MyStory

These 7 block of flats will forever hold special memories for me as I grew up there.

Home to 8 of us (parents included) was a 2 room flat where all the everyone would sleep in the hall while parents got one room and my paternal grandmother got the other.

We spent as much time as possible outside, (for there was no space inside!) playing along corridors, running around downstairs and most vividly, going to the ah so down the corridor (about 6 houses away?) for she ran a small tit-bits shop, selling crackers (and other such stuff) for 5cts and above. 5cts also gets us a tikam-tikam which was pieces of paper stuck on a cardboard. For 5 cts, you select your tikam (ticket stub) and peeled it off from the cardboard backing. You then open the tikam and see what you won. It was usually some small, inconsequential, inane thing which I cannot remember now.

But life was simpler and carefree- I remember too running around with careless abandon on the ground floor, playing police and thief, hantam bola etc. I recall one time I was playing catching in the market stalls when I hit myself on the head on a sharp edge of the stall. It bled profusely and a neighbour (not so kindly as it turned out) put a bandage on it. By the time my father came home, he brought me to the Outpatient Dispensary on Maxwell Road, (no polyclinics back then) where the nurse had to PAINFULLY pull the bandage out from all the matted blood and hair! Ouch!

Till this day, the scar on my head is still there and a painful reminder of those careless, fun-filled days where playing was the order of the day.

Article migrated from original My Story Portal 2007.
Author. Sweeney1582