Badge of honour

SINGAPORE — Remember a time when school badges were shiny and made of metal? These days, badges are more likely to be made of fabric and sewn on uniforms. Those metal badges have ended up at flea markets, antique shops at China Square and peer-to-peer shopping platforms such as Carousell, places where Joseph Tay goes to find them to complete his collection of secondary school badges.

The 53-year-old started his hobby 10 years ago, inspired by his elder siblings who used to collect badges of Malaysian schools as they had lived in Malaysia for a few years during their childhood. “I figured it’ll be nice to have a collection of these Singaporean school badges, so I went to the Ministry of Education webpage to download the list of secondary schools and their logos. I started hunting the badges down whenever I could,” the graphic designer chuckled.

Tay currently has 160 secondary school badges lovingly arranged and stored in a bulging plastic folder in alphabetical order. He reckons there are about 20 still missing from his collection, such as the ones from Toh Tuck Secondary School, Pingyi Secondary School and Pioneer Secondary School.

Among the gems in his possession are those from defunct schools such as Tuan Mong High School, Tiong Bahru Secondary School and Umar Pulavar Tamil High School. Some school badges have also undergone a redesign. For example, the badge for St Teresa’s High School (which closed down in 1998) went from being triangle-shaped to a circular one as students were using the old badge as a weapon to poke others.

“I only got to know about it last year when a new colleague joined my company and told me this nugget of information,” said Tay. “I managed to get the old triangle-shaped badge when I found St Teresa’s High School’s former principal James Tay on Facebook. He was such a lovely elderly man and gave me his last triangle badge.

Tay even keeps different versions of the same school badge if it underwent changes, such as the Anglo Chinese School badge which was previously made of brass and had the words “Made in Birmingham” emblazed on it. His collection of these redesigned badges and those from defunct schools has become part of a recently released book, My School Uniform. He got to know its author Yix Quek through a friend who taught night classes at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, where Quek is also lecturing. “The book took two years to put together, and I’m glad to contribute to it. Metal badges used to be part and parcel of school culture, and it’s sad to see that they’re no longer as used and cherished. Many of the school book shop owners I’ve visited also lament the loss of school badges.”

Tay is reluctant to put a price to how much he has spent on these badges over the last 10 years. Some badges were given to him, some cost less than S$5 and the most he has ever paid is S$18 for Keppel Primary School’s badge. The former Buona Vista Secondary School boy couldn’t name his favourite badge either, although he did pick out St Patrick’s Secondary School’s as one that he feels is particularly well-designed. “As a graphic designer, I just like how simple and distinctive it is,” he explained.

And Tay is not stopping at secondary school badges. He has already begun collecting badges of primary schools as well as of football clubs as his way of holding onto a precious piece of the past.

“These tangible things represent history, a part of our culture. But young people are not as interested in collecting such items as a hobby,” Tay said. “I guess if my kids don’t want my collections, I can always donate them to a museum!”