Venugopal Kurup – Queen’s Crescent, Silat School & Shell Part 2 | Chronicles of Old Singapore

Welcome to Chronicles of Old Singapore. Venugopal Kurup talks about how he returned to Singapore, studying in Beatty Secondary School and the Singapore Polytechnic. He worked for a while in the Ministry of the Environment before becoming a civil engineer with Shell, based on Pulau Bukom. He started his own business as a building and maintenance contractor but eventually returned to Shell and retired there. Part 1 | https://youtu.be/5oQgDE5cQdQ Part 2 | https://youtu.be/0VqEP9Q6RiE 00:00 My Passport & Returning to Singapore 02:30 Old Serangoon Road & the Messes 09:05 Structural Engineering at Singapore Polytechnic 13:03 Shell at Pulau Bukom 21:10 Explosions 24:16 Starting My Own Business 32:44 Finding a Site Office 37:49 Conservation & Memory 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