This is for me the most exciting sound in the world. The train was just taking a deep slow breath before it puffed on its way with a fanfare of "toot". This little ditty I learned when I was a Girl Guide served to remind me of the glory of a moving train.
Coffee, coffee, coffee, ( say this slowly) Cheese and biscuits, cheese and biscuits, cheese and biscuits, (you say this bit a little faster) Beef and carrots, beef and carrots, beef and carrots, (and even faster like a train picking up speed) Fish and chips, fish and chips, fish and chips,(and with a huffing motion)
Soouupp! ( and off she goes on the track into the horizon)
(And thank you Mr Bojangles for correcting my toot to soup)
I taught this 'activity' in my English Language classes and it never failed to revive the sleepyheads.
My sister's grandchildren loved this too although the poor parents were driven cuckoo by the loud echoes of "soouupp" in their cars.
And here is my ticket - the last one - of my journey from Singapura to Kuala Lumpur.
How I love the scent of steam from the engine of a coal-fired train. The clickety clack of the train's wheels have always been a part of my psyche and fired the journeys of my life, both real and imaginary.
A long, long time ago my only ambition was to be a train driver! I mentioned this to my Abah and he just nodded and said "wait and see".
At 66 I still haven't got over my craze and love for trains and - later when I could afford it - for train journeys. My one big dream is to travel the train across the Rockies or the fabulous train across Peru.
The last time I departed from Tanjong Pagar
But the train journey closest to my heart is the Kretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) from Singapore to anywhere in the Malay Peninsula. And the name of the station at the end of the line - Tanjong Pagar - always evoked such lovely memories of the magic of departure and arrival.
Next year this magnificient station will be cut off from KTM forever and ever. Decades of train history will be wiped off and now the soul and spirit of train travel will end at Woodlands, that fearful-looking fortress which welcomes your entry into Singapore from the north .
What will Singapore do to this majestic monument of Malaya's transport history? Behind me is a giant-sized wall painting of padi farming. It is just one of several depictions - at Tanjong Pagar Station - of old Malaya's economic activities. I shudder to think that these might be replaced or laced with huge, crass banners advertising MacDonalds, Gucci and Estee Lauder!
Tomorrow we will take this train trip from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. We shall arrive at and depart ( on Wednesday) from Tanjong Pagar for the last time.
Kretapi Tanah Melayu and Kerajaan Malaysia - I hope you know what you have done. I hope future generations will not regret what you have terminated.
"We'll gather lilacs in the Spring again" written by Ivor Novello is special to me for two reasons. For years, this tune which I once heard somewhere in my childhood had been floating in the back of my memory box. Perhaps I had heard it on the radio. Or maybe from a vinyl which my father played on our radiogram in our house at Pasir Panjang Road. As luck would have it, years later in the early 80s when I was having dinner with my neighbours, Pat and Harold Isaac in Brunei, they played this song from a collection of Ivor Novello's best hits. I was over the moon, it was like discovering a childhood friend. I managed to buy the same album during my wanderings in England and I play the record now and then for old time's sake.
Secondly, about 21 years ago when the other half and I were backpacking in India we heard this song again while travelling on the steam train to Ootacamund or Ooty. We had been travelling for weeks and almost on our last legs partly because of the heat and the travails of coping with the Indian Transport System. But also we were beginning to feel depressed at the inhumanity of man to his fellow-men and at the grim and unrelenting and widespread poverty in India. But more than this is the gap between the rich and the poor - which to me is quite obscene in the then 20th century. That I will talk about later.
This train to Ooty was an escape for us. We were sitting comfortably in the train, after a bit of scrambling for seats mind you, when we heard this very same song wafting through the train's steam clouds. Someone in the train must have picked it up from some radio station somewhere. We looked at each other in disbelief and tears were falling from Iain's eyes!!. The spouse has no great attachment to any particular flag or country because his childhood was very, very, nomadic. These were tears of relief and respite from the intolerable strain of travelling in India. For we were in our 40s and we chose to keep away from the upmarket mode of touring India. Physically we could handle the journey, but our spirits were quite demoralised at what we observed and experienced in this country - the world's largest democracy.
Hence the beauty of this song. On the coach from Heathrow to Leicester, we could feast our eyes on the yellow gorse along the motorway, the yellow carpet of fields of rapeseed. I was too late for the daffodils. But when we got home, Jack, our dear friend gave me a bunch of white and yellow jonquils and daffodils, bluebells, and purplish red tulips from his garden . As for the lilacs, we'll have to take a little walk to enjoy their fragrance.
After 6 months absence, it's so good to be back in my little terrace house set amidst Leicester's multi-cultural, working class district. The workers at the local Co-Op, the butcher, the greengrocer are all from different parts of the Indian sub-continent like Gujarat, Punjab, Bangla Desh. But the volunteers working in my favourite shop, Leicester Animal Rescue are all English.
Only 2 days ago, the doorbell rang, the spouse opened the door to 2 young Caucasian Mormon evangelists. Before they could utter a word, the spouse told them in a friendly way, "I better warn you lads, you won't get far with me. I'm a Muslim." I wish I could have seen their faces. They then asked, "Where are you from?" The answer given was "Hereford .... England." Next question, "How long have you been a Muslim?" Answer : "Longer than you have been a Christian." Several other questions followed, they were really trying hard these kids. You have to give them credit for that. In the end they gave up and they left with best wishes of "Good-bye, God go with you" from the spouse. This very non-white area has become good hunting ground for evangelists from various shades of Christianity partly because they have given up on the indigenous population of England - who are seen as beyond redemption. It's more rewarding for them to harvest souls from Hindu and Muslim believers.
But for all the joy of being back in England - this is where I really belong - this call always pulls at my heart and soul.
