Besides the forgotten and abandon Yan Kit Swimming Complex, another place that I was acquainted with as a young child was the Yishun Swimming Complex.
Visiting what remains of the complex after 18 years, which took on the face of how I had known it around 1993, I realize that there is little evidence of what I had known that remains.
One pool that I was hoping to see is the Wading Pool that featured prominently in photographs in later part of 90's. That, sadly, along with the Teaching Pool where I did spend many moments on during the days and nights on, is now, like the long forgotten pools, only a very distant memory - although both pools seemed to have been transformed to a brand new one.
Yishun Swimming Complex is my childhood playground.
A good old times where I had swimming lessons with Lifeguards - Uncle Mustafa, Uncle Karim, Uncle Cheong, Uncle Yeow and many more. I would sometimes be the first at the pool, and then head for 'a part-time job' collecting admission tickets at the Main Entrance before going home with my father who was working there from 1990 to 1998; and not forgetting, getting involved in the yearly National Swim and Pesta Sukan.
That was how I spent everyday for 3 years when I was 6 years old. Great memories. Those were awesome childhood days.
With all changes that seem to have altered the entire area, I did not expect to see much that would be familiar. I suppose that was partly due to the fact that I did not want to be disappointed by the foray to the corridors around which I had spent a very eventful childhood in.
Looking beyond the grills and over the parapet, I realized how much the face of Yishun Swimming Complex has changed.
For me however, it is still somehow that Yishun Swimming Complex that I knew, one that from time to time, whenever I am feeling a little nostalgic, I am still able to take a walk 'down memory lane' to and to be fascinated with in the same way I had been as a child growing up in the Yishun area of the early days.
As for the staffs, some have gone and few remain. All have their own contributions, I still can recall.
Another swimming pool I remember vividly as a kid was the Woodlands Swimming Complex.
I first learnt to swim in the Competition Pool at the age of 11 from my father who was working there from 1998 to 2000. The first swimming lessons he gave me was to dump me into the deepest part of the fresh pool, and in the process of frantic struggling, he would come to my rescue. This was the way he taught me how to float, the most basic of all swimming skills.
For few months I felt like a hopeless swimming novice among others in the pool, always keeping near to the edge of the pool (afraid being drowned).
This pool reminded me that 16 years ago, swimming was made compulsory classes of the Primary School/s. Also held some of the sports day at the opposite Woodlands Stadium.
What I miss about the pool was that it was always crowded mainly with Woodlands residents. Very nostalgic memories!
Today Woodlands Swimming Complex have evolved into water theme parks and it offer much more than just swimming.
It is in a deserted and somewhat forgotten corner of Singapore at International Road, that you will find the Jurong Town Swimming Complex.
It stands alone - the space to which it opens into is one that nature has reclaimed, giving little away as to what it might have once have been. Once surrounded by a world we now have sought to forget, that of a 40 years old JTC flats, the swimming complex stands all alone except for the flats at Yung Kuang Road that does remind us of what might once have been.
Jurong Town Swimming Complex holds special memories for me. Before enlisted to the National Service, I used to come to this pools not only to visit my father but also to swim. My father was working there from 2000 to 2003.
As you can see from the photos, this pools has closed down in 2003.
Just reminiscing, this pools had the distinction of having a restaurant on the premises that overlooked the pools.
The compound has since been converted into a Futsal Centre.
I guess, in a couple of years, after the bulldozers move in, the only place that Singaporeans of the future can learn about the Jurong Town Swimming Complex may well be The Gateway To The Lost World.
