Leng Ng Tai – Engineering Apprentice from Naval Base to Shell Part 1 | Chronicles of Old Singapore

Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. Leng Ng Tai recounts his childhood in the staff quarters of the Singapore Harbour Board where his father worked as a fitter. He dropped out of secondary school to join the engineering apprenticeship scheme at the Dockyard Technical College of the Singapore Naval Base in Sembawang. He talks about the excellent sifus (masters) who mentored him. As their ‘coffee boy’ and ‘lunch boy’, they taught him not only technical but equally important personal skills. Part 1 | https://youtu.be/GDGLS2sZuJw Part 2 | https://youtu.be/P8ayDbs_HuA Part 3 | https://youtu.be/xtr_BgVOBuc 00:00 Introduction 01:32 The Singapore Harbour Board 08:02 Our Staff Quarters 14:41 Trafalgar School 23:23 The Apprenticeship Scheme 29:27 From Tanjong Pagar to the Naval Base 35:24 Mr Wong, My Sifu 41:40 Other Sifus 49:20 Personal Skills I’m Dr Loh KS, the people’s historian. I’m interested in the history of Singapore and the lives of its people. In Chronicles of Old Singapore, I speak to people about their memories of Singapore before it became a global city today. We discuss three topics: 1. People and places. 2. Change and continuity. 3. The importance of heritage. As a historian, I try to stay true to the oral history method on a video format and social media platform. I let the interviewee speak, as the ‘voice of the past’ as Paul Thompson put it. No clickbait, no BS, no posturing. The aim is to canvas a wide range of voices on various aspects of Singapore history and heritage – physical, social, cultural, economic. Do like the video, share your memories below and subscribe to the channel for future episodes. Write to lohkahseng@chroniclesresearch.com if you have any of these stories to share: • Old places or kampongs. • Communities – their way of life & culture. • Childhood & schools. • Work or business. Support Chronicles of Old Singapore on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ChroniclesofOldSingapore Follow the channel on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551786759344 Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/loh-ks TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lks992002 Chronicles Research & Education is my research consultancy on the history of Singapore: https://www.chroniclesresearch.com/ Caveat: this is above all a podcast based on personal memory. As has been well-documented in oral history, memory is not always reliable and what is recalled here should not be taken as fact. However, as Alessandro Portelli noted, the subjectivity of oral history is also its great strength, and what is inaccurately remembered may point to how deeply meaningful the past is to people. #singaporehistory #memory #heritage #nostalgia #oralhistory #socialhistory #history #singapore