Introduction about Inspiration from Catherine Lim
I heard the word 'ghosts' then 'stories' and 'I don't believe' from an animated, vociferous female voice in the Tanglin Club's Tavern restaurant at lunch time. I had been listening to men talking about London, and finance, and Ladies talking about food and shopping. Who could be talking about ghosts and short stories? Only Catherine Lim.
The older generation, Catherine Lim's 'aunties' living Malaysia, where she grew up, and in Singapore in the Sixties, in one storey huts in kampongs (villages), hearing the palm trees blowing, watching the shadows jumping, may have thought and talked about ghosts. But youngsters today live in in crammed flats in skyscrapers surrounded by TVs, no time or space for ghosts.
Yes, I was right, Catherine Lim, famous, and gleefully infamous, was holding forth to three mesmerised listeners. I had met her at least three times before.
I remind her that I had first heard her when she spoke to either the American Club or the British Club (probably both). As a result I bought her books of stories. My favourite was the one about the teacher. I saw her a second time when she was teaching at Crescent Girls' School. As usual the girls sat cross-legged on the floor in a large hall. Catherine pranced to the edge of the stage, so lively that I watched entranced, afraid she might fall off, I imagined with a huge crash, creating lots of excitement.
Waving her arms, she was striding about - perhaps only metaphorically, perhaps, actually smaller than I remembered, she merely seemed to be rushing about. She told the girls how to write a creative story, a piece of fiction, or indeed prose, using metaphors, similes, and numerous other rhetorical devices, challenging for teachers and pupils in the UK, never mind mostly Chinese girls, teenagers, for many of whom English was a second language.
Now I wanted to meet her to discuss Singapore and books. I invited her to dinner.
Imagine my delight at a long private chat with Catherine Lim, after I extracted her from two groups of people keen to chat to her at the bar. Eventually, both of us two, glass in hand settled down at table to right the world,so that we could later write the world.
I asked Catherine many questions about herself and her writing. Eventually she asked me what I wrote. I confessed that I had 300 unpublished short stories.
"You must publish them!" she insisted.
I could not disobey nor delay.
So here are my short stories.
Short Stories from Singapore
1 Oliver, the Chinese Olive
Angela Lansbury, B A Hons, CL, ACG, author, photographer, speaker.
I heard the word 'ghosts' then 'stories' and 'I don't believe' from an animated, vociferous female voice in the Tanglin Club's Tavern restaurant at lunch time. I had been listening to men talking about London, and finance, and Ladies talking about food and shopping. Who could be talking about ghosts and short stories? Only Catherine Lim.
The older generation, Catherine Lim's 'aunties' living Malaysia, where she grew up, and in Singapore in the Sixties, in one storey huts in kampongs (villages), hearing the palm trees blowing, watching the shadows jumping, may have thought and talked about ghosts. But youngsters today live in in crammed flats in skyscrapers surrounded by TVs, no time or space for ghosts.
Yes, I was right, Catherine Lim, famous, and gleefully infamous, was holding forth to three mesmerised listeners. I had met her at least three times before.
I remind her that I had first heard her when she spoke to either the American Club or the British Club (probably both). As a result I bought her books of stories. My favourite was the one about the teacher. I saw her a second time when she was teaching at Crescent Girls' School. As usual the girls sat cross-legged on the floor in a large hall. Catherine pranced to the edge of the stage, so lively that I watched entranced, afraid she might fall off, I imagined with a huge crash, creating lots of excitement.
Waving her arms, she was striding about - perhaps only metaphorically, perhaps, actually smaller than I remembered, she merely seemed to be rushing about. She told the girls how to write a creative story, a piece of fiction, or indeed prose, using metaphors, similes, and numerous other rhetorical devices, challenging for teachers and pupils in the UK, never mind mostly Chinese girls, teenagers, for many of whom English was a second language.
Now I wanted to meet her to discuss Singapore and books. I invited her to dinner.
Imagine my delight at a long private chat with Catherine Lim, after I extracted her from two groups of people keen to chat to her at the bar. Eventually, both of us two, glass in hand settled down at table to right the world,so that we could later write the world.
I asked Catherine many questions about herself and her writing. Eventually she asked me what I wrote. I confessed that I had 300 unpublished short stories.
"You must publish them!" she insisted.
I could not disobey nor delay.
So here are my short stories.
Short Stories from Singapore
1 Oliver, the Chinese Olive
Angela Lansbury, B A Hons, CL, ACG, author, photographer, speaker.
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