Barbara Anslow's diary: View pages

Feeling so much better in heart today because we had a piece of fried fish this morning with the rice.  I felt dreadful for 4 days, my cold hasn't quite gone.  Food had been dreadful - one day the meat would have to be thrown away because it was bad, and the rice is still an effort for me.  I have walked into the chocolate which Mr Bailey gave me.

Mrs Hawkett has left us, and we now have Mrs ((Magdalene)) Greenwood, from Stonecutters ((an island in Hong Kong harbour)).  Somehow she managed to bring with her more luggage than about 6 other people put together, including several folding chairs and a supply of candles.  Every night she reads by candlelight when we're all longing for sleep and in fear of getting into trouble by the Japs for having candle on so late.
 
Mabel not yet arrived ((from Bowen Road Hospital)).

We have some Jam and Oxo and a little cheese, but stocks are decreasing daily and there's no sign of the promised store.
 
On Sunday we went to Mass in 'Prison Officers' Club'.

Rumours of repatriation, some say we might be sent to Saigon as a clearing centre, some say Australia, others Canada.   It was in the local newspaper ((printed byJaps in English and a few copies reached camp)) that repatriation of women and children might be done.
 
Olive has written to CSO in camp to see if she and Topper can get married ((her Royal Artillery fiance who was in Shamshuipo camp: they had planned to marry this summer:  sadly, he was sent to Japan and died there.))

Each been given a post card on which we can say only 'safe and well' to send to England etc.

Repatriation rumours seem to have fizzled out.  Mum not too good.

Loathsome food pow-wow in morning ((In quadrangle of Married Quarters)).  I was ashamed of being there because it was all so bald and horrible. Angry and hungry people quarrelling about the rations and kitchen staff, and cooking. We had dumplings last night - delicious. Fried fish for the lucky ones, but I wasn't amongst them.

To church at 10am  (Mass in 'Prison Officers' Club).  This afternoon we battled our way (great wind) up to St Stephen's Hall to Benediction.  I didn't know the hymns, but thought sentimentally of Sunday evenings in England, sausage rolls, cheese straws, jam and currant tarts, tinned fruit – then going to Benediction and joining in processions, us children in short white frocks.  So homesick. I'm worried about Mum because she doesn't get enough to eat.

Mrs G getting annoyingly and monotonously argumentative, I'm running out of subjects to introduce as red herrings.

Notable for fried fish in a.m., and pasty in evening.

Food terrible today.

Assistance wanted in hospital - office work, and I'm to start tomorrow, feeding there.

Electric lights on.

Started working at hospital.  Day seemed long.  4 slices thin bread and mincemeat at mid-day. Bitterly cold. ((Non-resident staff like me have meals there.))

Letter from Charles Pike (RAMC in Shamshuipo Camp) and one from Mabel. ((Now I wonder how those letters got into camp, there was no postal service!))

Enjoyed bread ((on hospital meals now)) again.  We ate half a tin of our    sausages tonight - fried in the tin on wood fire in our room.

44 degrees ((7 degrees celsius)).  Not allowed to leave rooms till 4.30pm.  Apple & custard - lovely, but it's so cold. Row with Mrs G.

Mincemeat and beans and a large quantity of badly cooked rice today. Am at last getting better at eating rice among other stuff.

Morning off from work, but had to spend it all being searched at  Stephen's Prep. School grounds by the sea.  ((Japs got us all lined up, near where we first landed in Stanley.  There were armed soldiers all round us. We wondered if we were to be massacred, or sent off somewhere.  In fact, Japs used our absence to search through all the accommodation, presumably looking for wireless sets, weapons etc.  The main worry of us Redwoods was, would they come across the opened tin of sausages with the remaining half of contents, and help themselves.... they didn't though)).

To 10.00am church, then to work.  Tiffin wonderful because there was suet roly-poly with apple afterwards.

To concert in P.O. Club in evening - good fun. Community singing.  Some good cracks - 'Who is the owner of this pair of shorts marked 'Windle'?'  and 'the Americans are certainly good swipers'.  Both jokes refer to the likelihood of people appropriating some one else's property.

For almost a week I've been well fed, and if that stops, I shall have at least have had this little building-up.

Not hard work at the hospital, a little shorthand and typing, somewhere comparatively warm to sit - and hospital rations, which I live for.   ((Hospital rations were better than at Married Quarters because when nurses and patients left Queen Mary Hospital for Stanley, they managed to bring much of their dry kitchen stock which helped to supplement the rations for some months.  Also, being a tiny community the food was better cooked.)) Two slices of thin bread, one with butter and jam, and tea, at 9am.  At 1pm we get the main meal, rice, veg and generally (very little) meat.  Curry once.  Another day roast pork, true we only each had 3 pieces, one fat, one crackling, one lean, but the sight of the roast did my heart good.  Cup of tea at 4pm.  At 6pm soup or stew- and 2 slices of bread.

I know I'm feeling much better about food because for the past few nights I've not had to have my imaginary meal in bed.  Time passes rather slowly at work, that is because my thoughts are  so centred on the tiffin meal.
 
