Wanted: Familiar places and faces to feel at home

Bertha Henson, Straits Times 25 Nov 07;

LAST weekend, I was at a road which used to be my playground - Tanjong Katong Road.

That was where my alma mater, Tanjong Katong Girls' School, used to be - until 1995.

The buildings are still there, and it looked as if one block had been taken over by the Canadian International School. The other block of four storeys seems to have fallen into disrepair.

The international school took over the lease this year, for three years up to 2015. Before this, the buildings used to house a primary school.

When TKGS was moved from the road after which it was named to nearby Dunman Lane, some of us old girls had wondered about what would happen to the buildings where we had spent four years.

The authorities said they had redevelopment plans for the site, making it available for private housing. The school had to be moved because it needed more space as it was going single-session. Yet many a time I wondered about the huge green field next to the blocks, and whether the school could have been rebuilt on the site.

Sure, the current premises - boasting Roman architecture - is swell. But entering the gates as an old girl five years ago, all I could relate to was the green uniform that the girls wore. Thank goodness it hasn't gone co-ed.

But just seconds after I passed my alma mater, I did a double-take. The neighbouring Tanjong Katong Technical School where we girls had to go for technical drawing classes had become a youth hostel. And its big airy canteen had become a foodcourt.

It made me think: One of the two schools could have been saved with the neighbouring buildings being razed for extensions. Being prejudiced, the saved school should be my old school.

This is a common lament, of course. So many of us in the workforce can no longer point to buildings we used to study in. Some schools have even been erased off the map altogether.

We shouldn't stand in the way of progress. If the land became valuable, surely we should get more out of it than just use it to house a school?

In the case of the two schools along Tanjong Katong, redevelopment plans appeared to have been put on hold - for more than a decade.

Okay, so plans change. Needs change. And no, I am not suggesting that TKGS goes back to its old spot. What I am hoping for is more foresight from planners, to keep memories alive for those of us who grew up here.

And if we can't keep the buildings in place, we can at least try to keep the community together.

There are many public schemes that let people do this, whether it is being able to pick a unit in your old neighbourhood which was razed by the Selective En Bloc Redevelopment Scheme or getting priority for a flat near your old home where your elderly parents are still living in.

We might want to think of going even more local.

The Lift Upgrading Programme has finally come to my mother's neighbourhood, much to her delight. Residents had lobbied hard for it, especially since the area is close to 30 years old.

Ever since the Main Upgrading Programme was announced in the early 90s, a lift that stops on every floor was the cherry on the pie. So many people armed with keys to their new flat did not realise they would grow old and have creaky knees.

The thing is, many people also got tired of waiting.

The policy that the oldest flats get MUP-ed first didn't seem to have been consistently applied.

Younger buildings in newer housing estates somehow made it earlier in the queue. Sure, there were political considerations, which over the next few general elections went right down to how a precinct voted.

So over the last 10 years or so, the old-timers started moving out. Some upgraded to private property, but there were also those who moved out because they could not negotiate the stairs any more.

In the week that lift upgrading was announced in my mother's neighbourhood, an old woman nearing 90 moved out. Her walking stick was not much help in getting up and down even a few flights of stairs. She and her daughter went for a flat where, you guessed it, the lift stops on every floor.

Now the old lady is missing the familiarity of her old surroundings and her neighbours. Her former neighbours, who view her as a bit of an institution, miss her too.

New people have moved into the block, usually families with young children. When lift upgrading came along, they were heard muttering about the expense, even though the upgrading is heavily subsidised.

You can't quite blame them. They haven't even paid off the house yet and creaky knees still seem far away.

Then there are old-timers who have leased out their flats. Why should they pay for lifts that stop on every floor if their tenants keep paying the rent?

So the resident old-timers are now in a bit of a fix. Would they or would they not get the number of votes for that valued lift? If they don't, would they too have to go somewhere else for mobility reasons?

To think that it would have been a sure thing just five years ago.

The hope is that policymakers would keep these little things at the back of their minds when they sit down to draw up redevelopment and upgrading plans.

Then there will be less sighing, for the places we grew up in - and the people we grew old with.

This young country needs familiar places and familiar people rather than exclamations of 'Oh, how everything's changed, and everyone's gone''.

Too much of it and it's not home any more.