All my life... I believed in Malaysian merger and unity of the two territories. You know that we, as a people, are connected by geography, economics, by ties of kinship.

It's irrelevant to me what young Singaporeans think of me. I've lived long enough to know that you may be idealised in life and reviled after you're dead.

Well, I think if I had married a different woman I would of had a very different life. She was my partner both emotionally and intellectually. At work and at play and she brought up the 3 children that we have, brought them up to be well behaved, modest and not over-bearing children.

I know if I rest, I'll slide downhill fast.

The enduring lesson is war is a disaster. Whoever wins, tremendous loss of life, property - a set back for civilisation.

I learnt how people survived and how people had to submit because you need to eat and your family need to live, so I learned the meaning of power. In a sense that power comes out in the barrel of a gun and when the Japanese gun was not as big as the American gun they surrendered and the British came back.