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Towner Road Camp
Re-typed by son Keith from the original manuscript written by Des Bettany in 1991:-
‘At an early date, working parties left Changi for camps in Towner Road and Sarangoon Road, etc.
We worked at clearing up the damage in Singapore and the Dock area. For a while we collected abandoned military and private transport. What could not be repaired was broken up and shipped to Japan as scrap.
Ingenious methods of sabotage were used both here and other working parties, such as transit camps for the Japanese troops from the Islands and the War Memorial to Japanese dead on Bukit Timah Hill.’
‘At this time the Selarang Square incident occurred in Changi and parties began leaving there to work on the Burma Railway.’
Des painted to keep sane and to help his mates remain alive, many of his paintings are cartoons of the opposite to what they were living in.
Des had a harmonica with him in Changi. Not only did he have one, but he also had a musical trio in the Japanese working camps, as shown in a letter from Ernie Osman:-
We really got together as guests of the Japanese at Towner Road Working Camp and Serangoon Road.
There were three of us Des, Steve and myself and we formed the ‘Maggoty Rice Melodymakers’ or the ‘Singapore Municipal Orchestra’.
Des on harmonica, Steve on guitar and myself on the smallest piano accordion that you could imagine.
We were on Working Parties as a team of three during the days and we played to the troops under the stars at night.
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