Down Memory Lane (1)

• VIRGINITY: With apologies to Evelyn Waugh: "Girls are told from a very young age to preserve their virginity and they do; they treasure it and treasure it -- then in a fit of generosity, they go and give it away -- often in the back seat of a car."
• SOME ORGY: A group of sex-starved journalists and a motley crowd of junior politicians in Mr Lee Kuan Yew's retinue decide to pay in advance for an orgy with some nubile nymphs in Colombo on their way home from selling Malaysia to East Africans. The sales pitch was designed to counter Soekarno's "confrontasi" campaign. But they are foiled ... No cavorting with the dusky damsels, only curses all the way home because their chartered flight's departure time was advanced by some 14 hours.
• PAID FOR SEX: Harold, a reporter and former policeman, has his way late one night with a dance hostess (on the backseat of an American Ford car, of course) on the old Kallang airport runway. She flees, later cries "rape." For Harold, there is a happy ending. He is paid for his night's performance in monthly instalments. Steady extra income for a couple of years!
• TOUCH-UP ARTIST K.S. Kong was given strict instructions to "raise necklines and lower hemlines." This he did very adroitly with an airbrush ... But he kept many of the originals (undoctored) and some of these eventually saved the paper hundreds of thousands of dollars when a dance girl sued for defamation.
• POST-PRANDIAL DILEMMA: What is one to do when your dinner date, on arrival at her SIT home in Prince Philip Ave, suddenly grabs both your hands and thrusts them down into her blouse -- in front, of course? Oh God, she fancies a post-prandial pounce! What do the books on etiquette advise?
• PAGE ONE 4-D NUMBER: As acting Sunday Times editor in the absence of George Tan, I published on Page One the First Prize 4-D number in letters about the size of an egg ... The banner headline: "The siege at ... " followed by the 3-digit house number; the story was about an eight-year-old boy being held hostage. So the lucky punters chose 8 to precede the 3 numbers -- and presto! In the following week I received this letter on an Islay Kerr letterhead: "Dear Sir, You made many of us very happy. Please continue to print lucky numbers, etc." One of our news cameramen also got it right and promptly treated himeself to a new Hillman Minx saloon and, so I was told, a mistress. Sorry, I can't vouch for the mistress connection -- but he went about his job with a new car and a new spring in his step.
• HOMO INTACTO: I have not been conscious of greeting people "with limp wrists" -- that's how you can tell if someone is "queer" or so I am told. However, from a very young age, I was er, targetted. It was probably from about eight, roughly the age when a Thai princess approached my mother to ask if she could adopt/buy me. My mother declined politely, not for all the elephants in the kingdom. I was her clever "first boy in school" eldest son and I am proud to declare that she never scolded or chastised me in her long life, passing away at 92. But in my life, there have been friendly types who let me know in no uncertain terms that I had "a future behind me." From all these encounters, I emerged virgo intacto. Best of all, we remained friends.

         I would like to share these stories with readers. For additional details, as the news readers say on TV: "Stay tuned."