Springboard girl.

Tue, 04/30/2019 - 20:37

Possibly at one of the swimming pools at Lai Chi Kok? See Peter’s comment below.

Date picture taken
1952
Author(s)

Comments

Thank you Andrew for your comments and Jeff for your photo of the apparently - Yick Yuen pool.

My 2-pool theory holds if the same stone wall was first located by Castle Peak Road and later moved to Lantau.  The springboard girl site might well be at Lantau, so I have asked Phil to lighten me up on some distant peaks on the Trousdale photos, and that will close the loose ends - at my end - mentally.

I wonder if Yick Yuen could tell when the stonewall was erected - either as original or second-hand.  Regards,   Peter

Thank you Geoffrrey for your fantastic photograph of you in 'at the deep end' of the pool.  Thank goodness your wife did not zoom her camera in on you, mssing out the canopy and wall.   Zooming in on the image, the concrete canopy attached to the distinctive wall with the three square pieces of concrete set into the upper part is very clear.  You would certainly have been in the right spot to catch the young lady if she had fallen off the springboard!  Seeing this image, 65 years since Malcolm took his photograph, is amazing.

Phil has just suggested that the waterfall photograph below that we know was also taken by Malcolm might have been at or near Silvermine Bay.  I cannot see an immediate comparison on several of the images that are on Google Earth but maybe somebody can confirm its location being the Silvermine waterfall.  I think we are finally coming to a conclusiion as to why Malcolm went there.  I don't know how much of a tourist attraction the Silvermine waterfall was in the 1950s or whether Malcolm, went there to photograph it, but the path to it is the one that passes immediatley next to his and your springboard photograph.  Anyone on that path wouyld have then and now a clear view of the pool - rather a strange site for a private house's pool being so close to a public path.  I have now found the Street View images of both places on Google Earth which confirm that.  Perhaps it is quite likely that Malcolm did not know the owners of the house or the girl, so maybe he was a bit cheeky and just hopped over the fence and took the photograph!

Silvermine Bay waterfall
Waterfall., by Malcolm Trousdale

A very interesting development in the discussioin is that Peter mentions in a very recent contribution, above, that he has a recollectioin that there was a link in the business / ownership of the Lai Chi Kok complex and the place on Lantau. I was also interested to read Geoffrey2's thoughts on that house and I look forward to seeing his photographs.  Andrew

 

Ever since that one and only visit of Yick Yuen in 2019, there are some questions which I have always thought about yet remain answered. What I have been told is that the house was settled pre-war, but then apparently there are many parts of the house that have this post-war element to it. I have attached a few photos here as a guideline. The actual superstructure of the house would most likely be the original or the pre-war part. I recall looking closely at the fireplace and realised there were these chrysanthemum engravings on it which points to the Japanese influence? And the emblem sitting at the top of the house and the appearance in general of the house is kind of Japanese too? I could be all wrong though. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to build a house with essentially anything Japanese immediately after the war? But then there's this huge sitting area which is definitely post-war. It has that 'In the mood for love' feel and I can imagine Maggie Cheung would not look out of place there clad in her cheongsam. The swimming pool's architecture is kind of in a similar vein and is very very similar indeed to the one at Dragon Garden near Ting Kau which I had a chance to visit on a RAS tour. And that one I think was built in the 50s? I kind of think that the house had been remodelled at some stage to fit in fixtures that were in vogue after the war and perhaps the pool and the brick gate had been a result of that modification?

My apologies - I realise I have just stuffed up the uploading process so that the photos would appear separately from this post. Yes, Andrew, my wife did a fantastic job indeed! She was the one to dig out the photo for me. The pool obviously was the centre of attention, not me!

Hi Geoffrey2,

The springboard support structures look different in shape and color. Yick Yuen's is 2 U-shaped metal tubings parallel to each other. The girl's was 3 dark-colored U-shaped tubings, the front 2 were interconnected and at 90 degrees to the one at the back, the color of the pool edge is different, so it's unlikely to be the same pool.

Thank you Fivestar for your question.  The air photo was dated 1963.  Due to photo quality, I cannot make out if there was still a building there.   I googled street views and noted there was (assuming it was Castle Peak Road) a spot, fairly flat, about 15 feet higher than the Road.  The street views do not show any building up there.  Regards,   Peter 

Hi tkjho,

Welcome to the discussion - it is proving to be a very complicated but enjoyable one for us to try to solve!

