1918 - 2010 Goh Keng Swee - People's Action Party - PAP

Eulogy by Mr Goh Ken-Yi
Great grandfather
My earliest memories of my
grandfather are of the time
I spent weekends with him
at his house along Goodwood Hill…
not the least of which was bedtime. He
would tell me a story or two and then.
As I lay on the cusp of sleep, he would
gently stroke my hair.
Sometimes, he would fall asleep before
I did. I would nudge him awake
and he would always continue despite
his own fatigue.
I did not appreciate then that this
was occurring at a time, during the
mid­1970s, when he was working tirelessly
towards building some part of
the nation that is the Singapore we
know today.
During my early teens, my grandfather
bought me a camera, a Nikon
EM, which I still keep with me.
Photography was something he
was passionate about and this gift was
meant not only to see if I would pick up
the same hobby, but probably also to
get me to hone my sense of the world,
to start appreciating nature at its simplest,
the things around us that we often
overlook or take for granted.
So we would visit the zoo, bird
park, air shows, parades, fireworks,
clicking away with our cameras. The
one thing that I found difficult to capture
a picture of was my grandfather
himself.
He would usually brush me off
whenever I wanted to snap a shot of
him and redirect my attention to something
else. A few times, though, I did
manage to get him to emerge from his
shell and strike a jovial, sometimes
even comical, pose.
Actually, I find this camera­shy
10 PETIR MAY / JUNE 10
His unassuming facility is something I feel we
sometimes lack in an age where self-promotion
has become an accepted tenet of society.
aspect of him strangely inconsistent
with his…overtly public vocation. But
when the time came to blaze a certain
trail, he would rise to the challenge,
on centre stage no less if he had to.
And yet, when the work was done,
he would often deflect any notion of
praise directed towards him.
His unassuming facility is something
I feel we sometimes lack in an
age where self­promotion has become
an accepted tenet of society.
A moment I will always remember
and cherish is when I was about to
start my working life (in investment).
My grandfather had asked me to his
office and I figured that he was going
to chastise me for being somewhat distracted
and not knowing what career
path to take.
I had graduated with an engineering
degree but had no intention of becoming
an engineer. Further, instead
of minoring in economics as he had
recommended, I decided to…acquire
a second degree in English literature.