A house of skip raiders 01: the bookshelves (London)

I moved into Belfiore Lodge on 28 December 1985.  

It was an attic flat with sloping roofs, which left awkwardly-shaped wall space for standard book shelves.  Shop-bought ready-made book cases were out of the question.  Putting up our own brackets meant taking precise measurements for every single one of the planks as each level would be a different length.  We were also not that confident about our drilling skills for the brackets.

To match the style of the house (see blog entry A family of skip raiders 02), we decided to make the book shelves out of bricks and planks.  A house a street away was being renovated, and the skip outside was full of old bricks ripped out.  Unlike new bricks, they had different hues—tinges of reddish brown, orangey brown, purply blue.  The type one sees in old houses in England.  Just right for Belfiore Lodge.

We went out late one drizzly Sunday night, as no-one would be out and about, and humped back bucketloads of these bricks, getting wet and slightly muddy, looking like a couple of hobos.  Then, we washed them, to get rid of the mud, and dried them in the oven of the dinky 1930s cooker, which we’d kept going in the winter for heating, as all the flats (bar one) in Belfiore Lodge had no central heating.

It was a time warp experience in every step of the way!  Most fitting for a time-frozen house like Belfiore Lodge.

(London, 1986)

A house of skip raiders 02: the windows (London)

Belfiore Lodge was a Victorian house that looked like it had come out of a Dracula film set:  the outer walls of the main house and the wing covered with Virginia creeper, ivy, honeysuckle and sweet pea; turrets on the roof of the main house, complete with a wind vane.  People who happened to come down our cul de sac would stop, stare and point at these features in amazement, admiring this most eccentric house.

There were eight self-contained one-bedroomed flats:  four in the main house, four in the wing that was added on later (in the 60s?).  The landlord and landlady, Fred and Nora, lived in one of the ground floor flats.  

In the space between the house and the one next door was a single-storey long room, with the front and back walls made of brick and a tiled roof, used as a kind of storage area / workshop.  (The other two walls were the side wall of Belfiore Lodge, and the garden wall.)  

Further down the garden was a spare shed, completely made out of doors and windows salvaged from skips.  The inside was stuffed full of other things, also picked up from skips.  I heard that the built-in wardrobe in Fred and Nora’s bedroom was made out of discarded doors, rescued from skips.

One blustery winter’s day, one of my two living room skylights, which had a dodgy rotting catch, was blown right off its hinges, flew over the sloping roof and landed on one of the skylights, which was in good condition, in the bedroom on the other side, smashing it to bits.  In an instant, there were two gaping holes in the roof, one at each end of my attic flat, providing a clear passage for the gale outside to whip through my flat, slamming doors hither and thither.

I ran downstairs to inform Fred, who came up to inspect the damage, then went downstairs to his spare shed to pick out a couple of spare windows stored in there.  

Where would one find someone to come at 5pm on a windy Sunday afternoon, never mind get two windows replaced within 20 minutes?

(London, 1986)

A house of skip raiders 03: the deckchair (London)

A deckchair sitting out on the pavement outside the garages at the curve of Leigh Road caught my eye: “Obviously to be thrown out.  Only the canvas needs replacing.”

“But you don’t have any need for a deckchair,” I reminded myself.  “When are you going to find the time to replace the canvas?  No, leave it, leave it.”

The following day, I came home and found the deckchair still sitting there.  The same internal struggle to resist taking it.

This went on for about a week.

One day, I came home and the chair was gone.  Relief!  No more having to hold myself back.  Someone’s found a home for it.

Half an hour later, I had to go upstairs to my old, attic flat, which I’d passed on to Helen and her husband when I was offered the flat downstairs, to speak to her about something.  As soon as she opened her front door, I espied the deckchair sitting in the living room!

(London, 1989)

Being challenged to a car race (Singapore)

I’d passed my driving test at age 18, the minimum age for taking the test.  

