'Lawrence Boy!': 89-year-old clerk from PM Wong's primary school days calls out to him at Marine Terrace

SINGAPORE: The Prime Minister of Singapore had a recent “lovely encounter” with an 89-year-old woman who had known him in his childhood. In a video Lawrence Wong posted on TikTok on Monday (Oct 5), she can be seen calling out to him, saying, “Lawrence Boy!”

Mary had been a school clerk at Haig Boys' Primary School, which PM Wong attended until 1984.

“I do remember,” he told Mary. “You were the clerk for the Principal, Mr Soh, throughout, right? For a long time.”

After posing for photos with her, he told her he would tell his mother about their unexpected meet-up.

“Send her my regards,” Mary told him.

“I’m sure she will remember you,” he replied.

“Sure?” she asked him.

“Of course,” the Prime Minister told her. “I do remember you, so how could she not?”

Before they said goodbye, the tiny former school clerk had Mr Wong bend over so she could speak into his ear.

“I want to tell you I am very happy for you, okay?” she said, adding that her happiness came from seeing him from his youth until the present.

“A lovely encounter at Marine Terrace — I met Mary, who used to be our school clerk at Haig Boys’ School. She is 89 now, and still as energetic and cheerful as ever!” PM Wong wrote in the caption of his video.

He received some good-natured ribbing from commenters, some of whom teased him, with one saying that he must have spent a lot of time in the principal’s office for him to remember Mary to this day. Another joked that they thought Mary would whisper in his ear that she still has the football she confiscated from him years ago.

Others, however, found the encounter heartwarming. 

“Truly a people's Prime Minister! An ordinary boy from a humble background and neighbourhood to the top office of the nation. An epitome of a SINGAPORE STORY! That an ah mah called her Lawrence Boy warms the heart and tells the whole story,” one wrote.

Haig Boys' School was a government school that operated from 1951 to 2001. Initially located at 25 Jalan Tembusu, it was named after Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. On January 2, 2001, Haig Boys' School merged with Fowlie Primary School and Mountbatten Primary School, and Tanjong Katong Primary School was formed. /TISG

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