The reason we non--resident staff like me are on hospital rations is because mealtimes in the other blocks would have come in the middle of our working shifts.
 
Today there was a special edition of the Hong Kong paper announcing that Singapore had surrendered unconditionally.  We didn't buy it, ((quite cheap, but money was short – just what we happened to have on us when captured.  Some internees bought it and passed it round to friends.  Probably used as toilet paper, as we were only supplied with Chinese rough brown paper.)).  I've been sleeping in bed with Mum for past few nights because it's so cold.
 
I'm still afraid Mum doesn't get enough to eat.  Several nights ago we succumbed to the temptation of the tin of sausages Mum brought from our flat.  Fried half one night in the tin on wood fire (some of the doll's house). Then fried small pieces of bread in the fat left in the tin.  The result was delicious.   Next night we finished the remainder of the sausages cold - I ate all the fat scrapings neat. Our stores now consist of sugar, milk powder, a tin of jam and tin of pineapple, and pork and beans.  I think we should save one of the latter till Mabel comes, but Olive is very hungry and Mabel may not come for ages.

Concert at St Stephens.  Wasn't much.  First we had to have a picture show by our hosts  Singapore has apparently surrendered.  ((Film show was supposed to be in celebration, mainly a kind of Jap documentary.  A few shots of bottles of beer going along the assembly line - there were nostalgic cheers from the men in the audience at the sight.))

Mum got peas in the canteen.

Ash Wednesday, but we were too late waking up to go to the church service.

Lovely pork.

Walk in evening with Mum who gave me verbal cooking lessons - we both enjoyed these meals in our imagination.

((An explanation of the canteen in Stanley:-  Limited supplies of prized food were sent into camp, and sold usually twice weekly - if you had money, which was very limited as people hadn't been paid since fighting ended. Each person was only allowed to buy so much of a particular item. 

Huge queues at the first canteens - Olive and I took turns keeping a place for hours; when our turn came at last there was little choice, we just got a tin of Instant Postum which turned out to be a delicious drink.

In due course canteen days were well organised so that every person had a shopping turn once in so many sessions, so that the wealthiest couldn't buy up all that was available every time.))

Pork and crackling again.  Depressing news.  We ate our tin of pineapple.

Fried fish today - lovely.

Glasses gone for re-framing ((hopefully sent in to town - the bridge across the nose broke during the war, and since then the lenses were tied on to the frames of an old pair of sunglasses.))

Fried ham and spotted dick.  Olive and I ate the tin of pork and beans tonight. Awkward without glasses.

Curried fish.

Washed hair ((no hot water and no shampoo)).  Awkward without glasses.

Peaches from canteen in evening.

Lovely rissole today, and 1 extra slice of bread.  Colder.  I broke Mrs. K's teapot. ((We called Mrs. Kopecsky Mrs. K)).

Two months since capitulation.

Today a new kitchen staff has taken over, and mum is helping to cut up the vegetables, it means getting up at 7am.  We are just about on speaking terms with Mrs G who has temporarily stopped being so difficult since she was sick in night and Mum looked after her.

The bread ration in camp is up today so Mum and Olive are getting as much as I do at the hospital. Fairly happy working at hospital, so much better to be keeping brain going, and typing and shorthand practice.

Men are voluntarily working, getting food out of the godowns, to earn extra food - tins of bully etc. ((Just outside the camp were godowns filled with food etc. - set up by Govt. before the Jap war to provide food stocks in different parts of the colony.))
 
Future still most obscure. I like to think about rumours of repatriation to Canada or Argentina, though the journey would be dreadful. Rumours that the regular army men have already left Hong Kong.
 
I'm dying to go back to England and feel so glad I have been self-indulgent last year - boxes of crystallised ginger, many milk shakes at Repulse Bay and the Dairy Farm, peanuts and potato crisps, and went to hundreds of films, before the Japs attacked.

I have fed so well. Today's meals ((at hospital)): 2 slices of bread and jam (one with butter) in morning  An extra slice saved.  Tiffin - rice, soya beans, cabbage, small piece of fatty mutton and lump of fat. Evening - mutton stew, with an enormous bone with meat on (whch saved for Mum), slice of cold bully beef and a spoonful of tinned vegetable salad, and piece of tomato, and 2 slices of bread, one buttered.

Took bread up to room, I had 1 slice, Mum & Olive shared the other;  then cocoa, one fig and one apple ring. Had a fruit drop from Mrs K; a piece of chocolate from Olive; a cup of cocoa, one fig and one apple ring.  Mum had dumplings today in rations. 

Canteen today, bought porridge, I'm dying to have it tomorrow.

1 extra bread, and PORRIDGE in afternoon and evening, and stewed fruit and suspicion of custard after tiffin. Think I'm putting on weight (having lost about 10 lbs since Christmas).

((The porridge, from canteen, was the most fantastic morale builder.  For a few precious evenings, the electric cookers in one of the former Married Q. kitchens were made available to us by our kitchen staff.  Inevitable queue of people waiting their turn to go in with their tins to cook up their little bits.  Surprising discovery that one internee was hogging a ring to herself for long time - actually boiling her sheets because 'she always boiled her sheets'.))