Naval Base Secondary School classmates reunite at 72
While Mr Chan Sig Yam was running errands at Raffles Place earlier this year, he heard someone call his name.
It was his former secondary school classmate, Mr Yee Kee Seng, now a financial services adviser. The duo, both 72, had not seen each other for years.
They started talking and decided to create a WhatsApp group chat to gather their former Naval Base Secondary School classmates for a reunion dinner on Sept 27.
The dinner at Square 2 in Novena was attended by 21 of 30 students in their former Secondary 4 class - the rest either could not make it or had died.
They were joined by six others from other classes in their cohort.
The school, started in 1957 in Bah Tan Road at the British Naval Base in Sembawang, is in Yishun today.
A number of Mr Chan's former classmates said they were pleasantly surprised to hear from him as he used to be a "quiet, reserved and even nerdy" student.
Mr Chan, who was Naval Base's first student to score seven distinctions at the O levels, joined Singapore Airlines as an apprentice maintenance engineer and became an assistant manager in engineering supplies. He retired in 2008.
Another surprise was when they found out another classmate, Mr Wong Kim Tok, who used to be a troublemaker, went on to become a pastor.
Mr Wong, 72, who is with a church in Geylang, said: "My family background wasn't very good. My mother wanted to commit suicide twice, and there was a lot of frustration and sadness."
He worked as a university administrator for three years after studying economics and law in what is now the National University of Singapore.
He left to become a missionary, once spending 10 years in India with his wife to perform missionary work and later took up pastoral duties as well.
For Dr Wong Sen Chow and Ms See Lian Kui, both 72, the reunion has added significance. It was at a class gathering years ago that they began to be interested in each other.
Ms See, a former primary school teacher, and Dr Wong, a consultant surgeon at Mount Alvernia Medical Centre, now have two sons and two grandchildren.
"There were really good times there... We all came from humble homes and we are all (of) different races," he said.
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