The minute when I decided to accept my British company’s request that I spend a year in Singapore is etched on my mind. RHM was then a huge business, employing 145,000 people, mostly in the UK. The Board had decided to develop in the United States and had asked me to be the No 2 in that project. Having looked at the first developments they had made I had refused to be part of it. Even though I am myself half American, a Very British Company like RHM was not, in my view, capable of handling the United States successfully.
As part of the plan, RHM wished to dispose of its three very small possessions in Asia. Two were in Singapore and Malaysia; a third was in Australia. They asked me to spend a year here selling the businesses as best I could. As a farmer by training I am a very UK-land-loving person. The youngest of my five children was still only sixteen. I had recently bought a large house for the family. I was very disinclined to be away for a year. My options, however, were limited so I visited Singapore to see if I thought I could do what was needed.
On one of my several visits the two senior British expat colleagues based here took me to dinner at a delightful restaurant in Orchard Road called Omar Khayyam. They brought with them the most senior of the Asian managers, Lawrence Lim Kin Nam. The dinner was excellent but fast. By 9pm it was over. They invited me back to ’The Club’* for a nightcap. I accepted. They then told Lawrence “thank you but we shan’t need you any more this evening”. I was so angry at the blatant discrimination that I decided to accept the job and change the archaic colonial attitude I had witnessed.
Lawrence, and his dear wife Pat, are still with us, retired now but full of the drive and enterprise that contributed so much to the creation of Cererbos Pacific Ltd. Our anchor product, Brand’s Essence of Chicken, plus the many businesses we acquired and built, thrived because Singapore talent was allowed to flourish. It was a story of Lee Kuan Yew’s time, risk-taking, bold and creative, the basis of all good enterprise. It was the root of Lawrence Lim Kin Nam, of all his colleagues and the whole basis of Singapore’s growth in the 1970s and 1980s.
My one year became a dozen, now forty-five. A journey of dare and a journey of care. My sixteen years in advertising had taught me that dare might be fatal but lack of it certainly was. It had also impressed on me the meaning of the word care. That was reinforced by Mr Lee’s love of trees. Even during the toughest times Mr Lee would occasionally stop his car to look closely at a tree whose welfare concerned him. HIs discipline was legendary. His lasting concern for his people was the same as for the trees. He wanted them to grow to the sky.
May we pause for a moment during our 60th birthday celebration to consider how tall the Singaporean trees have become. Observe how they wave to us in the wind. Study the calm and sensible way they tackle the blazing sun. Listen to the rain nourishing their generous colours. Above all, appreciate the foliage chatter as breezes rustle the leaves, each one an influencer, each one a foundation for the future in an uncertain world.
It is a time, as always, to look forward, of course. But also a time to remember with gratitude the thought and effort that has given Singapore its tall trees. Perhaps for a moment to listen to the words of Omar Khayyam, a true memorial to our founders:
For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
that from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,
have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
and one by one crept silently to rest.
Because of them the trees will grow ever taller in Singapore.
Good morning
John Bittleston
- *The Tanglin Club
Happy Sixtieth Anniversary, Singapore
08 Aug 2025
