About 20-30 years ago, when postcards were still widely used, I had a deal with a friend that we'd send each other the least attractive postcards we could find: 1960s concrete shopping centres were a popular choice! This view from 1900s Hong Kong would have been a fine contender:

We'll start with some photos and postcards I bought last month. Then as I've been arguing with the book designer about what makes a good photo, we'll take a look at that too.

The seven photos are all the small type that were typically sold to tourists to go in to their photo album. In this case I don't see any sign that the photos were mounted, so the original owner probably just kept them loose. (As always, you can click on any photo to see a larger copy you can zoom in to.)

This week's guest post from Rob Weir introduces a collection of military sites around the Hong Kong coastline from the 1930s. They're small enough to be easily overlooked, but they have an interesting history.

We first looked at this photo a few weeks ago (see the newsletter for 20th August).

Yvonne Foley introduces a little-known piece of UK-Chinese history, in the hope of hearing from the families who were involved.

At the beginning of the Second World War there were 20,000 Chinese mariners in the port of Liverpool, England. Many were there to replace the British merchant seamen who had gone to join the Royal Navy. A significant proportion of these men were from Hong Kong, Singapore, Ningbo and Shanghai and became trapped in the UK when in late 1941 and early 1942 the Japanese took each of these places.