Dreams and challenges

Sixty years later, Madam Tan Geok Hak, 92, still remembers the day her house was razed to the ground in the Bukit Ho Swee fire and how she and her husband rebuilt their family's lives.

Speaking to The Sunday Times in Mandarin before the show, she recounted how her British employer, who she was working for as a domestic helper, told her at around 5pm that fateful day that a fire had broken out in the area where her home was. It was a public holiday and her three young children were at home.

The inferno on May 25, 1961, remains one of the biggest that Singapore has seen. It destroyed a kampung where some 16,000 people, including Madam Tan's family, lived. Four people died in the disaster.

"When I got near Great World, there was a huge jam and the taxi I was in couldn't enter," Madam Tan said. "I walked the remaining distance, but near home, there were so many police officers and they refused to let me in."

Later that day, she was relieved to learn that the children's nanny had taken them to their grandfather's place in the Kampong Bugis area. But all that remained of her home was a damaged sewing machine.

Some time after the disaster, the family moved into public housing with help from the authorities, but they could not afford to pay the rent for a full year.

So Madam Tan, who is illiterate, started sewing clothes for a factory using the sewing machine - which she got repaired - and took whatever jobs she could find to supplement her husband's income.

Her story was among six featured in an animated film at yesterday's National Day Parade (NDP), which showcased stories of people of different generations in Singapore who overcame challenges.

Madam Tan attended her first NDP yesterday with her youngest son, who was born after the fire. She said: "I was very touched when they asked me to be part of the parade... I can finally see it after more than 90 years."

Helmed by acclaimed film-maker and NDP 2021 creative director Boo Junfeng, the 14-minute film was animated by local studio Robot Playground Media.

Others featured in the film included the late National Anthem composer Zubir Said and the late social worker Daisy Vaithilingam, who set up Singapore's first fostering scheme for children and co-founded what became the voluntary welfare organisation Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore.

"For her, joy came from helping people," said Ms Vaithilingam's nephew Glenn Knight, a 76-year-old lawyer, who described his aunt as a second mother to him.

"I used to go to her office when she oversaw all medical social workers in Singapore. I would see her distributing dollars and cents... She was so interested in making sure everyone was well taken care of."

It took Robot Playground Media 10 months to animate the stories, which jump between the past and the present. In total, 180 backgrounds were painstakingly drawn by the studio's artists.

The studio also created a 1,200-frame sequence that shows Singapore changing through the years.

Mr Ervin Han, 46, the studio's co-founder and production manager, said: "I hope these show the public what our animators can do."