After 46 years of working in the parliament house building, it is now time for Soh Beow Koon to say good bye.

He is the caretaker of the parliament house, the oldest government building in Singapore.

He holds 107 different keys to the different doors inside the parliament house

- the members room, open to both opposition and ruling party members.

- the chamber, where the parliamentary debates take place

- the select committee rooms on the second floor.

The Victorian style building is 172 years old.

Since Singapore became independent in 1965, more than 1,190 bills have been passed there. Behind them, lies a thousand more stories.

In 1959, a short walk for 34-year-old Lee Kuan Yew and his comrades, was a big leap for the white building.

Singapore, a British colony, was finally allowed to govern itself.

The People's Action Party, a four-year-old nationalist party, had become the government, and the assembly house was changed from a little known government office to a seat of high power.

The Assembly House was built in 1827, home to a Scottish merchant, John Argyle Maxwell, who travelled extensively and never lived in it. The British government rented it, and used it first as post office, and then as a court house.

When the Japanese were finally defeated by the Americans, the British took over parliament house again, this time to house the newly-created social welfare department, as well as other government departments.

From 1953 to 1954, the building was re-modelled to be used as the new legislative assembly. The Governer of Singapore, Sir John Nicolls, had new furniture and modern facilities, like air-conditioning installed.

The Chamber, previously an empty hall, was furnished with red seats, as well as with a gallery for the public and for reporters

Said Mr Othman Wok: "I remember that Mr Lim Yew Hock had a room at the back of this floor facing High Street. I was then a reporter, and I interviewed him in that room. I also covered the proceedings of the legislative assembly here. I sat in the third row of the press gallery."

At that time, he had to jostle for space with others that had come in to watch the debates at the birth of their nation. These were the days before television, and many were hungry for news, as well as the drama of the debates.

Said Senior Minister Lee: "They were interesting debates, they were great theatre. I mean, he lunged, I parried. I hit back. It was good fun but it did not affect the future of Singapore. In his case, what affected the history of Singapore was his performance in London at the constitutional conference. I think it was in April 1956, that he wanted to go all out for independence and then give back security and defence to the British, which is not possible. I mean if you have independence, security and defence must be with you. So apart from the awkwardness of it as a concept, the British Colonial secretary just laughed and tossed it out. Then after it was tossed out and the meeting broken up, he wanted to restart the meeting and accept something less. So at that stage, I decided that he was too much under the influence of Lim Chin Siong, who was getting cold feet and had pushed Mr Marshall too far. Mr Marshall would be out and he Lim Chin Siong would be in trouble without Marshall to protect him. So I decided that I would stop the opening and as one liberal socialist assembly men, William Tan, he was a businessman along Pickering Street, he says, we are swallowing our own vomit. We have just tossed it out and why are we doing this? So I called a press conference and killed off the idea of starting the conference. Marshall had to come and he resigned. That affected the history of Singapore."

By 1955, Singapore had self-governance. It had its own slate of local ministers and MPs, who had to look after some two million people, many of whom were out of work, and poorly educated.

The British meanwhile, still held control over defence and foreign affairs, among other things.

Said Mr Tan: "David Marshall had his office, when he first became Chief Minister. Initially, the British denied him the use of an office and he put a table under the stairs. They finally relented and gave him room. I really don’t know why, I think it was to deny him the prestige he should have as a Chief Minister."

While the British were still partly in control of Singapore, its defeat by the Japanese fueled the drive for independence. Meanwhile, there were other forces at work - a red China was rising, and many Chinese immigrants here were tied strongly to their Communist homeland.

The People's Action Party, spearheaded by middle-class English educated young men, needed the

Chinese support, but did not want the communist ideology.

Senior Minister Lee, head of the PAP at the time, decided to walk a very thin line.

"If you go up the steps, as you enter the chamber on the left, you go up the stairs, when you reach the landing, there used to be then a select committee room, which is now the part of the members' room. In 1959, late March, very few people would be about and we could talk," he said.

The person in mention was Mr Fang Chuang Pi, a reporter and the bridge between the communists and the PAP.

Said Mr Othman Wok: "That is where reporters traded news. There were so many court cases, and not enough of us to cover them all. So we exchanged notes. Mr Fang turned up and said: "You got anything for me?" We use to think that he was a very lazy reporter. I did not know that he was the plen until I read the Mr Lee’s book, which stated that Mr Fang was the plen reporter. I think he was running errands for his masters."

The PAP and the Communists were strange bedfellows, but independence was a goal that united many who lived in Singapore then. By 1959, PAP had the majority of seats in parliament. It wanted a merger with Malaysia, as a way to gain freedom from the British. However, not all within the party agreed. Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who led the party at the time, called for a vote of confidence in the chamber.

