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Centenary site nominated for a Webby Award

100 years - 100 stories: Building the Centenary homepage

Ella F Shum

Ella (Computing, 1981) and friends recollect on some of the happiest times of their lives.

It has only been 25 years since I graduated, but those three years at Imperial were some of the happiest time I had in my life. My second year was the most intense and wonderful year. I was President of the Imperial College Chinese Society (ICCS), member of the Imperial Ballroom Dancing Team and a 2nd year computing student.

I decided to write this essay as a way to remember that special time. Many friends of that period decided to contribute vignettes of their memories. So this is not just my story, but our story.

I have divided this essay into different topics:

• First year
• Life at Southside
• Outings and Trips
• Sports
• Parties
• Food
• Love
• Beginning of the End
• Vignettes of Sweet Memories
• Where we are now

First year

It was not all that easy at the beginning. Coming to Imperial as a mere 17 year old from Oxford High School for Girls, everything was a shock. It took me a year to get used to being addressed as a “woman”. Having 90% of the people around me being the opposite sex helped me understand how being a “prey” feels like. Most of the time, I hung around the other two Chinese women in my Computing class; Melissa Chung and Li Hwa Lim. On the positive side, it was easy to get used to never having to use make up or to dress up. In fact, women from nearby colleges were aghast at how I could possibly go to college in a pair of worn out jeans and sweat shirt with no make-up, decent hair cut, jewellery or nice shoes.

Slowly, I realized, men or women, most 1st years were in the same boat, scared and frightened in leaving home for the first time. People were friendly and I began to enjoy college life.

Life as a 1st year computing student was not easy. Mastering the use of punch cards and not dropping the 200 cards one just spent hours perfecting was a necessary survival skill. We did have fun punching greeting cards to each other. Many punch card machines were damaged when they had to duplicate a whole column of holes, a very unnatural act for this IBM invention.

We also had to learn to decipher error messages written in “alien” language; “Illegal operation”, “Post-mortem dump”…..etc. Who could predict at that time that I would make a living after graduation as a computer consultant in explaining these “un-English”-like messages to tearful computer users?

In February 1979, I was encouraged to run for the President of the Chinese Society. No woman has ever run for that position. Given that almost no women were present at the last few parties the Society held, I promised that there would be more women than men at the next party if I were elected. I should have known then I belonged to the marketing world. I won.

1979-80 was also an interesting year for the Chinese Society. The number of Chinese students was at a peak because the tuition was affordable for middle class families in Asia. For the following school year ’80-’81, overseas student tuition went up 400%, diverting many kids to Canadian and US universities.

There were a few hundred Chinese students at IC, and the members were mostly from Hong Kong, Singapore/Malaysia and immigrants to the UK. There were a few graduate students from Taiwan. The first undergraduates from China began to arrive in 1979; including the daughter of the then Premier Hua Guofeng. She used her father original surname “Su” to avoid publicity. These kids came with fancy stereo and other “nice” stuff; a total contrast to the images we had of the Cultural Revolution which had just ended.

While the interest of the students from the Hong Kong and Singapore/Malaysia was rather diverse, we were lucky to have a united group and had fun together.

The committee was:
President: Ella Shum (Comp’81)
Vice President: Kee Yong Tan (Math’80)
Secretary: Dik Ng (Aero’81) Treasurer: Sharon Leung (Math’80)
Sports Secretary: Soo Cheah (Math’80)
Publicity: Tony Law (Comp’81)
Activator Editor: C.S. Yap (MechEngComp’81)
External Affairs Officer William So (Comp’81)

If the experience of speaking to a large crowd at the election was scary, I had to learn how to run a committee, fast. I have to admit I was not a consensus building kind of leader. I liked to sell my idea to the individual committee members, listen to their feedback, and come to the committee meeting with my modified proposal. It was just faster that way. Looking back, I had the privilege of a GREAT committee and a large group of active members to help on all the tasks. Everyone worked hard to make the year fun and successful.

