(Singapore) Singapore Swimming Club. Ye Christmas Fayre of Ye Olden Daye.

Menu, 8.5x5.5", 2 pp. Cream paper printed in green, with pictorial cover label. Singapore: Singapore Swimming Club, Dec. 23, 1939.

Officially inaugurated in 1894, the Singapore Swimming Club consisted of 50 all-male members. The facilities of the club in its early days were simple and the food on offer was plain, consisting of tinned sardines or sausages, biscuits, bread, tinned butter and beer. An important swimming event was the annual Christmas Day one-mile race from the club to Sea View Hotel (until a female member was killed by a shark in 1925, at which point the annual race was canceled). 1939 would be one of the last pre-war Christmas dinners; the club prospered until the Japanese Occupation (1942–45), when the Japanese took over the club premises and reportedly used it as a leisure centre for its officers; they left it a mess. The club reopened to its members on Christmas Day, 1945. Minor browning to extremities, else very good. Scarce.