Childhood is made memorable through our hobbies. Relive the joy through SingPost's series of stamps featuring Singapore's favourite childhood pastimes, shared across generations who grew up here.

Stamp collecting takes its place among the most popular school-age pursuits. When every stamp has a story to tell, the collecting becomes as much of an adventure as if the collector had travelled with his prize. What tales have been told of distant lands as stamps pass hands! It bonds children with their parents and grandparents, who often present carefully kept stamps and catalogues together with their stories.

There are other ways to discover new countries, and we learnt best by getting to know the flags of world—especially when they came printed on erasers you could swap with your friends. The most honourable method of collecting these was by doing battle with the erasers, flicking them to capture the flag they landed on top of. Why would any pencil case need more than one eraser, if not for collecting flags?

The theme of travel continues in childhood hobbies, with toy vehicle collections taking pride of place on many a bedroom shelf. Small enough to carry about in pockets, these “matchbox cars” featuring the latest models or construction vehicles with moving parts could be whipped out for play in an instant, and were tough enough to encounter the varied terrains o playground and school.

Even tinier toys came encased in capsules, captive in “gachapon” toy vending machines. Outside almost every heartland store, the ubiquitous machines gathered faithful students checking what collectibles they held, hoping to complete a series. Beyond popular figurine sets like Pokemon creatures, Transformers and the Minions, larger capsules could contain anything from slime to bouncy balls to “pop it” toys.

In 2024, these hobbies still endure, enrapturing children today as they did decades ago.