chapter 9

After convincing my mother I was only going for a holiday to Singapore, I finally sailed on a Flotto Lauro liner in 1950. On arrival in Singapore the ship was visited by Customs officials and I had to pay 600 Singapore dollars as a bond to ensure I obtained employment.

I was issued with a receipt and when I eventually left Singapore I received a full refund. I had to declare my monetary situation to ensure I could support myself if I was unable to find a job. At the guest house where I first stayed there was a number of British servicemen's families. A serviceman's wife suggested I try for a job with the Singapore Police Department because they paid good wages. I went to the Police Department and told them I wanted a job. After producing my references from my Sydney employers and demonstrating my knowledge of stenography and languages, including Mandarin, I was employed.

For the next seven years I worked in the Criminal Investigation Department's Special Branch where I did confidential work. The Singaporean police force was controlled by the British because Singapore was then a British colony.

I moved accommodation several times to better flats. I eventually shared a flat with a stenographer named Jane Thompson. I found I liked Singapore's social life and I enjoyed it to the full. I joined the Singapore Swimming Club and the Tanglin Club.

Unsuccessful Miss Singapore candidate - 1953.

I entered the Miss Singapore beauty competition and considered my chances of winning to be quite good. Because such events were increasingly being considered passé and demeaning for women, the competition was cancelled and so I never found out whether I could have won it. I took a small part in a Malayan movie named `Anak Ku Sazali' where I was part of a nightclub group. I have never seen the finished movie.

I was never with anybody long enough to receive proposals of marriage although one young man whose name I now forget always said he would marry me one day. I only went out with him for dinner a few times and played bridge with him. I did fall in love once but that came to nothing.

I experienced race riots in Singapore which were frightening. Because of the riots, I was taken to work in armoured police vehicles for my personal safety. I also often saw British Navy ratings fighting among themselves when ashore and then fighting the Australian Navy ratings whenever an Australian Navy vessel visited. When an American Navy ship arrived, the British and Australian ratings used to combine and take on the Americans.

Hiroshima, seen in April 1946. [click here]

In May 1954, I went with my friend Antoinette Harding to Japan on the SS Chusan from Singapore for a holiday. In Japan we went by train to Kyoto. Seated near us were a Japanese man and a Russian woman who were talking. At one stage I glanced out of the train window and saw what I thought was desert. I said: "Look, a desert. I did not know Japan had deserts." The Japanese man heard my comment, leant forward and said to me quietly: "Excuse me, that is not desert. That is the atomic bomb."

My mother and father continued living in Sydney. Mum desperately wanted me to return to live there. Although I did come home almost every Christmas for a week or two, I did not want to live there. I stayed in Singapore for Christmas 1956 because I wanted to attend some social functions. I then came to Sydney early in 1957. I brought all my belongings with me because I wanted to go to London. Among my plans was attending a London fashion show, to which I had been invited. Queen Elizabeth was expected at the fashion show. I thought I would stay with my parents a short while and then go to London and settle there for a few years.

On arrival in Sydney, I got a job with the New South Wales Police Department. I was assigned to a section of the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB – made up of detectives). My plans for London were thrown awry early in March 1957 when a tall young detective to whom I was later introduced walked into my office.

Less than two years later, I married the tall detective and I set up home in Sydney. My husband Bob (Robson Lacey Bradbury 1930- ) and I have three grown sons and four grandchildren now. I have no regrets about missing that London fashion show.

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