Singapore). The teacher asked us to clean out the built in cupboards of the classroom. It was something to fill in the lst week of school and they were in a bad state. Cluttered with old books that seemed to be just thrown in there. Some of the books were old exercise books with ANZ Service School, some had Royal Naval School, Sembawang on the covers. Obviously left there over the years, i noted as the 12 year old i was, but had thought no more of it until reading through the britbrats messages.

The story was coming together and intrigued me.

Why were we there?  What did our Fathers do?  What service did they provide?

With those questions i built a story in my mind and queried on Jean's yahoo brit brat group. I also interrogated my Father any chance i found until i was  thinking about those days of Singapore almost every spare moment of my day. I became obsessed, researching and seeking out anything i could find. I still didn't know why but that wasn't important. Something was pushing me on and i kept going looking for the end as it does still to this day.

One thing i learned was that our old school was taken over by the Singapore government and turned into a prison officer training school. What a disappointment it was to learn that. Oh, our poor school. Happy smiling kids played and learned in those school grounds and the layout was so unusual compared to those we went to back home in Australia and New Zealand. Open class rooms with glass folding walls on each side to allow the breeze to find us. Winding covered pathways we followed to find our next class.  Old english bungalow style school halls, one for the primary school and a bigger version for the the high school. Known as the junior and senior halls.

It was depressing to think that people were learning how to perform restraint holds, strokes of the cane (i don't remember anyone getting the cane at that school) or maybe even the preparations and procedure of a hanging. Thankfully, it was recently reported to me by a brat who currently lives and works in Singapore that the old school is now being used by a Youth Adventure group or some such, but i'll talk about that at another time.

With some information at hand i knew it was time to create a place of our own, a place to gather Australian and New Zealand brats together. 

If i was riding this great wave of nostalgia, maybe others would like to as well. Maybe others will one day sit at the computer and wonder about those days, access a search engine, type the keywords in hope to find something..anything..out there.

Only, when they did, magical words would appear when they hit the enter key.

ANZ Military Brats of Singapore.

Whatever happened to.. -part 2

When memories begin to re-surface you start wanting physical evidence, you want more.. well i do anyway. Reliving the old Singapore days was a great feeling, i found myself back there in my dreams because there was no where else to go with these memories after exhausting them all via emails with Andrew. Vivid dreams where it felt i was actually back there walking the streets (always at night) exploring the kampong of Nee Soon, trying to remember the route the school bus took to Woodlands (and telling the driver he was going the wrong way) walking around the pool on Nee Soon army camp.

All memorabilia came out of my camphor wood chest. You remember those, the ornately hand carved boxes with a hinged lid found anywhere in Singapore back in the day. The aroma of camphor rises when you lift that lid. I call it my treasure chest, because, well, it holds all my treasures. Things i've held on to over the years, which isn't an easy thing to do when your Mother wants to keep your chattel and effects to a minimum for the many moves you will make as any good serviceman wife did. Out came photos and school reports, little Singapore nick knacks i'd been given as gifts by my sisters, a swimming trophy .... anything i could find.

My swimming trophy, i looked at it, the only real award i ever won. I remembered the day i got it, the only person still at the Nee Soon Camp pool when it was handed to me was Glen Mooney and he even took a photo. Ahh..the pool. We loved the pool, it was our place to meet and swim to cool down in the tropics. I thought about our group as we were as kids. I belonged to the older group, the teenagers, small exclusive group we were with our own area right up the back of the pool grounds. We had 4 tables to choose from which we sat at most days after school, most weekends and certainly every day during the school holidays. One of those teenagers who was almost always someone who could be seen at the pool was Glen Mooney.

Glen was the oldest boy of the Nee Soon camp kids. He was a tall 16 year old boy, friendly face, polite, considerate and funny. Always felt safe around Glen and he was always good company, even if we had to suffer through listening to his Black Sabbath or Rainbow cassettes while he played pretend drums beating on the concrete table we sat at and told us how Ritchie Blackmore formed the band after leaving Deep Purple. Not something a teeny bopper 13 year old girl wants to listen to, we'd screw up our noses at it and he'd just laugh.

Those memories came back and i wondered whatever happened to Glen. My family left Singapore to go home to Australia before Glen's family but we kept in touch with letters for a few years after. He went home to New Zealand in 78 so i was kept up to date with what had happened at school after i left, his new school back home and his first job but i didn't know what had happened after that. We had lost contact which is something easy to do when you move around like a brat does, new addresses all the time.

I started to feel the need to find Glen to continue this travel back in time i found myself in, where in the world do i start? Back then there was a IM program called ICQ (i seek you) which had a search feature. Type in a name and if they are using ICQ with details of their full name and location and you might come up with something. Glen Mooney isn't a common name, surely there is only one in New Zealand. I gave it a shot, and there was only one so i sent a message. "Did you go to school in Singapore and do you remember a girl named Jo Rendle?"

It took a few weeks, maybe a month, before i got a response. I checked every day, and finally a message - it was him. I'd found Glen.

