newton food centre


my association with newton food centre goes back all the way to the 50s. i attended the now defunct newton boys' school. it was next to another defunct school, monk's hill primary school. the two schools shared a field. the buildings that housed the two schools are now used by a madrasah, an islamic religious school. i started primary one in owen school. i was actually registered to study in dorset school. after three years in owen, i was transferred to newton boys' school.

during that time, there was a cluster of schools in that area. there were winstedt school, tanglin tinggi malay school, monk's hill secondary and anthony road school. as school boys, we used to pick fights with the pupils from monk's hill primary and tanglin tinggi malay school. fights usually took place in the quiet suburb of hooper estate.

i would take a bus to school on most days, the fare was 5 cents. some days, i walked to school as the buses were always packed. we had to literally cling to the handle bar for dear life. as for the homeward trip, i usually walked. i did not always take the same route. some days, i would walk through hooper road, keng lee road and thomson road. other days, i took the newton road way.

at that time, the trolley bus terminated at newton circus, where the food centre is. the post office was across the road and there was this row of shophouses, in one of which was the famous newton char kway teow. the char kway teow man was one of my kampong folks. back in the 60s, on the food centre side of the road, there were a mamak stall and two other stalls selling foodstuff. i think, one was a cheng tng stall.

when i was riding a motor bike, newton was one of our haunts. we would spend many hours drinking.....tea.... at the sarabat stall. the same stall is still operating at the food centre. in the 1970s, when i was teaching at monk's hill sec, we used to raid the food centre to nab the smokers and late-comers.

these days, i seldom eat at the centre unless i happened to drop in at monk's hill secondary to visit my ex-colleagues. from next year, i will not be able to do that as monk's hill will be merging with balestier hill secondary.