Goodbye to Seletar Airbase, eh Hello Seletar Aerospace Park???

Scenes of such signs now greet you if you drive around Singapore's Seletar Airbase.


"THIS ROAD WILL BE EXPUNGED ON 1ST JAN 2009"


The first thing my colleagues and I said when we saw the sign was, "What is EXPUNGED?"
Aiyoh, why so cheem one? Does the layman understand what 'expunged' means? The taxi-driver Uncle and lorry-driver Uncle now carry dictionaries with them as they drive issit?

That may not be impossible actually, considering the newspapers reported that a tech savvy taxi-driver had installed a laptop for customers to surf the net and he even added a printer, leh! Anyway, my guess is 'expunged' means a cancellation or wiping out from records of sorts. So that's fewer Monopoly roads left for us. Sigh.


As you would have heard by now, Seletar Airbase is being turned into Seletar Aerospace Park (Hmmphh!!! Doesn't anyone up the heirachy ever listen? Can THEY ever leave anything untouched??? Remaining status quo is not always a bad thing).


In honour of this beautiful Grand Dame called Seletar Airbase, I decided to share with you some pictures as my way of saying Goodbye (sob!):




(above pic ~ 15 Lancaster Gate)



15, Lancaster Gate.
This is where it all started for us ~ our love affair with Seletar Airbase. When Mike was 11, his family moved into this beautiful estate filled with colonial style houses with sprawling gardens. Back then, there were no such thing as fences and everyone's dog, cat or kid could walk in and out of each other's house. No petty squabbles. Plenty of friends. It is where we spent many memorable weekends together and where we threw many 'functions' with dizzying glitter balls hanging from goodness knows where and loud pop music thumping from the systems brought in by our DJ friends. It is where we spent many a night 'slow dancing' to the music from the 80s. It is where friends spent long hours or days on end just lazing around and where church friends dropped by for carolling!
See that sprawling field in front of the house? There used to be no fence and Mike and I had many a candlelight picnic dinner on that grass. There's also a nearby 'longkang' where he, his brother and sister would go to catch fish.


One Christmas (while Mike and I were still dating), my mum got invited over to his place for lunch and the rest is history. We decided to get a place in the same estate.


It turned out to be 11, Regent Street (below pic). This is where my dog, Sheeba got flung into the drain by a hit-and-run RED car. It's where I sobbed my eyes out over her the night before some major exam (she survived, Thank God).

It's also where Mike used to take 3 buses from his Tuas camp to see me for half an hour (and of course to hug me!!!) and then take 3 buses again all the way back to Tuas the same night. It's where moi cried until I threw up when I knew I had to be separated from Mike when he got posted to Brunei! (I know, I know. I'm rolling my eyes now)


(below pic ~ 11 Regent St)





Some years later, my family moved to 27, Regent Street (below pic) because the house had a nicer layout. Gigantic Flame of the Forest trees framed the field behind the house. It is where my multitude of dogs were born and bred. Mike and I stayed on with my family in this house immediately after we were married and refused to move into our own apartment until our daughter was born!


(below pic of 27 Regent St ~ some yrs down the road, people started building fences around their houses)



After a few years living in an apartment, we moved back into Seletar Airbase. This time at
1, Duke Street (below pic).






1, Duke Street!!! It's where both my kids first learnt to cycle two-wheelers, run barefoot through the grass and in the drains during a downpour! It's where we lived with our dogs, ducks, chickens, rabbits, hamsters (had the occasional gigantic tortoise dropping by) and of course the univited snakes. It's where we watched as our cockerel, Coco wooed the female chicken from across the street. I kid you not, they would visit each other every morning. Either she would come over or he would go over! They made me realise how smart chickens can be!


It's where we 'built' our own golf range in the back yard and thankfully, hit balls without hurting anyone! It's where Mike built a treehouse for the kids and let them swing down along a self-made flying fox! Our kids spent hours reading up in that tree. It's where we all enjoyed our kids' childhood best, I believe.

See the tree to the left of the below pic. It was merely a branch when I planted it. Mike too had transplanted the tree you see in the middle of the pic. It's the tree he connected a treehouse to.







In this short blog, words and pictures alone cannot explain to you what we still feel about this place. I have not even begun to describe the community here. There will be no other. I did try to speak out for 'her' but got scoffed at by the people in charge. They promise a beautiful Aerospace park but to me, it will all be FAKE (as usual).


I want to cry when I see the upheaval that is currently taking place in Seletar Airbase but I am a mere citizen. I can only do my part and tell you that it's really difficult to explain how an estate and the ambience can affect one's lives. Well it did to ours and to many others' as well.


Good Bye Seletar Airbase!




(above pic ~ our kids' room)