With the death of Dr Toh Chin Chye, a former chairman of the PAP (People’s Action Party)  and deputy prime minister of Singapore, the last member of the Malaya-born complement of leaders who led the island republic in the fraught larval stages of its development into today’s economic cynosure is gone from the scene.

Three other signal members of the band – Sri Lanka-born but Seremban-sired S Rajaretnam, and the Malacca-born Devan Nair and Goh Keng Swee – had already predeceased Toh who hailed from Batu Gajah and schooled in Taiping.

No doubt about it, all four were members of a formidable quartet of leaders any fledgling nation would be grateful to have harnessed for its engine room...