Ling, Helen (née Dalling), (1901-1982) was a well-known connoisseur of Chinese art in Singapore.

In 1928, she married Dr. Ling Tien Gi, a graduate in industrial chemistry from Cornell University. They lived in China, Hong Kong and Singapore. She owned a few antique shops in Shanghai from 1938 to 1949. When the communists came to power, she and Dr. Ling left China for Hong Kong. In 1951, they moved to Singapore. While residing in the city-state, she developed an interest in Southeast Asian antiquities. In 1969, she became one of the founding members of the Southeast Asian Ce-ramic Society whose first president was William Willetts.

Apart from china, Helen also had “a softness” for Thai silk. She got to know Thompson in the 1960s, and was
Her shops were located on Tanglin Road, at the former Hotel Singapura Inter-Continental, and at the Cathay Hotel Shopping Arcade (now the Cathay Building).

In the mid-1970s, two of her shops had to make way for urban devel-opment in the Orchard Road area. Towards the end of the 1970s, her flagship shop at 101 Tanglin Road began to run out of space. In 1980, she moved her business to Park House, 21 Orchard Boulevard.

Since coming to Singapore, Helen was active in the promotion of Chi-nese art. Her shop – Helen D. Ling – was a well-known outlet in Tanglin, as what China Art House was, on Orchard Road. Before she died on May 15, 1982,4 she was one of four shareholders of her company. The others were Dr. Ling Tien Gi, Carole Y. Wong and John Wong Cheung Ching.

Mangskau, Constance (Connie) (1907-1990) was born in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Her English father, Charles Bernard Ainslie, was a manager with the Borneo Company in Bangkok; her Thai mother, Kunkaew, was a homemaker.

Mangskau spent her early years of education in Thailand. Later, she furthered her studies in Singapore at Raffles Girls’ School. In 1924, she joined the Singapore General Hospital as a nursing
For instance, after Thompson went astray, there was talk that Thompson hired his taxi and instructed him to wait for him near the “T” junction of Jalan Kamunting. This is incorrect. According to Ng, Thomp-son never made use of his services while he was residing at “Moon-light”. What actually transpired was this: when the police declared that Thompson was lost, Ng went into the woods with two friends to look for him. While doing so, they got lost. Thereafter, Ng’s family members were told his taxi was abandoned at the “T” junction of Jalan Kamunting. Sensing something was amiss, they engaged the services of a few aborigines to look for him. A week later, Ng and his friends were found at a tea plantation near Gopeng. After this incident, Ng became known as “Thompson”, the taxi