The lost brat had awakened after contact with Andrew, now i was catching up with someone who knew me as a girl and remembered me. Remembered more of the same things i did because we were in Singapore at the same time and we knew the same people. We shared the same table at the pool..we shared Ritchie bloody Blackmore.

If finding my first adult brat of Singapore was overwhelming, it was nothing in comparison to finding Glen. The last time i saw him was my last day at the pool, next day we had to leave for the hotel where we stayed overnight before flying out the morning after. It was school holiday time, just after Christmas but monsoon season so no-one was there, but Glen was there, in the rain.

It was appropriate that he was the first person from our days to catch up with again when he was the last person i had seen that day before we left  Nee Soon. We talked and talked for hours over the weeks, months, about the old days and he had stories of school brats, where they were and what had happened to them since. More and more memories surfaced and greater became the my need to do something with them, about them. The question was...what?

Awakening the Lost Brat-part 1

Nearing the end of the last century i started to become acquainted with the internet and what a wonderful new dimension it added to my life. For me it was a way to explore the world in the spare room of the house i called the computer room. I was curious about what this new technology was all about and how i could use it, reading everything i could find and teaching myself the basics. Lots of trial and error, still the best way to learn.

I found something, somewhere about a site called Schoolfriends.com.au, an Australian site to reunite old school friends. Everything was novel and gadgety back then, OK, that would be cool thinks I, so i created an account to join and was then required to fill in my details and find the schools i attended.

The site was very new back then, and has undergone many changes since. (Kiwi's will know the site as findakiwi.co.nz, but both sites are now owned by the British group, FriendsReunited.com)  Schools to choose from were found by the site creator listed with education Australia or perhaps state by state, i'm not sure, but they were definitely schools that were current at the time.

I was able to list Amberley State School(Qld), Sunshine East State School and Broadmeadows High (Vic) but not my first school, RAAF School Penang, or my first High School which was in Singapore.

Every time i signed into the site it would bug me that 2 of the schools i went to weren't listed. My profile was incomplete and damn it if no one cared to know all these years about those times of my life i at least wanted those schools to be showing on my list even if it was only for me. Proof in words that those times, those schools, actually existed.

Upon one of my visits to the site i found a message board, a forum of sorts (that word didn't exist for me back then) and i posted my first ever message that went something like..

"My father served in the RAAF and we lived in Penang and Singapore, is there anyone else out there who went to schools there?"

And so it was out there ..that simple basic sentence, a question, one i thought would be quickly spotted by anyone who had the words RAAF, Penang or Singpore in their vocabulary. Maybe there are others who prick up their ears or zoom their eyes into those words whenever seen or heard as i still do after all these years.

Not long after i created that post, there was a reply. I don't recall his words, but i do remember who it was from. Andrew Baumback. Andrew had lived in Singapore in the mid 70's and his father was in the RAAF, or maybe he was Army. Many emails were exchanged, both of us equally excited to find someone else who was 'there'.

To add further to this miracle, and it felt like a miracle back then because Andrew was the first adult i had contact with who shared the same experience of Singapore, we discovered that we lived in the same house and had the same amah. Andrew's family left Singapore in 1975, we arrived in August 1975. Actually, the Baumbacks lived at 60 Meng Suan Road, Nee Soon, and we first moved into 95 Meng Suan but later moved around the corner to 60. Still, we did live in the same house and with 100's of houses available to Australian and New Zealand Armed Forces families in different areas of the island..what was the chance of that happening? The area we lived in, Nee Soon, had about 7 houses rented out to Australian and New Zealand Service families so it was one of the less known areas within the ANZ community too.

Imagine our excitment, no one to really talk to about our time in Singapore for almost 30 years and here we were finally able to talk about the area, the house, the neighbours and even the amah and her quirky ways.

It was more than that though, not just about living in the same house and location, it was more than experiencing a coincidence. Somehow this correspondance with Andrew brought the Singapore experience back to life, made it all real again when in my late 30's it had become a distant memory of my past. Fading pictures in my mind, faint memory of names and places. These things disappear over time when they aren't talked about and i had been desperately trying to hold on to them since leaving Singapore in January 1978.

My Dad was posted to Melbourne and we went to a school in the outer suburbs where the kids thought New Zealand was actually Tasmania, had no idea what Singapore was and had never known a RAAF Brat. I had a tan like no Melbournite had never seen and talked with an accent which to them probably sounded very ..British. They wanted nothing to do with this strange girl or her stories of Singapore where she had just come from.

My ex Husband, a Melbournite, didn't like me to talk about Singapore and seemed embarrassed if i talked about it in front of other..civy's. He claimed i sounded as if i was showing off, as if i was a snob. He obviously didn't understand, he was a civy.

It was the 80's, i was young and gullible, husbands were always right, and i just stopped talking about it.

So, in 2001, with contact with my first adult fellow Brat of Singapore, the memories were unlocked and allowed to come out and play again. They played, they smiled, they explored and wondered....