My Heritage: Jerry

My Heritage: Jerry

Contributed by Jerry (10 May 2020)

Photo: Jerry and Sister

Photo: Jerry

My Sister and I. I was born in a rented house in Lorong 23, Geylang. It was opposite the Geylang Methodist Church, nearby the present day Aljunied MRT. This photograph showed me when I was 2 or 3 years old. I have no memories at all of having lived there except for these photos from my parents’ album.

My secondary 1F friend Roland Foo mentioned that I looked the most European looking in my secondary 1 class then. That may be true looking at this photograph. Instead of black eyes, my eyes are brown. My hair is a little brown and not black.

My father was born in the 1930s, in the throes of the Great Depression that hit the World. My grandfather lost everything. His share certificates by stacks in Rubber Companies in Malaysia were worth cents only. 

The houses he owned that were mortgaged to banks were recalled and when he died the man house he lived was even taken back...and my grandmother (the third wife), my father's sister thrown out.

John Laycock picked my father up from the Streets and interned him as a clerk in his Law firm.

This home in Lorong 25 is my father and mother's first lodging as a married couple. He made a lot of money as a lawyer's clerk but spent his nights gambling and smoking. He did not elaborate on how to he made money as a lawyer's clerk. He only regretted that if he had not gambled the wealth away, he could have bought several landed properties.

The rest ....is for another story about my grandfather.