Tan Kah Kee station and the man

A station on the newly opened section of the Downtown line in Singapore is named after Tan Kah Kee and you can see his photo and read more about him in the Old Ford Factory museum.

The Museum is about WII and the Old Ford Factory was the place where the British surrendered to the Japanese. I was shocked to read that the Japanese were outnumbered by the British and were keen to have a fast surrender before the British found out the true facts.

The Japanese had previously invaded China, where Tan Kah Key had been a leader of opposition to them. When they Japanese took over Singapore, top of their hit list was Tan Kah Key, as well as anybody admitting to knowing him.

History turned full circle, and the Japanese in turn surrendered to the British elsewhere on Singapore. Now, many years later, the name of Tan Kah Kee is honoured and remembered by an MRT station name.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Old Ford Factory Museum, Singapore

If you can't take an old Ford car to visit the Old Ford Factory museum in Singapore, you can take a bus which stops on the opposite side of the road (coming from the Cashew Road MRT).


The admission price is a modest $3 (Singaporean dollars, not American dollars), which is about £1.50 in UK money.

This factory is the place where the British surrendered to the Japanese. Very interesting from an historical point of view. 

Wartime means not just a change of rulers, danger to fighting men in armies, danger of bombing of civilians, but the simple everyday pressing problem of getting enough to eat.

I was very interested to learn how people living in Singapore in wartime survived by growing their own food. (I am keen to know which foods can be grown successfully in each country, and was intrigued to learn that residents of a skyscraper estate in Cashew Road in 2016 have allotments for growing vegetables.)

If you get over-involved in events which happened before you are born, you might find it more cheerful to think about the Japanese surrender, which I read about at another museum in Singapore, at Fort Canning, which signalled the end of World War II.

In the UK, food rationing continued from the end of the war in Europe in 1945 until 1952 when ration books came to an end. When I was a child in the UK my mother queued for the first fresh bananas and fresh peaches imported from overseas.

The museum is open 9-5.30, Monday to Friday.

The website for the Old Ford Factory Museum is:

http://www.nas.gov.sg/moff/


More pictures and facts in my later post.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.