gathering of ttc campers and instructors

two camp instructors - clarence lim and sng thai soon - who have not met each other since the 70s.

amateur magician (mr magic) lim kay heng entertaining the crowd. he always has something up his sleeve; performing his magic anywhere and everywhere.

natahar bava (former national rugby coach) relating his meeting with gerry de silva (one of the camp instructors) in perth.

combined age of these four former physical education lecturers (tan eng yoon, lau teng chuan, yap boon chuan and tan hwee hock) - around 320 years. i meet tan hwee hock regularly at bukit batok nature park.


last night, a gathering of campers, instructors and physical education lecturers from the 60s and 70s was held at the moe recreation club at evans road.

some well-known sports personalities from the past were there. they include kunalan, natahar bava, lau teng chuan, tan hwee hock and tan eng yoon.

apart from drinking and eating, included in the planned programme were a magic show, speeches, slide presentations of the old days and the present and crooning of oldies like ramona, bye bye love and the young ones - someone quipped that it should be called 'the young once' - by some of those present. music and accompaniment was provided by the band from seletar country club.

the presentation of the black and white photographs brought back memories of those 'you can do it' days.

the activity that i had found most challenging at the camp was canoeing. actually, it should be termed 'sampaning'. instead of the fibre-glass canoes, we used wooden sampans for our canoeing activities.

when you were a first-time canoeist and the boat, out in the sea, did not seem to go in the direction you wanted it to go, it could be really trying. your arms were as heavy as lead and whatever energy you had (from the hurried lunch) all expended, it was very tempting to just throw in the paddles (towel) and just quit.

somehow, the camp spirit pushed you on and at the end of it, you learn more about your own physical and mental strengths.

you can read more about it in the old wise owl's blog.