One of my childhood "playgrounds" was some 8 km away. I lived in Geylang and the "playground" was the Alkaff Lake Gardens, near Macpherson Road. I used to walked barefooted with my friends from our kampong to Alkaff and back almost everyday.
We would swim, play and fished at Alkaff the whole afternoon after school. Now the lake has been filled with sands and a school, Cedar Girls' Secondary was built on it. I wish the lake was still there because it will bring back many wonderful childhood memories.
In between Geylang and Alkaff Gardens at Kampong Aljunied or Pak Buyong we used to build "camps" made of bushes and tree branches in the thick bushes where we would take a break and rest if we were tired.
If we were thirsty, we would stop by the "mama" shop and buy a drink called "Sarsi". Sometimes we would buy ice-balls and had it cut into quarters or 4 pieces so that we could share among ourselves.
As kids, we were happy and playful. They only thing that we wish we could have was more money from our parents. Most of us (about age 10 to 14) were given pocket money of about 10 cents.
Life was simple and easy going. We did not have TVs, computer or smart phones etc but we played games with marbles, footballs, unwanted tennis balls.. etc
Suicide? No, never once occurred to us. Even if we did, there was no tall bulidings or HDB flats whereby we could jump down like the recent cases of two young boys who committed suicide by jumping down from their flats.
We would swim, play and fished at Alkaff the whole afternoon after school. Now the lake has been filled with sands and a school, Cedar Girls' Secondary was built on it. I wish the lake was still there because it will bring back many wonderful childhood memories.
In between Geylang and Alkaff Gardens at Kampong Aljunied or Pak Buyong we used to build "camps" made of bushes and tree branches in the thick bushes where we would take a break and rest if we were tired.
If we were thirsty, we would stop by the "mama" shop and buy a drink called "Sarsi". Sometimes we would buy ice-balls and had it cut into quarters or 4 pieces so that we could share among ourselves.
As kids, we were happy and playful. They only thing that we wish we could have was more money from our parents. Most of us (about age 10 to 14) were given pocket money of about 10 cents.
Life was simple and easy going. We did not have TVs, computer or smart phones etc but we played games with marbles, footballs, unwanted tennis balls.. etc
Suicide? No, never once occurred to us. Even if we did, there was no tall bulidings or HDB flats whereby we could jump down like the recent cases of two young boys who committed suicide by jumping down from their flats.