Life at Southside

Southside was of course the watering hole for all of us. Soo Cheah (Math’80) and I decided we would drink a Remy Martin for each round of beer the “boys” had. Needless to say, there were many intoxicated evenings. Michael Chang’s 21st birthday celebration on February 28, 1980 was one of the craziest one. Since he is now a professor, I will refrain from posting those photos which he once begged me to give him the negatives for. The night before some of the 1980 graduates left was also rumoured to have brought madness to a new level, but I missed it because I was too sad to attend.

Space Invaders, Pac Man and the pinball machines were other great attractions at Southside. Our EE friends loved to collect enough static electricity on the tip of a key and zapped the electronic pinball machines so that they would go bonkers.

Terence Siew (Math’79) remembers one of those nights at Southside playing pool:

"also to add the late nights playing pool in south side with Stephen Huen and a few others; to save money, we used to stuff the table pockets with toilet paper so that the pool balls would not go in and we could play many games; there was once someone hit the ball so hard that the paper went in with the ball and jammed the pocket, thus ending our games."

I was the keeper of the Society’s coffee and cream, thus my room 345 at Farmouth Hall became the gathering spot for “after-drinking-at-Southside” events. I had a guitar which I did not know how to tune. Thus, the price of coffee was to tune my guitar and play a song. William Ho, Tony Law and Stephen Huen (Civil’81) earned many cups of coffee that way.

Gathering on Nov 23, 1979
Left to Right (Top): Roy Leung (Math’80), Richard Ang (EE’80), K.C.Lam (Civil’80), K.M.Lee, Michael Chang, me, Eddie Yeung (Civil’81). Bottom row: Patrick Tang, C.N.Ko

 

Gathering on December 13, 1979
Left to Right (Bottom): Stanley Ooi (Physic’80), David Wong (James’ brother), Soo Cheah, Patrick Tang, Richard Ang, Gary Eng Tan (EE’80). (Top) K.M.Lock (EE’80), Stephen Huen, James Wong (Math’81), Paul Ng (Comp’80), Bill ?? (Aero’80), Sam Yu (Comp’80)

Outings and trips

We had outings to many parts of the country. The first trip was to Oxford and Blenheim Palace. There were also trips to Wales, Peak District, Lake District, Canal Boat trip from Stoke-on-Trent…etc.

 

On the trips, here are some vignettes contributed by (Gary) Eng Tan:

- I fondly remember our first so called "walk in the countryside" organized by our illustrious Richard 'Bin' Tan who took us out of London on a 2 hour van ride to climb up a windy ridge in Wales!

- I fondly remember the Lake District trip driving in the mist and fog looking for our hostel and Stephen 'bell-bottom' Huen saying it is just around the next corner and then meeting yet another farm gate!

- I fondly remember the camping trip to Southampton which we arrived in the dark, pitched our tents and was woken in the middle of the night in 6 inches of water!!! It turned out to be the heaviest rain in 50 years (or something!)

- Of course fond memories of other trips too to the Peak District, Cardiff Castle, hikes, walks, rambles, and excursions too numerous to mention here and equally eventful.

A vignette contributed by Laylian Ong on trips:

My first experience on trying to understand a ‘dirty joke’ told by “Bin Tan” in the Wales trip was not great. Everyone was laughing and having fun while I was dumbfounded. A couple of years ago, when I told my children the same joke, they “fully understood” the funny side of it – a sign of improved education? Or a result of my excellent parenting?

A vignette contributed by Tony Law on trips:

…Eva was the one bringing us bottles of fresh milk in the morning during the Land's End outing...

A vignette contributed by Soo Cheah on trips:

- I remember spending a week in a barge down a canal, taking walks in the field and getting wet (photo left)

- We went away in a van to Wales, where we sang all the way (almost) and then I was not well, and the girls fussed over me

A vignette contributed by Richard Ang on trips:

- On our canal boat trip ( Squire Trelawney) , I remember being thrown overboard (photo) but vaguely recall the culprits involved. Probably Gary, Bin and some others.

