Remembering Life at BBGS

Outside BBGS - taken in 1997

A couple of friends and I reminisced about our fondest (or otherwise) memories of our dear alma mater..... We hope this will also strike a chord with other BBGSians, and for those who came much later, to give you a glimpse as to what life at BBGS in the mid 1980s was all about !

Moonlake Lee (5S5):

• Film Shows in the assembly hall - we had to all sit on the cement floor and watch those movies (Shaggy Dog, To Sir with Love) shown on the old fashioned projector. Some girls brought paper fans and others had a battery-operated gizmo purchased from the old hawker at the bus stop.
• Mrs Thanen and the production of the musical "The Boyfriend" - I was one of the "boys". I also acted in "The Taming of the Shrew," playing Petrucchio.....come to think of it, I was always given the male acting parts because of my short hair.... (no wonder i grew my hair long later!)
• Speaking Bahasa Malaysia on Wednesdays.....or the prefects would fine you.....
• Spot checks by prefects - hiding photos of boyfriends, romance novels (Mills & Boon), cassette tapes, etc - the library was always a great place to hide things :)
• How i hated to be librarian on duty at the door of the library when we had to pass our hands over the pockets of girls leaving the library to ensure they were not taking things out. ...

Yong Pui Kim (5A4)

• I remember making sure that my shoes were nice and white by using a white chalk.
• Rules such as earrings had to be gold studs or gold loops only, and ribbons for the hair had to be either white or black.
• Flashers were rampant in the area. Ms. Yeap, our headmistress, said that it was due to our unlady-like way of sitting especially those that had classes facing the road. Although most girls wore shorts under our skirts, we were still expected to sit demurely with legs crossed and not wide apart.
• Floating classes in Form 4 (applicable to 4Sc4, 4Sc5, 4A4) - Imagine lugging heavy school bags from the canteen block (2nd floor) to the sewing room (above the home science kitchen) near the school hall.
• No loitering at Sungei Wang Plaza after schools. If you were caught, you would get punished.
• Weekly collections for the gym. The class that gave the most collectively were announced on assembly day at the school hall.

Mandy Ho Siew Mee (5A4)

• Floral arrangements - It was one of my favourite things besides being the ice kacang girl during food sales. The ones in charge had to buy flowers and arrange the flowers on the teacher's table every Monday. We had to make sure to remember to change the stinky water everyday too or the flowers would wilt and die - no marks from the prefect for dead flowers!!

Tho Mei Poh (5S3)

• Toilet duty - we had to carry the water to the toilet and make sure the toilet smelled nice when we finished cleaning it.
• The bell ringing to signal the end of recess time :-(
• Choral speaking rehearsals - especially the special sound effects that we made.
• Sports day- a fun but very hot event. Luckily we had all those big giant trees at the other side of the field to hide under. I remember cheering for Jasvinder Kaur and Pang Wey. I was from PROUSE house (purple) - I remember our cheerleaders shouting, "Give me a “P;” Give me a “R;” Give me an “O”..U...S..E; What do u get - PROUSE!!!!" .... and getting a sore throat afterwards. There was also a DYNAMITE song too but I can barely remember now. (Moonlake – BBGS dynamite, don’t play with dynamite – yeh yeh yeh…)
• Food sales - hamburgers, ice kacang, sandwiches, homemade candies, roti jala, drinks, etc to raise funds for our own school bus??? I always thought BBGS ice kacang was the best that i have tasted. I remember turning that ice machine and pouring evaporated milk into the bowls.
• The noise that we made when the teacher was not around between subjects. Someone shouting "Ms Yeap is coming" and the girls scrambling back to their own desks and SUDDENLY total silence......All of us will looked like angels doing our work silently by the time Miss Yeap walked by.
• Lining up outside our classes and the prefects checking our finger nails
  

Christina Tan Teng Teng (5S4)

• The ever dedicated teachers like Mrs Aziz, Mrs Abraham, Mrs Simon who taught me that building up my character and learning life's essential values other than just learning books in school is as important if not more.
  

Ong Jin Kar (5S1)

• Singing sessions during Assembly. How many of us still remember the words to " Sweetly sings the donkey"?
• Mrs Abraham reiterating that “Love” is pronounced "Larve" not" lo..ove" when singing the part about “love to all men ‘neath the sun” in the BBGS school song