Full Name Tay Hai Choon Children Jenny Tay Name Roland Tay | Years active 1970 - Present Occupation Undertaker | |
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In the shadows featuring jenny tay roland tay direct funeral services
Roland Tay or better known as 郑海船, is an undertaker in Singapore. He is known for helping the poor and families of murder victims by providing pro-bono funeral arrangements. Memorial services conducted by Roland includes, Huang Na, Liu Hong Mei & Ah Meng, Singapore's national mascot.
Contents
- In the shadows featuring jenny tay roland tay direct funeral services
- 2014syyc final pro 4a 03 roland tay
- Early Life Tong Aik Undertaker 1947 to 2000
- Charitable Services Direct Branding 2000 to Present
- References
2014syyc final pro 4a 03 roland tay
Early Life (Tong Aik Undertaker), 1947 to 2000
Born in 1947 as the fourth of 10 children to a hawker in a coffee shop along Lavender Street, Roland Tay began his working life as a coffee boy. He helped the family's coffee shop business by serving coffee and tea to customers in Singapore Casket. He learned about the funeral trade as a result, thus when his father passed on, Tay converted his father's coffee shop into the now defunct Casket Palace, which was bought over by Singapore Casket.
In the subsequent years, Tay started a few funeral companies including Tong Aik Undertaker which is in charge of operating the Singapore Police Force's police hearse. Tong Aik Undertaker is still operational as of today as Direct Singapore Funeral Services & Embalming since 2000. Whenever an accident or suicide happens, undertakers from Tong Aik Undertaker would be the first to be on scene to retrieve the deceased. Funeral services are offered for all religions of Singapore.
Charitable Services (Direct Branding), 2000 to Present
Direct Funeral Services achieved news prominence particularly in 2004 when Roland Tay conducted the pro-bono funeral of Huang Na, an eight-year-old girl who was murdered brutally in Pasir Panjang, Singapore. This was followed by another pro-bono funeral in 2005 of 22-year-old Chinese national Liu Hong Mei who was murdered and chopped into seven parts before being dumped in the Kallang River. The process of sewing the body parts back together took Roland Tay and his embalmers 7 hours. He also oversaw the funeral of Li Hong Yan a 24-year-old village girl from Heilongjiang who drowned at Sentosa.
Roland Tay reportedly collected around three hundred identity cards of deceased whom were without family and whom he conducted pro-bono funerals services.
One of Roland Tay's more memorable cases is the pro-bono funeral he provided for the primate national mascot Ah Meng of Singapore.
In 2013, Roland Tay and his spouse Sally Ho filed and finalized their divorce in June. According to the court papers, the cumulated properties were estimated to be a total of about $20 million. Around the same time, Tay brought his daughter Jenny Tay into the business who subsequently helped him rebrand the undertaking firm after quitting her job at a marketing firm. In 2015, Jenny married her boyfriend Darren whom had started working at the funeral firm with Jenny, before founding the non-profit Direct Life Foundation in 2016. As of February 2016, Direct Life has been looking at helping the Singapore community including the Marsiling till Sembawang area such as the Sunshine Welfare Action Mission Home.