Lee Kuan Yew

A very interesting article about Singapori's Lee Kuan Yew in the IHT. I am less concerned here about the extraordinary political career of the man who made modern Singapore than by his remarks about old age and frailty. He says: “I can feel the gradual decline of energy and vitality. And I mean generally, every year, when you know you are not on the same level as last year. But that’s life.”


A shadow has been cast over his later years by the illness of his wife of 61 years, bedridden and mute after a series of strokes. “I try to busy myself but from time to time in idle moments, my mind goes back to the happy days we were up and about together... “How do I comfort myself? Well, I say, ‘Life is just like that.’ ”

“What is next, I do not know. Nobody has ever come back.”

“I’m reaching 87, trying to keep fit, presenting a vigorous figure, and it’s an effort, and is it worth the effort? I laugh at myself trying to keep a bold front. It’s become my habit. I just carry on.”

HIS most difficult moments come at the end of each day, he said, as he sits by the bedside of his wife, Kwa Geok Choo, 89, who has been unable to move or speak for more than two years. She had been by his side, a confidante and counselor, since they were law students in London.

“She understands when I talk to her, which I do every night. She keeps awake for me; I tell her about my day’s work, read her favorite poems.” His reading list includes books by Jane Austen, Rudyard Kipling and Lewis Carroll.


All in all, for this reader at least, he comes across as a very decent and kind man.