- As for our trip to Wales (organised by Bin), I remember a particular morning when we were on a minivan cruising along a country road. Everybody was joking and laughing away when suddenly KM Lee face turned pale and asked to stop the van immediately. He jumped out and proceeded to do his business behind a bush. On his way back to the van, he stepped onto something that gave us a good laughter. A cow had done his business earlier!

Sports

We were very active in sports. We had our own soccer team. The photo here was taken after our win against Queen Mary’s College.

Squash was another key sport among the ICCS crowd. I used to play quite a bit myself. However, for the “boys”, squash was played as if one’s manhood was on the line. It was “Kill or Be Killed”. Having a few females watching the games of course increased the smell of blood in the air.

Badminton was also very popular but it was not my game, so no photos! Soo Cheah remembered:
- getting trashed by UC in squash and badminton in our annual games

- the annual UC-IC football match was abandoned due to failing light

- doing 100 lengths in our IC swimming pool with Stephen Huen, I think, or (is it Tan Kee Yong?) which took over 2 hrs.

Parties

On parties, we had great parties, and so many!!

For our first function, we had a Farewell Party for the graduating class. I remembered it was held at Beit Hall. As promised, there were more women and men. (It was not that hard really. I stuffed flyers under doors of students from nursing and secretarial colleges at my Catholic hostel. They were dying to meet IC grads.) Flyers were handwritten on wax paper and duplicated. Poor Tony Law (Comp’81) became the expert in using that antiquated machine.

Our biggest, the Chinese New Year Variety Show & Dinner was sold out, for the first time in our Society’s history. We had a Traditional Lion Dance, the IC Dancing Team, Folk Song Group, HK House Brass Band, Chinese Orchestra, Tony “Bob Dylan” Law & Stephen Huen Band, the “LionPlayBoy Library” skit and many more. Max Ho (Aero’81) opened the show as “007”. The MCs were Dik Ng (Aero’81) and Richard Ang (EE’80). We worked hard to invite other members of the College to attend. Our goal had been to bridge the Chinese Society and the rest of the College. The Rector and his wife, Lord and Lady Flowers, were our guests of honor. Many members worked very hard behind the scene to serve a whole banquet to the crowd. Others spent hours rehearsing for their performance. It was certainly a very memorable evening.

A few of the performers: The MCs, “007”, The Queen Mary’s College Lion Dance Team gave the show a loud and festive performance.

Food

Food is a very important part of Chinese culture, so there were endless events involving food. According to (Gary) Eng Tan, he remembers one of our outings to Chinatown:

- And then there's the all night parties (oops! did someone mention they are now reformed dads and mums?). I fondly remember walking all the way from JCR Chinese New Year party to Wong Kee (in Chinatown) at 4am still with Bee Gees in our heads, and then walking back to Southside at 6am and watching the sun rise and road sweepers cleaning up, the cool morning air along Piccadilly, the mists over Hyde Park....

(Note from Ella: I personally remember this walk very well since I was wearing high heels!! My feet hurt for a whole week afterwards!)

Jim Wong (Comp’81) used to moonlight as a coolie in Chinatown during our 1st year because of some mix up on his grant. Yet, he and his then companion (now wife), Anita Ho, were some of the most generous people around. I used to walk back with Jim to Nottinghill Gate after studying late. He and Anita would always cook me something to eat. To have “enjoyed” Moonie food all day and then have a home cooked Chinese meal, it was a treat from heaven. Jim and Anita had many dinners for the rest of our friends and his super hot laska was super famous. (Photo above: 1st dinner party for Comp’81, left to right: William So, Alan Ip, Simon Yip, Hing Yan Lee, Li Hwa Lim, Anita Ho, Jim Wong, Tony Law)

Others also held dinners at their lodging. Kee Yong Tan (Math’80) prepared a special dinner for us before he left. (photo right: me, Eva Low, Kee Yong Tan, Soo Cheah, Richard Bin Tan) Lawrence Poon (Civil’80) and K.Y. Lam (Civil’80) were famous chefs. It is a pity that K.Y.’s wife told me he never cooked these days.

