June 7 2008 
This morning this email arrived from Hock Keong:
(email forwarded to DT)
Hi Eddie,
Good day. I'm an employee of one of the government organisation in Singapore, the National Parks Board, and presently charged with a programme on old trees in Singapore. Presently, we have a list of trees (Heritage Trees) of these old trees and some of them are within the camp ground of the former RAF Seletar.
List of Heritage Trees in Singapore
One aspect of my work is to provide information about these trees, why these are "Heritage Trees", although the obvious answer is that they are mostly old trees! But i'm trying to connect the initial beginnings to the history of the place, thus, putting the "Heritage" to the Trees as well as estimating their age at the same time. As there are no planting records to be found, we wouldn't know how old the trees would be, hence knowing when some of the buildings/houses were built will be a good indication.
The Heritage Trees in Seletar Camp area are:
From David Taylor's 2002 book "Seletar, Crowning Glory: The History of the RAF in Singapore", the married quarters at Old Birdcage Walk and Baker Street are among the earliest quarters built in Seletar, circa 1933, and so i presume the huge raintree would have dated around 70 years or so.
However, i can't find any information on when the residences along Maida Vale and Bayswater Rd/ Hay Market were built (or for whom it was built, when the trees there were planted).
Along West Camp Road, there are 4 huge Mahogany Trees along a small slip road into the airfield. West Camp was distinguished from the East Camp in the late 1930s (the 5th Tree had been removed, unfortunately). From google map dated probably dated afew years ago, there was an unidentified building next to the slip road, which i can't find out what it was for either.
If it is not too much trouble, i'll like to ask if anyone in the association can remember when these buildings were built, for who (servicemen or civilian workers), or better yet, have seen these trees during their posting here and whether they were as large as it is in the photos. My guess is that these large trees dated from the 1930s, but i needed to be sure.
My thanks for having reading through this lengthy email. Nothing is too unimportant to be useful for me and i'll be grateful if there's any information or recollection by members of the RAF Seletar Association.
Thank you, and have a good weekend.
Warmest regards,
HK
LUA_Hock_Keong@nparks.gov.sg
Singapore Complete Heritage Tree List - click here
