The motley group will include both men and women,
members and guests of the Singapore Hash House Harriets
(HHH). Originally a women-only running club, their
inaugural event was held at a site in Dover Road on 17
October 1973 and organised by ‘Hash widows’ protesting
the chauvinism of the Monday night men-only Hash. The 12
ladies who turned up found it so much fun that they gathered
again the following week and so on, until a formal club was
established. Coincidentally, its founding day was also the day
my second son was born, but it would be six years later before
I joined in the fun of running around Singapore and doing
‘recces’ (reconnaissance trips) to plan future runs. Thus did I
explore little-known areas of an island that in the late 70s and
early 80s still had large tracts of jungle, numerous kampongs
(villages) and also fish, duck and pig farms. We organised
runs through all of them, often startling kampong dwellers into
yelling out “siao angmoh!” (or ‘crazy white people’).