THIS IS MY LIFE - 4 & 4a 4b

4 – GROWING UP IN A SALVATION ARMY HOME

On their release from Changi Prison, the Army officers regained 30 Oxley Road as CHQ and Central Corps. The adjacent big house with a huge compound, 26 Oxley Road, was acquired to accommodate babies, children and girls. My aunt discovered this and lost no time to put my sister and me back in the Home. She made very clear to Major Grey the Social Secretary of her relationship to us. As our legal guardian she promised to pay for our monthly maintenance fees; and this she did faithfully.

Every morning we got up at 6.30 when the bell rang. We had to strip our own bed, fold the sheet and blanket before cleaning ourselves. A second bell at 7 meant roll call, and assembly to pray the Lord’s Prayer. We had to make up our beds before breakfast of jam on two slices of bread with half a mug of tea or cocoa.

As a means of raising funds for the daily expenses of the Girls’ Home the main industry was sewing. Major Grey usually did the cutting and one of the staff, Miss Tan Ah Yew machined and most of the girls did the hemming, and putting on the buttons etc. Some learned to smock and others embroider. As I grew older and been to school for sometime, in addition I learnt to make soft toys by following instructions from books. The material I was given were usually woollen stockings and felt hats donated by the Red Cross! I had a few little ones to help me by unravelling the stockings or cut up discarded cloth for use as stuffing!!! Black stockings could be easily turned into polliwogs.

The officers used to go to the homes of the British military personnel, selling this handwork. They often came back with more orders. What were not sold would be kept for the annual Christmas Sale of Work, better known these days as a Carnival.

Sometime during the later part of 1945, Major Grey enrolled another girl and me in the afternoon session of the Methodist Girls’ School behind Cathay building. Unlike Margaret, I had never been to school before. It was very exciting for me. To save expenses, Major put us into the same class, sharing the few textbooks available. We had no exercise books to write in, but wrote on blank Japanese receipt books. So at the age of eight, coming to 9, I started school in standard 2, our present primary 4. Needless to say, the lessons were beyond me. Due to the three and a half years of Japanese occupation, most children were older than they should be for their classes and at various stages of learning. Our teacher had to be very patient with us all. My first school homework was learning to write the alphabet!

However, the following year in January 1946 I was blessed as one of 4 girls receiving a scholarship to Raffles Girls’ School, located at Queen Street, next to the Good Shepherd Cathedral and opposite the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus, or CHIJMES now. For my age I was put into Primary 2. After the first term I was sent to standard 1, or the present day primary 3. At the end of 1947 a group of us girls were given double promotion, to standard 4, skipping standard 3 to make room for other children. Therefore by year end of December 1953 I sat and passed the senior Cambridge, the equivalent of the O level exams. I was certainly blessed to have had an education, at a time when not many girls had the opportunity. In spite of the hard times I really enjoyed my schooldays!

Not long after the end of the war, the Pair Panging Children’s Home, located at 6 and three quarter miles from the city was soon repaired and in operation again. One of the problems was the lack of public transport. Buses were few and far between. Margaret, Soho Har, my sister and I had to get up very early in the morning to catch the first bus along Pasir Panjang Road which ended at 7th mile junction, the present Clementi Road. The terminal was at Keppel Harbour, known as Harbour Front today. We would then change to STC bus no.1 to the city, getting off at the stop in High Street before crossing Stamford Road. RGS and CHIJ faced each other at Victoria Street, but the entrance to RGS was on Queen Street. We were very often late for school which started at 8 a.m. We had to stand outside the class until the rest finished doing their mental sums.

A few houses up the road from the Home was a small house church, whose founder was a Mr. Phua Hock Seng. He was also the headmaster of Pasir Panjang Prmary School. He arranged a sort of school bus system. This was a real help. A lorry picked him and his 7 children, then us four from the Children’s Home and many others along the way to the city. We all sat on planks placed across the width of the vehicle, and were dropped off at our various schools. This was repeated in the reverse in the afternoon.

Everything was in short supply. Our clothes, even school uniforms, were made from donated clothing by the Red Cross. Normally we all went about bare-footed. For school, we four privileged ones had white canvas shoes which were hard to keep clean. When the teacher was not looking, we would rub white chalk or used the duster from the big classroom blackboard to whiten our shoes! I well remember being terribly anxious because I had no white socks to wear to participate in the Queen’s Birthday Parade on the Padang. It used to be that our school, RGS, always presented a folk dance in the programme. I was very relieved when the pro-tem matron, Captain Christine Henderson gave us each a neatly darned pair from her own meagre stock. She was one of 5 officers on loan from New Zealand to enable those who had been imprisoned in Changi to take their homeland furlough.

We had to keep our textbooks neat and tidy because they would be passed down to the younger ones or sold to second-hand book stores in exchange for other books needed the following year. I could not afford a box of colour pencils for geography lessons because it cost $9.00 but one classmate shared with me when I helped her with her sewing. In the last two years I was fortunate enough to be awarded a Guthrie and Shaw Scholarship of $75.00 per year.

