In the past few weeks, there was a number of news on some of Singapore’s Old Places, namely, Tanglin Halt Estate, Dakota Crescent and Sungei Road and I did a recap and wrote it down in a post on my personal site!
During the last week of July, I did a sharing on my Old Places and Old Playgrounds, to a group of Secondary 2 students at Singapore Chinese Girls School at the invitation of their History department. It was an honour for me to be sharing my photographs and experiences in exploring Old Places and Old Playgrounds. However, I would like to apologise if I wasn’t speaking smoothly during my sharing session, stage fright got into me since I haven’t been addressing/speaking to a big group for quite a long time!
On the 27th July 2014, I attended a National Library Board (NLB) talk – The Public Library Mural Project: Placemaking Talk with Khor Ean Ghee @ Programme Zone (Level 1), Ang Mo Kio Public Library. Mr Khor Ean Ghee was the person behind Singapore’s Old Playgrounds and he gave a talk about the history, stories and thoughts behind the various Old Playgrounds designs and plans in Singapore! It was also an honour to meet Mr Khor in person, I grew up playing at the Old Playgrounds he planned and designed and the Old Playgrounds was a personal project of mine as part of my Old Places exploration and documentation! I even saw some of the Old Playgrounds that were gone into history books even before I started my Old Playgrounds documentation and photography, the Old Playgrounds types/model number and their blueprints from Mr Khor’s works! Listening to Mr Khor speaking and sharing about the Old Playgrounds he designed, the inspirations, ideas where it came from, the stories, it was very enlightening, heart warming and interesting!
Playground Type E was below my block during my childhood days!
After the talk was over, I had the chance to meet and had a chat with Mr Khor, it was like a fanboy meeting the star. I was meeting the person behind my wonderful childhood memories at the Old Playgrounds that I grew up with. I was honoured that some of my humble collection of my Old Playgrounds was used by Mr Khor in his Old Playgrounds presentation sharing when NLB approached me for permission to use my Old Playgrounds photographs for Mr Khor’s sharing!
The last week of July, was a humbling and happy week, that my Old Places and Old Playgrounds documentation and photography was part of sharing and outreach to different groups of people. It’s another small achievement unlocked and this also inspires me to continue with my Old Places and Old Playgrounds exploration, documentation and photographing them.
I will continue to play my part, even though it is a small part, to continue exploring, documenting and photographing Old Places and Old Playgrounds in Singapore.