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....