Having spent more than two-thirds of his life in public service, SR Nathan has met and worked with many of Singapore's early leaders.

In his new book, In Conversation, our former president talks at length about them and shared many interesting anecdotes. Here are six of the most memorable.

1. On Dr Goh Keng Swee's (former deputy prime minister of Singapore) unforgiving attitude towards latecomers

"When I was at MINDEF, he made sure that everyone came on time. There were guards at the ministry entrance - if anybody got to work late, their names were recorded and sent to him."

Dr Goh would have made a very scary sergeant.

2. On how Dr Goh almost fired him

"Our relationship started off badly [...] Somebody complained to him that he had been sacked. I was asked to handle it, and I couldn't do much [...] Dr Goh was very unhappy [...] and ordered I be sacked immediately.

"Try firing me now," must be on Mr Nathan's mind when he was being sworn in as the President of Singapore.

3. On how Dr Toh Chin Chye (former deputy prime minister) could be a potential Stomper

"When he was in government, he was a stickler for supportive press coverage [...] But later, when I was at the newspapers, he was in the habit of calling me up, and urging me to go and investigate this and expose that just the opposite of what he demanded before."

4. On Kenneth M Bryne's (Singapore's first Minister for Law and Labour) illegible handwriting

"Working with him was a horror. Because he would communicate using one of those pencils we had in those days, one half blue, the other half red. It made very thick lines. All you could see was a series of lines moving up and down! You could hardly decipher a single word."

5. On that one time S. Rajaratnam (former deputy prime minister) swore.

"The only occasion I ever saw him really angry was when a young Israeli officer [...] had gone to see him. I don't know exactly what happened between them, but afterwards, when the visitor left his office, Rajaratnam called me, pointed to the man, and used a four-letter word. 'Don't let that **** ever enter the ministry again.'"

No prizes for guessing what he said.

6. On how Mr S. Rajaratnam would be the best boss on earth.

"At 1 o'clock, Rajaratnam wanted to see somebody. There was nobody in the office, they had all gone out [...] he didn't seem agitated."

Until Mr Nathan spoiled the fun.

"People were doing what they liked, and got away with it until I went back to the MFA for my second phase and enforced discipline."

Bonus: On that one time Queen Elizabeth was disappointed with the Indian prime minister

"As I arrived, she (Queen Elizabeth) was writing at the railings, looking very anxious. I didn't know what to say. She turned to me, and explained, "I'm waiting for the Indian prime minister." She'd been waiting and waiting for Rajiv Gandhi - he was really very late. She didn't seem angry, just very disappointed."

I wonder how the Queen looks when she's disappointed.

Top photo from SMU Facebook Page

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