Block2Blog

  Tale of Tails Many years ago I took a swing at golf and strained my shoulder which ended my interest in learning the game. The pain was so excruciating that I couldn't raise my arm above my waist. Despite a course of treatments, the pain persisted months on. Then by chance while teaching my niece to fly a kite, I felt the pain disappear.😂 I was pleasantly surprised and concluded that the energetic movement of rolling string onto the spool stirred certain muscles and relieved the pain! I was excited and took up kite flying all over again.  It also brought back childhood memories of Naval Base where I learnt to fly kites . Celebrating Nature The sprawling grounds and open vistas of Naval Base offered children a childhood which belonged uniquely to the  community. Growing up within a gated community provided children safety and parents peace of mind. Hence children were left to their own whims sometimes at nature’s calling. Like when the rains came boating took to...

The Naval Base British authorities built a completely self-sufficient “city” in the northern part of Singapore in 1938 thirteen miles away from the city center of Singapore. The nearest government school for those living in the Nava Base was at (12 m/s) twelve miles stone. There were two schools in the Naval Base - one for the British children, with qualified teachers from Britain, and the other one called Admiralty Asian School (AAS).   The Admiralty Asian School was initially a rudimentary pre-war building with two classes. The teachers were unqualified as there was no teacher - training education during those days. The intention, as was the case all over the British Empire, was to provide a basic education for the natives, so that they could be employed as low-level clerks and technicians. The school was of course closed during the Second World War. It reopened in 1946 after the return of the British.   In 1946 the school consisted of 3 classes at the site where the old...

  In the course of his 52 years of service in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and the MFA, LTC Mejar Singh Gill has won several commendation awards and citations, in addition to the UN (UNIKOM) Medal, SAF Overseas Service Medal and the National Day Long Service Medal and the Public Administration Medal. Mejar Singh Gill: Receiving National Day Award from former President S R Nathan , 2005 (Part 2)    Mejar Singh Gill alias Major Singh Gill, second career lasted another 22 years. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), his first new job was Deputy Director, Consular Directorate, which required him to handle consular matters, including contingency planning. Given his military experience, for the first few years, despite having left the SAF, he found himself working hand-in-hand with SAF counterparts in planning and executing various operations that MFA undertook in assisting Singaporeans in distress overseas, namely the evacuation of Singaporeans from Cambodia and the Si...

(to read article click: thenavalbase.blogspot.com) Born in 1949, Mejar Singh Gill alias Major Singh Gill arrived in Singapore as a 6 year- old in 1955, from a very humble family background.  His father, without any formal educational, came to Singapore in 1950 where he joined the British Naval Police Force as a Police Constable. Mejar grew up with his large family of 7 siblings in the Naval Base, among the large community of over 400 Sikh families then constituting the Naval Police Force.  He was the third eldest in his family, with two sisters older than him. His father, being rather conservative and having plans then of eventually returning to Punjab, chose not to send his elder two daughters to school, being quite content with them mastering Gurmukhi (Punjabi script) and being proficient in the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh Scripture) but quite happy to send Mejar to an English School, followed by the other siblings later. This was the period of significant changes in the reg...

The Past is Present (Written by Alfred Dass and Cynthia Anne Pragasam) Fifty years after leaving HM Naval Base, many of us are now living in an age where technology and artificial intelligence add a touch of convenience in our daily activities. We are also in the midst of grappling issues we never imagined we would face, such as food wastage, environmental degradation, identity crisis, spread of falsehoods and fake news, climate change, and of course, the ever uncertain Covid-19 pandemic. Children Pulling Punches Environment degradation is such an intractable mess that youth and children have involved themselves in the cause - perhaps they feel it is regarded as child's play. Their enthusiastic activism is a stark contrast to our 'tidak apa'  carefree  attitude during our  childhood in Naval Base. However, Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg believes ‘no one is too small to create an impact and change the world’ . She is hopeful that ‘climate chaos’ can be rev...

  Naval Base Never Left Irene ( 1941 -2021) My dearest sister left for England on 23 February 1967. Today, it is with profound sadness that I pen the passing of Irene Cecilia Dass-Danabalan on 21 September 2021. She grew up in Naval Base and attended Admiralty Asian School. Over the years, she never forgot Naval Base and the people from there whom she knew, especially her contemporaries, including Gopinathan S, Hilda Das, Joan Pereira, Kalaimagal, Kewal Singh (Dr), Muthiar Singh (Dr), Rajamani and Quah Kim Siak. She would inquire about them and visit neighbours like Aunty Nambiar, relatives, friends and practically anyone she remembered. She was always grateful for the little things that she had, which brought a lot of fun and joy into the lives of many others. Like my mother, she was a minimalist with plenty of empathy, giving even when she had little.   Which makes it all the more difficult for us to accept how she was deceived by some, including her own.   But she...