[ad_1]
SINGAPORE – When Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew contested the 1955 general election in his first electoral outing, a rival for the Tanjong Pagar seat was a 33-year-old teacher named Peter Lim Seck Tiong.
A self-described political novice, Mr Lim lost but went on to be a pioneer university administrator who won the hearts of many poor university undergraduates with grants he got from foundations to help pay for their studies as well as the setting up of a cooperative more than 50 years ago for students to buy books and other study materials at affordable prices.
Also known in later years as Reverend Peter S.T. Lim, he died in Edmonton, Canada, last month. The family held a memorial service there on Oct 5, the day he would have turned 98.
Recounting his short-lived political career in 1994, he said: “I thought I could do some good in my life and I thought the best way I could do it was to go into politics, where you could influence the way things went on in Singapore.”
He was born and raised in Tanjong Pagar, and lived for many years in a Duxton Hill house.
[ad_2]
Source link
