Quirky stories behind Raffles Singapore hotel, as told by its historian and longest-serving employee – from escaped tigers to famous cocktails
- Leslie Danker, 83, who went to school near the Raffles Singapore hotel and has worked there since 1972, knows all the juicy details
- He is the hotel’s historian and loves everything about the place, except maybe the Singapore Sling, which he finds too sweet
Leslie Danker had a soft spot for Britain’s Queen Elizabeth. It’s one of several revelations made by Raffles Singapore’s historian and its longest-serving employee during a chat in the foyer of Singapore’s most famous hotel.
Others include the fact that the sprightly 83-year-old starts every day with press-ups and that he finds the Singapore Sling, the hotel’s trademark drink, “too sweet” for his liking.
Although he didn’t begin working at Raffles until March 1972, he was already familiar with the hotel, he says.
“I went to a school nearby, and I’d pass the hotel every day,” says Danker. “It was the architecture I loved the most.”
The building was certainly ahead of its time. “It was the first [hotel] in Singapore with electricity, and the first one with an elevator.”
Danker, who attended a local British school, refers to himself as Eurasian – as do many Singaporeans whose ancestry dates back to when Portuguese and Dutch settlers romanced local women – and his fluency in English was a major advantage in his first role as Raffles’ maintenance manager. Part of his role involved serving as an interpreter, translating English to Malay and vice versa.