Love

On the subject of love, the imbalance of the sexes made sure that we women never knew who our latest “secret admirer of the week” was. Inadvertently, we had to hand out many “rejection letters” which led to much unhappiness all round. Some women found boy friends right away and went out of the target range.

The “Targets”
Left to Right: me, Serena Ng(Comp’82), Laylian Ong (Math’82), Eva Low (Phy’82)

Me, I believe in what G.K. Chesterton said in The Innocence of Father Brown: The Sign of the Broken Sword, “The best place to hide a leaf is in a Forest”. I tried to live as “one of the boys” and just enjoyed everyone’s company. The flip side of this strategy hit me hard once I left College. Having once been surrounded by so many men of exceptional quality, it was hard to get used to the real world where quality men are few and far between.

On the subject of love, there is a famous success story involving “The Three Musketeers”: Michael Chang, C.N. Ko & Eddie Yeung. They cruised around all the women’s dorm rooms together, trying to “get to know you”. Since three of them posed less as a threat to the women, they were all successful. After 25 years, we still have Eddie & Serena Yeung (photo above: on the boat trip), Laylian Ong & Michael Chang (photo below: wedding’86) and C.N. Ko & Mimi Law. Others who coupled up at College including: Florence & Simon Yip, William & Jane Cheung, Otto & Melissa Lam ….etc.

As for the rest of us who suffered from broken hearts at College, hopefully only tiny scars are left and we have all moved on in our happy and busy lives with our loved ones.

Laylian Ong (Math’82) contributed the following:

As the editor for the Activator magazine of the Chinese Society in 1980-81, I have learnt and gained a lot. Just a little bit more about the gained – gained time working and spending with my boy friend (Michael Chang), gained opportunity to go to China town with him to get sponsorship from various restaurants and shops, gained a dinner from him and eventually, gained a husband! It was all worthwhile (hahahaha….)

Beginning of The End

The climax of the year for me came on two consecutive days. On February 17, 1980, I attended the Inter-Varsity Ball and competed for IC in Jive against all the other colleges in England. My partner Charlie and I (photo right) came 5th. I took up ballroom dancing to get rid of all the programming codes in my head. I did not expect to win a place for the College. That was an unforgettable night!

On February 18, 1980, it was Election Day for ICCS. Three women ran for the President; Eva Low (Phy’82), W.K. (YQ) Loh (Aero’81) and Audrey Boon (ChemE’82). The men were floored. “Where have all the men gone?” they asked. Eva won. (Incidentally, Audrey won the following year.) In Eva’s speech, she said she would not run the Society in a Margaret Thatcher-fashion as the previous president. It was a little shocking to me then to be compared to the fierce and much-disliked leader. The funny thing is, I ended up marrying an American geek Robert from Caltech, a friend of Eva’s. Robert’s famous quote as head of College Republican was “If asked, I would sleep with Mrs. Thatcher, just out of respect.” He got his wish I suppose.

On the morning of the finals for the 3rd years, I got up very early and bought a huge bunch of carnations. I waited outside the examination hall and handed one to each of our ICCS friends for good luck. It was my gesture of saying “thank you for the friendship” and a hidden “goodbye”. I am not sure whether it was the flowers, but there were a lot of 1st class and double 1st among the recipients!!

At the Rag Fete, I bought a “custard” pie delivered to K.Y. Lam. The photo (top row: Indonesian friends in Math, K.C. Lam, Stephen Huen, Lawrence Poon, K.Y. Lam; bottom row: Gary Eng Tan, William Ho, K.M. Lock) was taken before the pie was delivered. This was the end of the exciting and fantastic 2nd year for me!

