Once upon an island: A rare peek into our past

Check out scenes of old Singapore through the lens of the late naturalist Ivan Polunin.

By WALLACE WOON | Published: SEPT 20, 2023

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Scenes of mangroves, coastal communities and sprawling farmland where high-rise HDBs now stand.

Night soil collectors, letter writers, samsui women. Devotees boarding bumboats as they head for Kusu Island.

See Singapore in its transformational years through the lens of Dr Ivan Polunin.

Arriving as a 28-year-old medical doctor in 1948 from England to serve his national service at hospitals in Johor and Singapore, Dr Ivan Polunin would spend his career teaching medical students and researching tropical diseases.

Dr Polunin lying on the ground waiting to photograph mangrove life at the mouth of the Pontian Besar river in Johor. PHOTO: COURTESY OF DR RICHARD TENAZA

Using photography to document indigenous people of Malaya afflicted by diseases, the young doctor would go on to amass a collection of almost 40,000 photos, 400 audio recordings and 25 hours of film footage from around South-east Asia.

The work also captured various facets of Singapore in its nascent years before and after Independence.

A view of Stamford Road facing the harbour, with the National Museum and old YMCA building on the right, and St Andrew’s Cathedral and the Supreme Court building in the background. This photograph was taken in the late 1950s, before the construction of the National Library Building in Stamford Road.

Traditional Chinese vegetable farms in Potong Pasir, off Braddell Road. In the 1960s, it was the world’s most productive open-air cultivation. The canalised Kallang River is seen in the bottom left corner.

A view of the 198m-tall OCBC Centre towering over shophouses in Chinatown in the mid-1970s.

An aerial view of part of Chinatown from People’s Park Centre, looking down towards Boat Quay whose skyline is dominated by the OCBC Centre, circa 1975. The Sri Mariamman Temple on South Bridge Road can be seen in the foreground.

Growing up with brothers who were both botanists, the elder of whom was also an Arctic explorer, it seemed only natural that Dr Polunin would himself develop a keen interest in cultural studies and anthropology, said his grandson, Mr Kazymir Rabier.

On Saturday mornings, Dr Polunin would accompany medical students to visit various places of interest. Here, a specialist teacher is teaching a hearing-impaired child to speak by copying the vibrations of her voice at the School for the Deaf in 1968.

Speaking to The Straits Times, the 27-year-old software engineer said of his grandfather’s collection: “Everyone in my generation is aware that Singapore turned itself around in the span of 60 odd years, but to see evidence of it in such beautiful, high-quality media is very rare.”

The New Year Sea Sports taking place at the Singapore Harbour, off Collyer Quay, in 1951. Since 1834, the boating community would celebrate New Year’s Day with boat races.

THE JANUARY GAMES

They were held every year, except during the Japanese Occupation, and continued until the early 1960s.

VIDEO: COURTESY OF DR IVAN POLUNIN

Benjamin Sheares Bridge seen under construction in a photo taken in the late 1970s from Kallang Basin. The bridge was completed in 1981.

A hill in Queenstown being terraced for HDB flats around 1960. It was first roughly levelled by bulldozers, then men and women armed with cangkul (Malay for hoe) finished off the work.

“His work is a testament to a time that is both known and unknown to a large segment of the population. I believe that what he did is a service not just to the country itself, but to history.”

Children playing with their model boats, known as jongs, in shallow water in Pulau Sudong, part of the Southern Islands, in the 1970s.

On a narrow strip of land between Beach Road and the sea wall, wooden sea-going vessels and small sampans were built using traditional tools in the 1950s.

Photographed in the 1970s, these types of shophouses were built between the 1840s and the 1950s, with each generation topping the previous one in height and architectural style. Some of the tallest ones which are four or five storeys can be seen at Boat Quay, sitting alongside simpler two-storey shophouses.

Photographed in the 1970s, Keppel Harbour, with Sentosa on the top left, is depicted before the extensive land reclamation that took place between 1979 and 1980. The cable car pylon is situated on the former Pulau Selegu, while Keppel Island – previously known as Pulau Hantu – had yet to be joined to the mainland.

Dr Polunin, who died in 2010 at the age of 90, would spend the last decade of his life compiling his experience documenting the rural communities around Singapore, along with images from the photographs and footage he took, into a book.

Photographed in the late 1960s, these fishermen, sitting atop their trestle perches, are holding on to two ends of a lift net which has been deployed. They wait patiently for a shoal of mullet to swim over the net, which is then hoisted or ‘lifted’ out of the water, catching the fish as it does so.

Kelongs – or offshore palisade fishtraps as the fishery experts called them – used to be a common feature of Singaporean and Malaysian waters. Photographed in the late 1960s.

Pulau Seraya, with houses built on piles between tidemarks in the late 1960s. This island is now part of Jurong Island, dedicated to the petrochemical industry.

As dusk falls, the kelong is a hive of activity as fishermen prepare themselves for the night's catch. Here you see the powerful kerosene lamps lit, and then lowered just above the water to attract the fish where the net enclosure is located. Photographed in the late 1960s at a kelong off Tuas.

