BHL connect

So it looks like the gathering of the former staff of the now non-existent Ban Hin Lee Bank is going ahead with full steam this Saturday. I had been rather hesitant in commiting myself to this function but on Monday, after having received a telephone call from Annie Khor, I made up my mind to join the fray. I'm told that the number is fast closing in on a hundred attendees.

Actually, I don't know why I had hesitated so much. It would be good to meet up with all those people from the good old banking days again. People that I had known for 24 years of my working life. From 1977 until 2001. A period which I had given my everything to my employers. Commitment and loyalty. Only to see the establishment swallowed by Southern Bank in 2000. I remained with the enlarged entity for one more year until I decided that enough was certainly enough. Southern Bank was cold compared with the warmth of Ban Hin Lee Bank.

Just a while ago, I was looking through the exBHLBankers page on facebook. I see there are 309 former Ban Hin Lee Bank staff who are members of this page. While some are still in the banking industry, the majority have dispersed widely into other industries or they have, like me, retired. But we are all drawn together by a common past. The camaraderie is still there and everyone is now only reminiscing instead of looking to the future. Someone even posted photographs of porcelain coinboxes that even I had forgotten they existed. And the old BHL Bank identification badges? And keychains? Wow, people are still keeping them.

And someone else asked whether anyone remember the old corporate song. I wouldn't be surprised if it is suddenly sung, provided a copy can be pulled out from an archive somewhere. So yes, there's going to be a lot of nostalgia this Saturday.