Yes, I forgot, there were finals to be dealt with too. Somehow, not sure how, I passed and went onto 3rd year.

Vignettes of Sweet Memories

There are so many fun things that happened in those few years. Some of them include:

- Attending my first opera, Carmen, with Michael Chang, James Wong, K.M. Lee (the opera fanatic) performed by the English National Opera was a definite highlight in my life. We also saw La Boheme at the Coliseum later. We attended a performance of Rudolf Nureyev & Margot Fonteyn in L'Apres-midi d'un faune in memory of Nijinsky's 90th birthday. I fell in love with Nureyev that night!

- Paris Pullman in South Kensington was a favourite of ours for old movies. Years later, we still talked about the movies we watched there.

- I love the theatre and London is absolute heaven. Once David Shaw (Math’80) and I went to the National Theatre to watch Oedipus Rex. Since we could not afford real seats, we had to stand for 3 hours at the back. Luckily, a couple left in the middle of the show and gave us their seats. Our feet were killing us!

William So (Comp’81) contributed to this article the following:

My memories at IC are sweet.

I was going to write about my recollection of walking Ella home across Kensington Garden at night, climbing the fence (with spikes) almost damaging my ... you know where, but I am afraid that will give Mr. Walker a wrong message!

I was going to write about those drinking parties at Simon Yip's apartments, with the cheapest alcohol we can get at Waitrose, but then people may think that I am carrying that drinking habit to China (that was good training thou), and get drunk every night!

I was going to write about Jim Wong's spicy Laska, but I am afraid people will sue him for attempted murder.

I was going to write about the affairs between Simon and Florence, Eddie and Serena but they may sue me under the privacy act.

I was going to write about those unsuccessful dating attempts by our fellow classmates but the information may leak to their current husbands and wives.

So at the end, I decided I shall let the above named IC fellows to fill in the blanks.

Memories from Tony Law (Comp’81):

I was trying hard to recall my disorganized memories in an organized manner, so let me start with 'what a fool we were !

The first IC Chinese I met was Stephen Huen, that was 14th Oct 1978, just a day before the college began. We were both lucky to be in Keogh Hall the firsr year. In the evening, I proposed we would go out to look for a fish and chip something.
Both of us were not Londoner, we did not have a clue where we can buy food, so we were just walking no where along Exhibition Road.

London must be 2 or 3 degree C at that time. It must be Stephen's first trip to a cold country, and that famous thin green jacket of his surely did not keep him any warmer for more than five minutes! If I remember correctly, we were not able to find any shops opened - it was a Sunday! Stephen was already frozen to death, so we finally rushed back to Keogh. Stephen is still the IC friend I met most often at least in the last five years.

Memories from Soo Cheah (Math’80):

- a few of us had late night singing session in Stephen Huen's room, only leaving in the morning
- rented a bicycle each with Gary Tan and cycle all the way to visit Richard Bin Tan' s house from our Hall of Residence
- late night drinking sessions and fooling around at the bar below our Hall of Residence
- spending hours drawing posters, meetings and practices for the Chinese Society dinner
- walking across Hyde Park with Sharon almost every morning to lectures when we were staying in Marble Arch

Where We Are Now?

Upon graduation, we scattered across the world. Here is what I know of where our friends

In Government:

Kee Yong Tan (Math’80) (photo left) returned to Singapore and is now Deputy Secretary (Services) of the Ministry of Education (MOE). Swee Lian Teo (Math’81) (photo right) is Deputy MD of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Terence Siew (Math’79) was military attaché in Beijing for a few years. In 2004, he retired from the army and is now working in the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources. He will be posting to the National Environment Agency in April’07.