Nicknamed “Das Buch” (German for The Book), the book’s draft would lay untouched for another decade after his death until Dr Polunin’s granddaughter, Ms Asmara Rabier, 29, revived the project by teaming up with one of Singapore’s foremost historians, Dr Kevin Y.L. Tan.

A Royal Air Force (RAF) helicopter, lowering and positioning the 1,000kg aluminium cross of the new Hakka Methodist Church in Newton. The precision exercise was undertaken by a Belvedere helicopter of the 66th Squadron, RAF Seletar on Dec 15, 1966.

Ms Rabier said: “We’ve been discussing this project since 2020 and in January 2022, I decided to devote myself fully as the project director, archivist, and editor,” leaving her job as an Asian art specialist to do so.

Helping her with the book’s design was Mr Francis Wong and Ms Karen Quek, while the book’s publishing was done by Ms Laura Lau.

A lion dance troupe being transported by lorry to perform at different venues in the 1950s.

A lion dance troupe performing along North Bridge Road in February 1975.

Recounting memories of her grandfather, she said: “Once in a while I would also sneak into grandpa’s ‘Toy Room’ to check out the film and photos, which appeared slightly off-limits as he was always in there doing what seemed like very serious work.”

When the new Paya Lebar Airport opened in August 1955, a large space was vacated at the old Kallang Airport. One of the first events to be hosted there was the Singapore Agricultural Show, held from June 30 to July 6, 1956.

In the evenings, the usually sedate Albert Street and Bugis Street are transformed into open-air restaurants, with some of the most delectable and affordable cooked food stalls on the island. This photograph was taken in September 1971.

She later learnt he was in the arduous process of digitising the extensive film collection.

Two elderly women grooming their hair in the five-foot way along their living quarters in Chinatown. Photographed in February 1972.

Chinatown five-foot way, taken in March 1974. Dr Polunin measured the breadth of a few of them and found that they were indeed 5 feet wide.

Photographed in the 1960s in Clarke Quay, large boats moored out in the roadstead, and cargo was unloaded into smaller boats known as tongkang or twakow, to be taken up the Singapore River to the riverside godowns or warehouses.

A chye tow kueh (radish cake) seller, cooking over a wood stove fire. Photographed in October 1972 at Chinatown.

A hawker waiting for customers while resting on a wooden crate beside her hand-operated sugar cane juicer in Sago Street in 1954.

MORNING MARKET

Farmers, hawkers and other vendors setting up makeshift roadside stalls each morning in the streets of Chinatown.

VIDEO: COURTESY OF DR IVAN POLUNIN

One takeaway for Mr Rabier in learning about Singapore’s history from his grandfather’s archives, was how commonplace farming was in that era.

A farmer's eldest son watering kai lan plots on a traditional Chinese vegetable farm on a small land holding in Paya Lebar in 1961. The farm also reared pigs, ducks, chickens and pigeons.

He said: “Agriculture was a big industry at the time, accounting for 9 per cent of GDP.”

END OF AN ERA

“Nowadays, these large fields that were once used for growing vegetables and raising livestock have turned into residential buildings.”

VIDEO: COURTESY OF DR IVAN POLUNIN

Watching footage and going through photographs depicting night-soil collectors, letter writers, noodle makers and samsui women, as well as construction workers and farmers, was, for Ms Rabier, watching history come to life.

Before universal compulsory education, many Singaporeans were unable to read and write and depended on “letter writers” to help them with their correspondence. Photographed in the late 1970s in Chinatown.

Hungry Ghost Month by the Singapore River, 1961. Chinese opera performers prepare for the evening's performance, as a tongkang is moored to the quayside to accommodate additional spectators.

She said: “What amazed me the most was that even in the late 1960s and 70s, there were people who still sustained themselves from the land.

“It’s fascinating to learn that many practices we are exploring today in the realm of regenerative and self-sustaining agriculture have historical roots in the region.”

Ms Rabier said that her grandfather’s extensive body of work showcased his profound sense of compassion, and his deep love and respect for both nature and people.

This retired prison warden with his coconut-picking monkey was a familiar sight along Bukit Timah Road in the 1970s. His monkey was trained to climb up coconut trees and pluck only the ripe coconuts.

A woman stringing together attap leaves to build the canopy of an attap house, circa 1978.

Two welders from Hume Industries at work, circa 1980.

Ms Rabier shared a memory about her grandfather when she was about 10 years old cruising down a Malaysian river in a tiny, shaky canoe looking for fireflies.

She said: “He kept a curiosity about the world that most individuals only encounter during their childhood years. I truly believe there is a valuable lesson for us all to learn from this.”

A tree full of Pteroptyx fireflies flashing in unison in the late 1960s. Pteroptyx malaccae used to be common at Kampong Berek on the Choa Chu Kang River. Sadly, the destruction of their habitat eliminated many of the sites where fireflies used to be found in abundance.

The book, Once Upon an Island: Images of Singapore (1950-1980) through the lens of Dr Ivan Polunin, is currently being printed. Interested buyers can be notified of the book’s launch party at www.ivanpolunin.com or on Instagram @ivanpoluninarchives and pre-order the book on the website.