A Matter of 10 Cents

May 1972. A few months after my Form Five exams, the much awaited letter finally arrived. I felt so excited that the Singapore Police Force had approved my application and was calling me for an interview. But I was also very worried because I had no money to buy the train ticket to Singapore.

While I was thinking of how to get the money, my friend Kian Hong came and told me that he had received a letter calling him for an interview with the Royal Malaysian Armed Forces in Kuala Lumpur as a cadet officer. His interview was a week earlier than mine and he could afford to buy the train ticket to Kuala Lumpur.

On the day that he was to board the train to KL, I fetched him on my bicycle from my hometown, Sg.Lalang in Kedah to the Bidong train station, four kilometers away. We said goodbye and as I sadly pushed my bicycle out of the railway station I saw a 10-cents coin lying on the road. Of course I picked it up but I knew that this amount of money was way too little to buy a train ticket.

The next morning I woke up still worrying about how to buy my ticket. As I got up I happen to see a “three-digit directory” (the pink book which match 3-ekor numbers to certain things or events) . I took it up and flipped through it when I suddenly saw a sketch of a person sending someone to the train station. It reminded me of sending Kian Hong to the railway station yesterday. And so I used that 10-cents to buy the number 583 since 10-cents couldn’t contribute anything to the twenty plus dollars needed for my ticket.

I could hardly believe it when that number actually striked first prize that evening. I won about sixty-two dollars !! I had enough for the ticket and also some pocket-money! But Mother let me keep just enough for the ticket and took the rest, telling me I could ask my brother in Singapore for pocket money when I got there.

So I finally got to Singapore, went for the interview and was accepted. But Uncle in Singapore disagreed and would not allow me to join the Police. So I sat around doing nothing but reading advertisements in the newspaper looking for another job. I applied to a socks factory and was accepted to be an apprentice technician. I was fascinated with the machines that made socks and so began my career in the socks industry.