pop culture in TLS

In my very first week in TLS I was introduced to pop personalities like Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, Paul Anka, Frankie Avalon and Fabian. Everyone sang songs like Don't Leave Me Now, My Hometown which was Paul Anka's hit song of the time, Ricky Nelson's Lonesome Cowboy, and Frankie Avalon's Venus. These were the pop idols of the day. Due to my ignorance, as an ulu boy,I did not know that they were Americans.

Every one tried their best to copy their hairstyles and never failed to keep a comb visibly jutting out of their trousers' back pocket. The beehive shaped hairdo jutting out of our forehead and a prominent side burn were the order of the day. I remember one boy went to the extremes trying to be Elvis Presley, that he shaved the hair off the sides of his temple and kept only curls in the front. He looked hilarious.

As for pop fashion of the day, we left our collars standing as high as possible to give that trendy look. When one wore short sleeved shirts, one would roll them up almost to the shoulder to have the Ricky Nelson muscular look. As for trousers, our pop idol introduced to us for the first time, Levi and other other branded jeans which I know now to be all American brands. The legs were tight, or drain pipe, and this trend lasted until 1962. It was considered almost uncultured and against the conservative norm of the time. But like James Dean, we were then rebels without a cause, in a sense.

But despite all these exterior expression of our need to conform with the pop culture. I do not believe that TLS had ever experienced any problems of indiscipline associated with it.

As I have stated in one of my earlier postings, this pop culture introduced me to English pop songs and guitar music. This in turn introduced a lot of us to British music and pop stars such as Cliff Richard and the Shadows. Sometime in mid 1962, we were introduced to the Beatles who had taken Britain by storm.

The Beatles changed everything in TLS. The mop top hairstyle of the Beatles demolished the beehive of the Americans. the Beatles also taught us that being muscular like James Dean and Elvis Presley, was not the only thing in life.

The comb disappeared from the back pocket of the boys' trousers because we only needed our fingers to create a mop top style. By this time the school administration was a bit concerned about the length of our hair. Suddenly the order of the day was being a little bit untidy on the top. I thought at that time,the mop top hairstyle was fairly girlish. But it did not stop me from having one. We had to comb our hair to the front to have that look.

during the same period,the Blue Hawaii of Elvis Presley and Summer Holiday of Cliff Richard became the craze of the day. So it was not uncommon to see boys coming to the Refrectory in the evening wearing Cliff Richard's Summer Holiday see through or transparent t-shirt which allowed someone to see through all that you had, or lack of it. Elvis Presley's Blue Hawaii brought back the rolled up sleeves fashion to the student population. I remember my friend Thomas sia having the best rolled up sleeves, showing his great muscles to the envy of the whole student population.

However, do not mistake the exterior look of his for in spite his bulky frame,Thomas was a gentle giant like the Hulk.


sometime in 1963, the navy cut trousers which was the forerunner of the flared trousers or the bell bottoms, came into our lives.

We looked neat and everyone saved to buy or tailor made for himself white flared trousers. We must have given lots of business to Nam Kong Tailor,which was situated opposite the then Cathay Theatre. It was owned by my classmate's father, who usually gave us a good discount.
Because of the flared trousers the school seemed cleaner as the trousers were obviously sweeping the floor.

then came the a-go-go music craze ,which unlike the music of Elvis and the others,did not have much following. But the music brought with it the a-go-go belt which was extremely popular with the boys.

The belt prominently graced the unpleated tight trousers with flared bottoms. For the boys,the tight trousers could not conceal the bulge in front so it was considered bad taste by the teachers.

I vividly remember Mr. Sargunam who was then acting Principal of TLS publicly denounced the fashion during one of the morning assemblies and said that the a-go-go belt must go!

I can't say that he was very popular for having said so. But the belt did go almost overnight. This indicated for us that we never lost sight of discipline of which TLS always upheld.

For the girls the mini skirt and beehive hairdo stayed for a long time. Freda Kedung was the perfect model for that fashion which became popular during the era of the Twist. I suppose the girls of those days may like to offer their comments: to wear or not to wear......