I couldn't understand the fuss the Australians were making about it. My vote was with the present prisoners, who would enjoy more spacious accommodation after the overcrowded colonial-built structure was gone. Why should dead, or almost dead, ex-prisoners take precedence over living, currently incarcerated ones?

And who were these Australians anyway to throw their weight around and ask a small country to preserve something few Singaporeans really care about? What on earth were they getting so sentimental about? As a place where the Japanese kept civilian internees and later allied prisoners-of-war during the World War II occupation, surely there could not be that many fond memories.

I was so puzzled that I decided to do a little research to find out what made an old prison linger on in fond memory.

A Google search yielded no less than 1890 results.

There are POW clubs with pages and pages devoted to the prison. Middle-aged children post lengthy epitaphs for lost or dead parents.

Changi Prison, by all accounts, was and is very popular with the former inmates.

They contribute accounts of their years or months at the prison, of the friends they made there and never saw again, and of the fun they had.

Yes, fun. Changi prison grounds were a tropical, tree-lined haven for internees who had been transferred from less idyllic prisons "up country".

The guards turned a blind eye to prisoners leaving the grounds of the prison to scrounge for food or trade on the black market — as long as they "did not leave the island".

The Japanese also allowed them to hold a concert party that had live music played on instruments they scrounged or adapted. They staged plays, skits and stand-up comic acts.

One account described how Japanese officers could be jolly good sports at times: "One of the Japanese interpreters was most helpful in providing stage properties — gowns, make-up and so on — and some of the Japanese guards were regularly to be found in the audience.

"Having propped their .303 British rifles against the walls of the theatre, they would sit down and listen. Then they would stand to attention while The King was played.

"On the first night they attended, they were so taken in by the excellence of the make-up of the 'girls' that as soon as the performance was over they all dashed around to the stage door to meet them!"

A "university" was also started when it was discovered the entire Raffles College staff were internees.

"Colonel 'Black' Jack Galleghan came up with another winner — to prevent disaffection and thoughts of escape, as he put it to the Japanese commandant, books were the answer," said another account.

Over 20,000 books from the Singapore Library helped prisoners pass the time studying engineering, astronomy, law, medicine and the like.

Up to 50,000 people passed through Changi prison from 1942 to 1945, 15,000 of them Australian.

Those who survived the war, and the children of those that didn't, still visit the prison.

I began to see that the fuss wasn't about preserving a monument to a long-past war or to the outrage felt by these people, but about preserving the memory of fathers, mothers, children, friends and fellow soldiers.

Many were transferred from the prison to other holding camps in Singapore, or to camps in Japan or other occupied territories like New Guinea, where some died.

Many of those who died were buried without gravestones — at sea or in unmarked graves. For their friends and relatives, Changi Prison serves as a place where they can pay their respects and feel a connection with those who have gone.

For Singapore as a whole, Changi Prison is a connection with a past and a portion of it, perhaps, is something worth preserving.

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