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John Collier Gransden
Singapore
During his early years in Singapore as a young British Tuan he was initially quartered with other unmarried Borneo Company men in the Company Mess in Orange Grove Road.
Company Mess
Orange Grove Road
He later moved to a bachelor house in Thomson Road, where they were looked after by Chinese servants Wash Amah, Cookie (Ah Foo) and house boys, Lee Sing and my father's boy, Ching Mee.
Ching Mee
John’s Boy
As a young man, with most of his contemporaries older than he was, John was always called “Junior” and well past middle age when he was back in England, I can remember some of his old friends, who were former British Malayans from that much earlier time, still calling him Junior, despite his being by then in his late 50’s!
John – “My Chinese and Indian Fitters”
Shortly after my father's arrival in Singapore he signed up as a Private in the Singapore Volunteer Corps, ‘A’ MG Company.
Private John Gransden
Singapore Settlements Volunteer Corps
His army training and manoeuvres carried out in 1933 at what was then the unfinished, Changi Barracks. Large areas of swampland and virgin jungle around Changi village had been cleared in 1927 for the construction of a large Army barracks and barracks at Fairy Hill Point and Battery Hill were already completed but work had stopped in 1930 due to the depression and would not re-start until 1933...... Although not considered to be particularly significant at the time, the Japanese had invaded Manchuria in northern China in 1931, but this was then believed to be "merely a little war between orientals, of no particular interest, nothing to do with Europeans and certainly of no consequence to Britain’s great Empire" ……
Amongst John’s many photographs taken during this time are those of spendid elephant picnics in Johore, Malaya.
Jungle/Elephant Picnic Malaya
Front Row: Mrs Bryning, Mrs Cooper (my Mem Besar), Jackie Wainwright (Guthrie &Co), BaBa Bintley, Jack Harvey & Sitters,
Back Row: John and “Our Edgar” (my Tuan Besar)
Leaves spent at Frazers Hill and Cameron Highlands.
Taking a break on the way to Frazer’s Hill
Wells and John
Frazer Hill Rest House 1933
John and Wells
Dinners at Government House.
John 4th Left at Dinner Given by Chinese Dealers (Towkays)
Early 1930s
Parties at Raffles and Tanglin Club where he first met my mother whose father was a senior RAF officer posted to Singapore.
New Year’s Eve Fancy Dress Ball at Tanglin Club
John Back Row 3rd Left
Christmas Party at Tanglin Club
John 3rd Left with my mother, Marian (nee Fuller), 2nd Left
John and Marian married in May 1946 at the RAF church of St Clement Dane’s in the Strand.
I was born and brought up in Singapore after the war and was always hearing about how wonderful their lives were at that time - and certainly these photographs would seem to confirm this!
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