Barker family was anxious when he and LKY made KL parliamentary trips

Daughter of E.W. Barker recalls the tension between both sides in 1960s

- Ng Keng Gene

When Mr E.W. Barker, who became Singapore’s first law minister in 1964, accompanied founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew to Kuala Lumpur for parliamentary sittings in the 1960s, his family was concerned he might be unable to come back home.

His daughter, Ms Carla Barker, told The Straits Times on June 5: “There was always the worry that maybe they wouldn’t come back”, adding that there was concern that the Singapore leaders would be arrested over their views that were unpalatable within the Malaysian government.

Disagreements were intense about what it meant to be a Malaysian citizen, and the equal rights of citizens of different races and religions.

Singapore and Malaysia subsequently separated in 1965.

Ms Barker, 72, who was then in her early teens, said: “I was old enough to understand what was going on. My father used to talk to us.

“He used the word ‘dangerous’... We knew it was a risky time,” she said of Mr Barker, who was law minister from 1964 to 1988.

Ms Barker is among the family members and close associates of Singapore’s founding leaders to be interviewed by a project team as part of the development of the Founders’ Memorial – an institution dedicated to Singapore’s pioneers and the values they exemplified – and the curation of its galleries.

She told ST at a reception following the ground-breaking ceremony for the memorial – to be located in Gardens by the Bay’s Bay East Garden – that while the situation in the early 60s was uncertain, the Barker family was “too young to be scared”.