http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulau_Brani When Jan and I passed through Singapore on our way here in 2011, we took the opportunity to visit Sentosa, the tourist resort. Once upon a time it was called Palau Blakang Mati or island of the dead (now you know why they changed it to Sentosa! Between it and Singapore harbour was a smaller island which was populated by Singapore locals and a British Military Water Transport unit back in 1959 when I was there as a youngster.
The CO of the unit was a friend of my dad and I was asked if I wanted to try my hand at sea scouting, which I did. One of the older kids, Chris Binns (son of the CO) was our Scout Leader at the time. We did lots of water work, semaphore signalling etc and two camps, one east of Johore Bahru, and the other half way up the east coast of Malaysia at a tropical paradise back then anyway, called Palau Tioman. Great time had by all and lots of memories.
Last time Jan and I were out in UK, we tried to arrange a get together but that fell through due to family difficulties and this time we met up with Chris and Prue at their delightful home in Dippertown, a little village of 24 folk near Tavistock in Devon. Also invited was a retired ex member of the scout group at the same time I was on the island. We cannot remember each other but we did have quite a few memories to recall.
Chris and Prue took me to an undercover market in Tavistock which has been in existence for 150 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavistock,_Devon#Market_village_and_shopping_centre. Nearby, we visited the home of the towns famous son, Sir Frances Drake which is a National Trust property http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckland_Abbey.
Unfortunately I need to get back to Abingdon in preparation for the next journey with son Andrew to Amsterdam, Munich, Croatia and Oslo.
More to follow.
Russ
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