"One hour before, we stayed in the members room, before we entered the chamber for the debate on the motion of no confidence in July 1961. We had our own members meeting in the members room. The PAP members room was opposite the staircase on the same floor as the chamber. In our midst were people whom, we knew were going to betray us, and desert us. So that was a very tense meeting. Of course, they pretended that they were still with the PAP and they would support us, and load down conditions. So after one hour or so, I knew we were going to have to take a clean cut and force then out to the open and if they win, they would take over the government. They didn’t think they would win, because there wasn't enough of them and that we would have to expel them, which we did," recalled Senior Minister Lee.

Dr Lee Siew Choh led 13 PAP members across, to the opposition side of the house. The breakaway faction, the Barisan Socialis, debated with the PAP in marathon speeches that lasted till 2 in the morning. The record is still held by Dr Lee who spoke for eight hours.

Despite the hours he spoke, parliamentarians did not come round to Dr Lee's point of view.

Singapore did merge with Malaysia. However, there was an underlying tension, as the PAP wanted equality for all.

The Malaysians, on the other hand, were determined to keep the constitution, which stipulated the special position of the Malays.

Neither side gave way.

Race riots and death in the streets tore apart what had been agreed on paper in the parliament house.

The two went their separate ways.

In August 1965, Singapore stood alone

Four months later, it was the first sitting in the parliament house as an independent nation.

Few MPs then went to university, they were teachers, businessmen, and even a barber.

The first bills laid the foundations for a ceremonial president, and a defence force.

As President Yusof Ishak read out the first presidential address, beside him stood a young Chinese ADC.

Added Senior Minister Lee: "Well Brigadier Alsagoff not only accompanied the President, he came to my office, before the opening of the parliament and said that he would like to provide me with motorcycle escorts from the Malaysian brigade, the 4th Malaysian brigade which was then stationed in Singapore. I thought to myself, if I said no, what was the point. He had three battalions. Our battalion is two, one was in Sabah, one was back here. There was no way that we could have said "No, you buzz off". So I said yes, all right. So when I went to the first opening of parliament on the first republic of Singapore parliament, I was escorted by eight or nine MAP Malayan Armed forces motorcyclists as an honour guard."

The beam is suspended above the chambers. It is a tight rope, which few would venture. However, in his 46 years, Mr Soh has been into every corner of the Victorian building.

In the early days of the new government, he had to call in a barber to cut the Prime Minister's hair, because there was so little time.

Said Mr Othman Wok: "We were like a family, although in the chamber we did not always see eye to eye. The PAP had no opposition since 1968, until sometime in the 80s. This was done to show that the members were very active and did their homework. I used to receive ‘brick-bats’ as well as some accolades. This is politics, this is what makes the discussion very lively."

Added Mr Tan: "A lot of us really heard a lot of stories about the old guards in the members rooms. Another great storyteller was Fong Sip Chee, or Andrew as we know him. There was one interesting episode he related to us. Sometime in the 1980s, when the Singapore river was being cleaned up, Andrew, to prove the point that river was clean, together with Ho Kah Leong decided to swim across the river. While they were swimming across, the body of a dead dog floated by. When Andrew told us this story the next day, he was laughing away. He told us that he wasn't sure whether the river was clean, or it was the swim that he and Kah Leong took that killed the dog."

Parliament was an all PAP affair for many years, as from 1968- 84 there was no opposition MPs.

The 1980s saw the entry of Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam or JBJ. The 1984 general elections saw the first women MPs in more than a decade.

The first NCMP was Dr Lee Siew Choh, who won his seat through fluent Cantonese Mandarin as well as English.

Another spark was provided by the nominated MPs.

It's clear the old fire and brimstone style of the early leaders had toned down by the present generation.

Chambers heard fewer orations, and more nuts and bolts speeches.

Said Mr Tan: There is a tendency to read more from prepared text rather than to speak off the cuff, although I would normally encourage them to only refer to the text, and to make speeches and not read speeches."

The Business of Parliament.

The glare of the public eye can be intense. Televisions were installed in 1985, and when the parliament house was renovated in 1988, brighter lights and a deeper shade of red for the seats, were all for television effects

Said Senior Minister Lee on the effects of television: "Well I discussed this once with the speaker of the House of Commons. He is dead now- George Thomas of the House of Lords. He felt looking back that it degraded the quality of the debates, because members stood up to catch the eye of the speaker, and get the cameras focussed on him. He was not talking, no longer talking to the other MPs, but talking through the camera to the public and trying to improve his standing outside. I think that is inevitable. I think it makes a difference. MPs who do not perform well in parliament lose influence in their constituency. I think that is why two MPS from the SDP, I think you remember Ling How Doong, and Cheo Chai Chen."

"I think they lose because they created such a wishy-washy picture of themselves. Their voters didn't think that they were working to do them any good, or represent them. They were not effective. You have to be effective. That's one of the results of television, that if you don’t measure up, your constituents will know. Before television your constituents won’t know, until they attend in the gallery but here they do know. They can watch you on television," he continued.

Dealing with the media is only one among the many new challenges for the new batch of MPs.

The first debate in the new house is on Singapore 21, the government's plan is to have a people-centred Singapore.

As parliamentarians move on, there is also a sense of nostalgia, towards preserving the parliament house -and its architectural merits.