My mother had, only a year or so earlier, swapped her Morris Minor for a Datsun 1200.  The “1200” was 1200cc here, I think.

Late one night, I was sitting at a set of traffic lights near Thompson Road, practically devoid of traffic at that hour, minding my own business, waiting for the lights to change, when I heard, to my right, a car being revved up repeatedly: vroom, vroom, vroom.  I turned round and saw the source of the noise: a car in the next lane, with its owner — a young man — looking at me in a raised eyebrows “well, how about it?” way, obviously challenging me to a car race.

Not being very much into cars, I couldn't tell what the make of the other car was, but as my Datsun was only a 1200, and from the confident challenge thrown at me by the other driver, I knew that my car wouldn’t be up to the level of the speed expected on the straight run, i.e., I'd be trounced hands down.

However, I knew my car well enough for a quick off-the-(starting-)blocks head start for the first three gears, as I could change gears very quickly, with immediate response from the car.

My training and experience as an athlete — from age eight to 18 — had taught me that one has to start running at the same time that the starter gun is fired, not after one hears it, as this will be a split second too late.  

Every split second counts in a 100-metre sprint.  When the starter says “Get set” (after “On your marks”), you start counting to three — that’s the time gap between “get set” and the firing of the gun.  At the count of three, you kick off.  The reason for false starts by athletes is they’ve gone too fast on counting to three, thus pre-empting the gun and getting off the blocks a little too soon.

Being the nerd that I am, I had also observed the timing of traffic lights when changing from one colour to another:  there was a 3-second gap between amber and green.

After my first glance at the young man, I turned my head back to focus on the road ahead, giving him the impression that I wasn’t going to bite, thus throwing him off the scent.

The lights went to amber.  

I started counting to three, and shot off the very moment the lights turned green, leaving the young man behind.  

A few yards on, a quick change to second gear.  

Another stretch of road later, a quick change of gear to third.  

Once I’d changed to fourth gear, I eased the pressure on the accelerator pedal and let the car cruise, as my Datsun wouldn’t be able to sustain much speed at fourth gear.

To add insult to injury, I stuck my hand out of the window, and slowly waved the young man on.

(Singapore, 1973) 

Curious level of curiosity (Taipei, Taiwan)

A few days after the noodle shop eavesdropping incident (see blog entry Enthusiastic eavesdropping), I was walking past a shop window during my lunch hour when I spotted an interesting display in the window.  I stopped and gazed at it, standing about 3 feet (1 metre) away.  A few seconds later, a passer-by, wondering what it was that had attracted me so much, stopped and stood next to me, peering into the shop window to see what it was that had caught my eye.  When he couldn’t identify the item, he looked back and forth, back and forth, from my face to the shop window and back, to try and follow the line of vision and thereby pick out the fascinating display.  When even this failed, he just stepped forward and moved sideways to stand right in front of me to try and get the direct line of vision that would lead him to the item!

(Taipei, Taiwan, 1975)

Enthusiastic eavesdropping (Taipei, Taiwan)

A scene in the American TV series Frasier featured Seattle-based radio psychologist Frasier (played by Kelsey Grammer) and his psychologist brother Niles sitting in their usual café, talking about something.  A chap at the next table was so obviously following their conversation that Frasier said to him, “Why don’t you pull up a chair and join us?”

This was exactly what happened to me in 1975 when I was working in Taipei for Conoco Taiwan.  Minus the prompting bit.

My colleagues had taken me to a famous beef noodle place, Chia Chia Beef Noodles 佳佳牛肉麵.  We were speaking in English, which was (and still is) very common in Singapore between people of Chinese ethnicity (ditto between those of Malay/Indian ethnicity) but something totally unheard of, even inconceivable, in Taiwan, perhaps right to this day.

A young man at the next table was so curious about this, and probably keen to learn some English too, that his eavesdropping visibly progressed in stages.  

