The full circle - the Lee Family Story

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Both husband and wife on their return from England joined the law firm of Laycock & Ong. The wife was in the same room as a British lawyer of the firm and both did conveyancing. Each morning she would turn up for work and he would greet her as she walked past him to her desk. There was no reply. In the course of the day he would make small talk out of politeness and the response from her was monosyllabic. He came to the conclusion that she was anti-British (anti-foreigners). To drive the foreigners out was the general local sentiment as they were treated as 2nd class citizens. It was the right reaction and the message had to be sent.

The above came out during an interview carried out by an Associate Professor from NUS doing project work in relation to the early development of Singapore's legal system and the various personalities that formed the Bar then. The lawyer in question is Kenneth Hilborne who founded Hilborne & Co and retired in 1980.

So why did the future Prime Minister's wife and present Prime Minister mother behaved in such an uncouth manner. Mind you she was raised from an elite family and educated in Cambridge. So it was not about feeding herself and living a good life. It was then 1951.

63 years later, the Prime Minister's cabinet colleague CJ Tan and MOM minister writes of Singaporeans being bigots. Are we now 2nd class in our country again? Do our children have an uncertain future? Why would we react in this manner to foreigners?

The Prime Minister's mother who was highly educated, from a wealthy family behaved in no less a manner that what we Singaporeans are doing. Did we behave like this 10 years ago? I am certain we did not. So what changed?


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