Patrick Lam (ME’81) (photo left) took over as CEO of the Singapore Land Authority from Kee Yong Tan in 2005. Hing-Yan Lee (Comp’80) (photo right) is the Deputy Director of the Singapore National Grid Office.

K.Y. Lam (Civil’80) developed most of Kota Kinabalu’s new industrial estates in Sabah. When he first graduated, he built a road through the jungle to Mt. Kinabalu. We went on that road 16 years ago on my 1st visit there. My family visited Sabah last summer and met K.Y.’s lovely Korean wife Diana and their two lively boys (Photo right, with the younger boy).

In Hong Kong, Max Ho (Aero’81) is working at the Airport Authority. K.C. Lam (Civil’80) specializes in geotechnical matters for the Civil Engineering Department. Serena Ng (Comp’82) is at the Housing Authority.

In Education:

Michael Chang (EE’81) (photo left) is a professor at Chinese University in Hong Kong. Laylian Ong (Math’82) is a lecturer at a Further Education College. K.M. Lee (Math’81) (photo right with daughter Dec’06) has been teaching high school math for the past 25 years. His biggest happiness is being blessed with a daughter, Man Hang, in October 2005.

Eva Low (Phy’82) (photo right: at my Chinese New Year Party’07 ) spent many years conducting high energy physics research. She gave all that up to work with Legend/QDI. Now she is teaching physics at a Junior College in Silicon Valley and playing tennis daily. She said the difference between being a student and a teacher is that the teacher has to read every line in the text book, just in case a student asks about it.

In Business/Engineering:

One of the biggest success stories in business is Daniel Lui (Comp’80) and his classmate Michael Ng who co-founded Legend (now Lenovo). While building the company, they recruited many IC friends: William So (Comp’81), Eva Low (Phy’82), Lap Kay Cheung (Math’82), Sam Yu (Comp’80), David Yung (Comp’81), Jim Wong (Comp’81), Stanley Wong (Aero’80),….etc. They were in charge of Legend’s overseas business. Later Daniel Lui became a VC and we met when he brought a delegation of Hong Kong business people to visit my company BroadVision during the Bubble Days of the late 90s’. He is now chairman of Authosis Ventures.

James Wong (Math’81) returned to Hong Kong and took over the family stationary business. In the last few years, he opened a new venture called e.Energy. Simon (Comp’81) and Florence (Comp’82) Yip are both doing well in business in Hong Kong. Tony Law (Comp’81) just retired after over 20 years with Standard Chartered Bank’s IT department and will look for new opportunities in 2008.

K.M. Wong (Salty Chicken) is looking after all the Air-Conditioning Systems for McDonald’s in Hong Kong. Joe Chang (Aero’79) was last seen as manager at Equinox in Hong Kong in 2004. Kit Ho (Ph.D. MatSci’81) is a GM of Jinex, a joint venture between the petroleum chemicals division of ExxonMobil and Jinzhou Petrochemical. Eddie Yeung (Civil’81) has his own civil engineering firm in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Get Together, Dec’04
(Everyone is 20 lb heavier (except KM Lee) & has dyed their hair (except William Ho))

 

 

 

 

Left to Right: William Ho (Math’79), Joe Chang (Aero 1979), “Salty Chicken” (KM Wong, IC Friend), KM Lee, Patrick Tang, me, James Wong, Lay Lian Ong, Michael, Max Ho (Aero’81), Joseph Tam (IC Friend), Alex Kam (Aero 1979)

Hock Voon Loo (EE’81) (photo) is the managing director of the Singapore office of a prominent Silicon Valley VC firm, Walden International. Soo Cheah (Math’80) married and settled in Ipoh, Malaysia with 4 kids; 1 just graduated from college, one just started and the last two are preparing to go. She is almost in the “retired mothers club”. Richard Ang (EE’80) is also living and working in Ipoh. He has his own electrical contracting business.

