60th birthday bash at laguna golf club

the former teachers and principals who turned up included mr e wijeysingha, mr a k sigamoney, mr foo don wan, ms d thambaiyah, mr hector chee, cikgu alias marzuki, mr john tan, mrs sigamoney, mr lee fong seng, mrs wee heng tin, mr mk sharma, mr moses tay, mr ng kim beng, mr patrick pestana, mr s puhaindran, mr tan kim cheng, dr tan wee kiat and mr vincent gomez.


last night about half the 62 -65/67 cohort of rafflesians and twenty of our teachers gathered at the eagle ballroom of laguna national golf and country club to celebrate a common 60th birthday as the majority of us would be this age this year. some of us have not seen one another since we parted way after our senior cambridge examinations some 43 years ago.

the organisers started planning for the reunion more than a year ago. some of our former schoolmates who are based or settled in countries like malaysia, hong kong, china, australia, new zealand and usa made the special effort to be back for this nostalgic get-together.

as expected, some of us took quite a while to place faces and figures that have been reshaped over the years. while a few have grown slimmer, most of us have blossomed, with a prominent 'centre forward'. that was how mr puhaindran, one of our former teachers, described his paunch.

the evening's entertainment programme featured our own home-grown talents like ho ping chan, georgie chia and benny low. dr tan wee kiat, who taught science in ri, gave a rendition of two songs that we sang when we were in school, on his tiny harmonica.

to round off the evening, the two hundred of us and the twenty teachers trooped into a room to have a group photograph.

i was glad to catch up with farhan (middle) whom i have not met since 1965. he is the proud grandfather of five children while sapuan, who was also a teacher like me, has two grand children.