Most days, Lim Ah Lee can be found by the window of Ward 2A, glued to the news on his Lexon radio. Other days, the longtime Surya Nursing Home resident hums along with the Mandarin classics playing on his constant companion and “best friend”.
To most, the radio has seen better days. But to the still-sharp 88-year-old, the small brown box connects him to the world.
“Did you know the temple on Kusu Island is now 100 years old?” he asks. “I heard it on my radio.”
“Uncle” Ah Lee tells anyone who will listen how he won the radio in a bingo game organised by Temasek some two decades ago.
At the time, the former leprosy sufferer was a charge of the Singapore Leprosy Relief Association (SILRA), the very first home adopted by Temasek under its T-Touch initiative in early 2002. The firm had decided then that giving should be a cornerstone of its culture, and through T-Touch, it could support staff-led volunteer initiatives and encourage volunteerism.
In those days, SILRA had about 90 residents. Like Uncle Ah Lee, many had spent decades living in the home. The stigma associated with leprosy meant visitors and volunteers were hard to come by, despite the fact that a cure for the disease had been available in Singapore since the 1950s. Many bore physical scars of the disease, but loneliness often felt like the worst one.
That was precisely why, when put to a company-wide vote, Temasek chose SILRA – it was where they were most needed. Their visits became a high point, providing the companionship and acceptance the residents craved.
When SILRA was absorbed by Sunlove Home in 2018 and the building renamed Surya Nursing Home, the tradition continued: no festival goes by forgotten, and familiar faces regularly come by bearing ang pows, mooncakes and other treats, and stay to chat. “We are always happy to see them… Every time Temasek comes, they bring a nice buffet. There was a pasar malam one time, and there is always bingo,” says Uncle Ah Lee.
He remembers the exact game in which the radio came to be his. It hadn’t been going terribly well. “I think the volunteer covering the numbers for me kelong (rigged it), but I won the last radio,” he laughs.
Uncle Ah Lee has lived with leprosy – and the damage it has done – for most of his life. “It was Monday, January 5, 1948 when I went to see a doctor at SGH,” he recalls. “I was 13 years old. He told me I had a skin disease, and said I had to stay in hospital.” At the time, leprosy was feared, and sufferers were detained to contain its spread.
He spent the following years in Trafalgar Home, a leprosarium in a remote area of Yio Chu Kang, surrounded by high walls and barbed wire. He was educated by nuns within its confines, “in a wooden school… with less than 20 boys”, he remembers, and later took up carpentry at the urging of “Sister Philippa”.
The forced isolation ended when a cure was discovered, and the Leprosy Act was repealed in 1976. Uncle Ah Lee found factory work for several years but did not manage as well in the outside world. In the early 1990s, when Trafalgar Home closed its doors, he was among those who moved to SILRA at Lorong Buangkok.
It was SILRA’s move to a new building with nursing facilities in September 2005 that gave him his bed by the window in a brightly painted sky-blue ward. Temasek had put $100,000 towards new furniture and equipment, and has continued to help with renovations, upkeep, and a few extras each year.
“They are good people,” says Uncle Ah Lee. “Last year, they let us choose five things we like for Christmas,” he says. He, himself, asked for new pants, barbeque crisps, his favourite body wash and a supply of the three-in-one kopi he makes for himself each morning.
He’s toured Changi Airport, taken the MRT and, more recently, visited Gardens by the Bay with Temasek’s volunteers. For Chinese New Year, they have a nice meal and yu sheng at a restaurant.
As his eyesight fails, however, Uncle Ah Lee is more often than not found by the window, in the company of his radio. While his original brown radio has been replaced with a newer model, it remains within reach, on his bedside table.
“This is my best friend,” he says. “I will always keep it.”
This radio is my best friend, I will always keep it.
Lim Ah Lee
*In 2018, the residents of Singapore Leprosy Relief Association (SILRA) Home were moved to Surya Nursing Home at Buangkok View, which is managed by Sunlove Home.
As we mark our 50th anniversary, we present 50 stories from our staff, alumni, and beneficiaries who have been a part of Temasek's journey through the years.
Hear for the first time their anecdotes of what went on behind the scenes as they grew alongside the firm. Together, they capture pivotal milestones of Temasek, and tell the story of an institution built By Generations, For Generations.