Richard Bin Tan (ChemE’80) went to work on oil platforms in U.A.E. after graduation for some time. Then he returned to UK to open the first few Giorgio Armani stores. Now he has returned to Singapore and was last known to work for ExxonMobil.

Audrey Boon (ChemE’82) is working at Dow Chemical in Malaysia. Hon Sun Lee (Math’79) is his own boss and is a stock trader. Stephen Huen (Civil’81) resigned as Managing Director of the Trading Division of United Engineers Group in October 2006.

In China, Simon Yim (Math’79) settled in Beijing many years ago. He and I used to bump into each other at different Chinese government institutes, competing for computer business; him for HP and me for Sun. He is now in a software startup. William So (Comp’81) is a high level executive at China Netcom in Beijing. He has also become a “card carrying” Communist Party member.

In UK, Stanley Ooi (Phy’82) is working on different hi-tech company in London. We were lucky to see him in Silicon Valley in April 2005 when he was on contract to an American company. (Photo right: Left to right: me, old friend of Stanley, Stanley Ooi (Phy’82), Eng (Gary) Tan (EE'80), Eva Low (Phy'82), Ramesh Rao (Phy'82))

Tat Yan Cheung (Chem’81) has 3 restaurants in Cirencester and Bristol. Otto (Comp’79) and Melissa Lam (Comp’81) are both in IT in UK.

In the US, Jim (Comp’81) & Anita Wong are living in Chicago. We visited them in August’04. (Photo left: Anita, Jim Wong, Robert (my husband), Hans, me, Sonya). After gaining invaluable experience from Legend, Anita and Jim founded a PC components distribution company named Quality 2000, Inc. Like Gateway, they dropped the 2K and transformed the company to an IT services-oriented with a new name called Quality Systems Consulting.

Gary Eng Tan (EE’80) lives in Silicon Valley but travels back and forth to Beijing and Malaysia every month or two to build a business or two.

Nick Poon (EE’82) is in Vancouver area developing real estate.

The last time I saw Li Hwa Lim (Comp’81) was in her maternity clothing shop in Singapore in ’89 in which she was selling clothes of her own design. She was planning on immigrating with her husband to Australia very soon. Lawrence Poon (Civil’80) has also immigrated to Australia.

And me, I left IC and took an MBA from The Wharton School of Business. I spent 20 years in corporate America working in Marketing & Sales. Many of those years involved traveling between Silicon Valley & Asia. Thus, I was lucky to see many Imperial friends frequently. Some commented that they saw me more often than the ones who lived in the same town.

I got married in 1997 to Robert Walker, after meeting him at Eva Low’s wedding. I was President of the Northern California IC Alumni Association in 2000 and had great fun organizing things again. With the birth of Hans, I went part-time. With the birth of the Sonya, I became a full-time mum. (Going into an all women circle drove me absolutely nuts!!) (photo right) Now that Sonya is in kindergarten, I can contemplate working again. There may be a 2nd career just round the corner!

Lastly, let’s remember our friends who have left us: S. W. Yau (EE’80) passed away in his sleep. Tat Sheng Cheung ((??’82) perished on the M40 tragically in 1985. S.K. Tsang (PhD Civil) died of cancer. Peter Moore (Reader, ME) and member of ICCS, passed away a few years ago of old age. May they rest in peace.

A nice poem to end this essay is from Jim Wong (Comp’81):

In memory, we live...

Memory before us, we live
Memory between us, we live
Memory behind us, we live

In memory, we live
For the experience of a good life

In memory, we live
With the experience of a lovely life

In memory, we live
Through the experience of a wonderful life

For 100 years behind us our IC history is memory. In memory, we live.

With contribution from:
William So (Comp’81), Gary Eng Tan (EE’80), Terence Siew (Math’79), Tony Law (Comp’81), Laylain Ong (Math’82), Jim Wong (Comp’81), Soo Cheah (Math’80), Richard Ang (EE’80)

  © 2007 Imperial College London