As time went on more primary schools were opened for the children of Singapore. In fact, one was opened bang next door to the Children’s Home which was helpful. Gradually, almost all the children were able to attend school. My sister was transferred to the Pasir Panjang School on the understanding that she could return to RGS on passing the PSLE. Eventually she did. There came a time when Margaret left school to join nursing and I was the only one attending RGS. For a while I travelled to school with two girls who lived across the road from the Home. However, my last year in school was spent in the Girls’ Home in Oxley Road, but returned to the Children’s Home during school holidays. I then walked to and from school each day; but was able to attend Central Corps, revelling in its activities!

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4a - A SOLDIER OF JESUS IN THE ARMY

26 Oxley Road was a big two-story building, housing babies, children and older girls. CHQ and Central Corps were only next door. We only had to walk through a break in the hall separating the two premises to attend Sunday worship, Sunday school and other corps programmes.

During the war, the Children’s Home at Pasir Panjang was vacated. However the day came when it was reopened, and my sister and I were among those who returned there. As more primary schools were opened more children were sent to the schools nearby. For the four of us who were already attending school in the city, transport was a big problem. Slowly one by one, all except me dropped out of Raffles Girls’ School in Queen Street.

Lieut. Colonel Grey decided that I would stay at The Girls’ Home in Oxley Road during weekdays and return to Pasir Panjang Children’s Home on weekends. This meant that after school on Mondays to Thursday I went to the Girls’ Home after school, but returned from school to Pasir Panjang on Fridays. However, on Saturday evenings I went to the open air meeting on the Queen Elizabeth Walk, and went to Oxley Road to start a new week again. So I was always able to attend Central Corps. I reveled in the activities of a Sunbeam (brownie) Junior Soldier, Singing Company member, Corps Cadet and Junior Candidate for officership at 13 years old in the Y.P. Corps. Later on I became a Life-Saving Guard (Girl Guide) a Senior Soldier and Company Guard (Sunday school teacher) and finally entered the Training College in 1954 in the Shepherds Session of cadets.

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4b- MY CALL TO OFFICERSHIP

We came from a traditional Chinese family. My parents and relatives were not particularly religious, but every evening my mother used to light a joss stick and taught me to pray to the god of heaven to make me be a good girl and also to bless our family.

Growing up in an Army Home, I came to faith while at a young age. I asked Ku Ma for permission. to become a Christian. She was pragmatic, reckoning that as I was staying in a Christian Home, we should do as we were taught. So I became a junior soldier, singing company member, corps cadet, company guard (Sunday school teacher) etc.

In those days The Army used to hold Youth councils annually. To maximize public holidays, special meetings were held on those days. I well remember attending my first Youth Councils in 1949. I was very excited to be eligible until it was disclosed that a new OC decided to conduct the event on the second day of Chinese New Year! New Year eve was the only time in the year when we residents from the Homes were allowed to stay out for the night. Understandably, my aunt was not happy for me to return to the Army for the special meetings. Not being able to visit our elders, we children also missed out on receiving angpows! (This would never happen today!) However, we young people obediently did as we were told. It was in the closing meeting that day when I felt the call to officership in the Army. On hindsight, I reckon God allowed all this to take place. Unbeknown to each other a young man also heard and responded to the call. Today he is my husband of more than 52 years!

Initially I resisted because I knew that my aunt would oppose. I myself was also reluctant. Finally, I responded and became a Junior Candidate at 13 years of age. Then during my final year in school, in 1953, The Army made preparations to reopen the Training College the following year. I was sent my first Candidate papers.
I had put off the day when I would have to inform Ku Ma of my decision to serve God full time in The Army. She was always telling me about her dream of setting up home with my sister and me as soon as I finish school and able to get a job. She felt that we were very deprived as orphans. She used to tell us of her family being served by “mui-chai” or maids. I would tell her that I was learning some domestic skills which would be enough.

Then she would go on to say that she would have a challenge to find me a suitable husband because I had dragon boat-sized feet, unlike her small and once-bound ones. Only a poor workman would marry a girl with such great big feet! I presumed the same fate would await my sister too!

When I did tell my aunt that I was going into full-time service in The Salvation Army, she was most upset and strongly objected. Her contact with Army officers had only been with single women. She must have thought I was going to be a nun! As a compromise, she suggested I could do so after her death. She had looked forward to me finishing school and setting up home with her. Quoting the 5th commandment to obey one’s parents, she challenged my faith. She scolded, and then coaxed me to give up the idea and even found a pastor to see me. She then proposed that I postpone this matter for 2 years, until my younger sister finish her schooling. At first I thought that was a fair deal, but my Corps Cadet Guardian warned that the delay might be a temptation to thwart God’s will. In desperation, she contacted my father in Hong Kong. He sent money for Ku Ma and my sister to join him and his new family in Hong Kong. They threatened to abandon and disown me! Ku Ma would not disrupt my sister’s education, but she took her out of the Home, to live with her. She must have had a great struggle to see Pui Sim through her last two years in school without a regular income. Similar to the elderly today, she could only work part-time, as and when needed, like being employed as a confinement nanny - caring for a new mother and her baby for the first month after birth.

Meantime I signed my Candidate’s papers in September 1953; sat for my senior Cambridge exams in December; and entered training in January 1954. Later on in the year, from the college I went back to school to receive my GCE and school leaving certificates.

To be fair to my aunt, I must say Ku Ma was not such a terror. Her bark was worse than her bite! She did receive me when I visited her during our free time from training. Most importantly she came to my commissioning and ordination on 25th October 1954. This was more than 55 years ago!