There are some places on this earth that you know that you'll swing by once, and then, in all probability, will not go back there again.
It isn't because the place doesn't interest you. (You wouldn't have been there in the first place) It isn't because the place leaves you with nasty memories. And it isn't because the place disappointed you.
But you know you won't go back there again because you've seen the best of the place, you've seen more than what the place usually offers, and you want to keep it that way.
This place here at Andrew Road is one of the most exclusive places on the island. It isn't a large place by international standards- we're talking the lots of Universal and Paramount and Shaw- but the influence it wields over four million people spanning three generations?
WHOA.
Ask any local if they can name the lead couple from 80s drama Awakenings and chances are they'll have the answer a minute or less. Ask any millennial who the lead actress was from that kampung primary school show in the 90s and they'll tell you straightaway. No need to think one. Of course of us can forget the hottest actress in 1995 (Fann Wong) nor can we forget the drama that involved lots and lots of paper cranes, and which had a good number of us making paper cranes. There was the season of the "army, the navy, and the air force". There was the season of the wuxia. Then there was the season of the nine-layer kueh and the kopitiam.
From here, news domestic and international got broadcasted to four million people, plus the people up north in JB and down south in Batam. From here expert opinions, interviews, documentaries, variety shows and sitcoms got broadcasted to every living room that had an antenna and a television. It wasn't just the TV. It was also the radio. For it was from here that radio stations played music, did live shows, and ran news updates over the frequencies and the airwaves.
Caldecott's pool of artistes are (for most of them) household names, and even if you don't know who they are or which show they were in, well, it's not difficult to discover.
Very, very few of us fail to remember what we've watched, and what we've seen. Doesn't matter whether we like it or not, doesn't matter whether we find it cheesy or not- we just will know it.
They've been here at Andrew Road for what must have been a very long time, and an inspiration I would say they have been to many a person.
Myself included.
At 15 I wanted to be at Caldecott Hill.
At 15 I thought I had made it as far as I would, and could, to be here at Caldecott Hill.
What I didn't know then was that it would take me more than twenty years before I would embark on a journey to come back here again.
Twenty years is a long time.
What was TCS then is now Mediacorp. What was at Andrew Road then is now at Stars Avenue somewhere in the vicinity of Rochester and Portsdown.
And so it was to a vacant, empty, (abandoned) Caldecott Hill that I came. The fences were up. The gates were shut, locked, secured. There was no one in the buildings, no one at the walkway, no car at the car park, no Mediacorp bus going in and out, nothing. The whole place was quiet, and silent. Not a soul moved through the property. Not a soul moved in and out of the gates. There were no groups of fans waiting at the front entrance holding placards waiting for their favorite stars to appear. There were no vehicles waiting for drop off or pick up at the main entrance. There were no taxis.
The whole place looked like it had once returned to what it used to be.
But I liked it.
I had gone there with an open mind. And because there was nothing in the head of what I intended to see, the place gave me a perspective I never expected to have.
Let's just say that I saw the place as I had never seen it before. Let's just say that I heard the silence of the place speak in a way that it wouldn't have spoken before. And let's just say that I didn't think this place we call Caldecott Hill held such mesmerizing beauty when seen in the light of an early evening sun.