The More Fascinating Than You Might Think Role of the Veranda in Singapore

Quite by chance I recently came across a collection of essays, edited by Georgina Downey, entitled Domestic Interiors: Representing Homes from the Victorians to the Moderns. Contained within the collection is an enlightening essay by Brenda Martin called Verandas: Spaces Without Walls – the Veranda in Colonial Singapore. The essay is an interesting way to think of those verandas we’re all so familiar with in the literature and memoirs of the times (or even perhaps having had one yourself if you were lucky enough). The veranda as a public/private space, a place to demonstrate your social position, your adaptation to your foreign surroundings and your home culture. There’s a lot to consider in the humble veranda…..personally I like just standing on them watching a tropical rainstorm….

For me the veranda (just for the pedants – veranda is from the Portuguese varanda and the spelling with a h at the end is a variant according to the OED) in colonial Singapore and Malaya is always associated with Somerset Maugham – both Ethel Proudlock who left church in 1911 Kuala Lumpur, went home and shot her lover on her veranda (see Eric Lawlor’s excellent book on the case Murder on the Verandah) and Maugham’s novelization (or play to be precise) of the event, The Letter.

The Letter – first edition

Bette Davis gets out on the veranda in The Letter (1940)