After the initial quick, startled jerk of the head around to see who were speaking English at the next table, he then turned his head to partially face us, so as to better catch what we were saying, looking at us out of the corner of one eye.  

Not getting very far with that, he then started leaning more and more towards us.  

In the end, he actually turned round completely and pulled his chair up to our table to sit at our table between me and Peggy, nonchalantly looking from one to the other as we chatted away!  

(Taipei, Taiwan, 1975)

Figs for goitre (American: goiter) (Singapore)

The Chinese name for figs is 無花果 / 无花果 wúhuāguǒ / “not-have flower fruit”.

We initially got these two grafted fig trees for the shade their big leaves could provide our kitchen from the fierce tropical sun, no more.  The variety out in S.E. Asia (don't know about other Asian countries) doesn't have serrated leaves that the European ones do but straight edges; the fruit is deep maroon, not purple.

All we knew was that one could dry the huge leaves, then boil them for drinking as a cooling tea (凉茶 liángchá).  Cooling teas are common throughout S.E. Asia, not for cooling down externally from the tropical heat, but for cooling down the internal heat built up from the air temperature, as well as from eating food that’s too “heaty” or yáng 阳 (yáng 阳 as in yīn 阴 and yáng 阳), e.g., deep fried food, or food of a yáng nature (such as durian).  We also used the green leaves for wrapping up fish that we used to get in huge quantities (my father worked as a bookkeeper at a wholesale fishery place, so we got the unsold items for free or at greatly discounted prices) to give to friends and relatives.

Throughout the year, the trees would produce clusters of fruit that would go from green to brown, shrivel up, then drop off.  We had to sweep them up and burn them in our garden bonfire (allowed in those early days).  

Twice a year — mid year and end of year — during the ripening seasons, the clusters of fruit would ripen, turning deep maroon and attracting lots of birds, then insects when the birds left big gaping holes in the fruit.  Whatever was not eaten by the birds would drop off, leaving a pulpy mess on the ground, with more insects buzzing around the piles, which made clearing up quite an odious task.  We also had to leave them to dry in the sun for longer before burning as they were so wet.  We used to curse and swear at the trees for giving us all this work.

One day, a little old lady turned up at our gate, asking if she could have some of our figs.  Yes, certainly, we said, but learning from the 靈芝 / 灵芝 língzhī lesson (see blog entry: The tree fungus), we decided to ask up front this time, “What do you want them for?”  

She said her granddaughter was suffering from a serious case of goitre (called “big neck frame” in my dialect), so bad that her eyes were full of pus and swelled up until she couldn’t see.

When it first happened, the family took her to the (Western medicine) doctor, who said she had to have surgery, and it would be S$600 — as a point of reference, my third sister’s salary as a bank clerk some six years later was S$160 / month.  They agreed, even though the Chinese generally don't like having their bodies cut up.  

Back it came three months later, equally serious.  Back to the doctor.  Another operation.  Another 600 dollars.  

Another three months later, it returned, equally bad.  The family decided that even if they had a bottomless wallet, they couldn’t let her be cut up every three months, so they started asking around.  Someone said to let her eat figs for breakfast, lunch and dinner, nothing else.  So, the old lady went around looking for fig trees, and found us.  We gave her two sack loads, and started eating figs ourselves, recommending and giving them to neighbours, friends and relatives too.  

Six months later, the old lady came back for another lot.  Her granddaughter’s condition had improved hugely:  the eyes didn’t swell up this time, no pus, the relapse was six months later, not three months later like before.  

We gave her another two sack loads, and never saw her again.  

I cannot be entirely sure that she hadn’t decided she couldn’t keep coming back to us for more figs and managed to source another supplier, but I’d like to think that it was because her granddaughter’s goitre had been cured for good by our figs.

(Singapore, mid-60s)

PS (2023): To this day, I regret not having asked her for her phone number so that we could monitor the situation.  I'd like to have known.

The tree fungus:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-tree-fungus-singapore.html