Malcolm's photograph was taken in 1952/3 and the other one showing Geoffrey standing in the dried up pool with the wall and concrete canopy structures clearly visible at the upper left was definitely at Yick Yuen.  It was taken some 65 or 66 years later in 2019.  With such a long passage of time it is quite likely that the springboard's metal legs would have needed replacing, especially as the metal used in the early 1950s would not have been corrosion resistant stainless steel. So, that difference between the two photographs does not really point to two different places.  In the context of the wall and the associated concrete structure, I agree with, I think it was Phil or Tngan, that would have been very unlikely that anyone would have gone to the trouble and expense of carefully dismantling the one at Lai Chi Kok and transporting it to Lantau - never mind the well established bamboo(?) thicket growing thrugh a hole in the concrete canopy.  I'm afraid that the evidence, both from these two photogaphs and Malcolm's now accepted visit to Lantau do tend to point to both the photographs having been taken in the garden on Lantau.  Having typed that, I am very supportive of Peter's very strong memory of visiting such a pool somewhere above Lai Chi Kok with his sister on more than one occasion, and Malcolm's springboard girl photograoph, which started this discussion, really does support that location being up near the Castle Peak Road.   How about this for another conjecure?  I wonder whether, as Peter has recently suggested, the two locations were apparently linked by a family or business interest, there could have been two similar pools constructed with identical decorative walls and concrete canopies with bamboo(?) growing through a hole in the latter.  It sounds a bit far fetched but near where I live in England, there are two huge and identical houses built about 150 years ago by a family for two estranged spinster sisters.  People do strange things!  I agree with Peter that a definitive answer to the problem might lie in an accurate comparison between the topography around the tow places.  Somebody living in Hong Koing might be able to provide an answer along those lines.  Andrew

Greetings to All.

My discussion below and the photos support the idea that the springboard girl photo (1952) by Malcolm Trusdale was taken from a swimming pool in the Mui Wo area looking to the east.  I have marked the location of the pool at the current Yick Yuen site, the house on the hillside that appears to be the one shown in Trusdale's photo, and the distant peak.  There was a window between two nearby hills enabling the camera's view further to the east.

I have not found a matching peak in another Trousdale photo, however, there are some hills to the west of Yick Yuen and one of them might match.  There are no geographic features that serisouly contradict this idea.

Having said that, I also think that there are geographic features in the Lai Chi Kok region that support the same idea.  And this leads to one big problem or puzzle for me.

I have never been to Mui Wo, but I remember well with no error that I swam in a pool a few times where there was a stonewall just like the one in the springboard girl photo, up in the hill from the amusement park.  It could not have been 1952, as I was too young, so 1955-56 seems to be more accurate.

Or there is another explanation - same owner/manager, two sites far apart enough for people not to notice, same blue prints, had two walls built for a lower unit price.

I think the key question now is when exactly the wall at Yick Yuen was first built, or was it re-erected with parts from the original site?

Regards,   Peter

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Like most of you on the forum, I am surprised that Yick Yuen appears to be the probable location of the photo of the springboard girl. However, given that some photos of Malcolm do show Silvermine Bay and its environs, I would suspect that he would have visited the waterfall(s) there and passed by Yick Yuen.   The waterfall at Silvermine Bay was a featured side trip and a 'go to' location.

The other photo of the larger swimming pool, I am having difficultly in placing it at Yick Yuen. I think it is a club or hotel setting like the Castle Peak Hotel or similar venue.

Unless corrected, Yick Yuen appears to be a private villa complex. Access was gained to take a close-up photo of the springboard girl inside the compound. That said, it is still a nice and interesting photo for discussion.

 

 

Hi Andrew,

I think we can establish that:

1) The springboard girl pool is one and the same pool as the larger public pool in the other photo. This is supported by the fact that: (a) the pool edges looked the same (b) the springboards looked the same with a dark end wrap (c) the board support structure looked identical (d) springboard girl with visible left ear and bikini top with a string looped around her neck from her cleavage appeared in both photos.

2) The current Yick Yuen stone wall is one and the same wall as the springboard girl's, and not a duplicate. This can be seen by a stone by stone matching of the 2 walls, all the labeled stones match and most of the unlabeled ones should match too. It's close to impossible & far too anal to painstakingly duplicate the natural stone details. The wall's location may be different though.

Comparative analysis of Yick Yuen stone wall
{C}{C}Comparative analysis of Yick Yuen stone wall, by tkjho{C}{C}

The remaining question is whether the springboard girl pool is the Yick Yuen pool. It's unlikely as the deep end of the dry Yick Yuen pool with 6 lanes seems to be much narrower than that of the public pool, the springboard was mounted right in the center whereas in the other pool the springboard seems to be offset to the right side. If not the same pool, where is the other one?

Hi There,

I had been wondering if the camera lens had been playing visual effect on us.  I fould this Yick Yuen map on GeoInfo Map.  I have highlighted two locations in the screen capture, which look like features in the swimming pool with many people around it.

They seem to correspond to the white\grey building, as well as the garden path with steps in the photo.

yickyuen_geoinfo_map.jpg
{C}{C}{C}yickyuen_geoinfo_map.jpg, by tngan{C}{C}{C}

 

Thank & Best Regards,

T

This is a comparison view of the hills behind Oldtimer's pool and the springboard girl's pool.

I took this photo in 1979 from Mei Foo, the approximate location of OT's pool is indicated. From that vantage point, would the hills look similar to the SbG's? If it does, then the location would be LCK. If not, most likely it would be Yick Yuen.

hillsCompare.JPG
{C}hillsCompare.JPG, by tkjho{C}

Thank you tkjho for the photo.  I estimate that your camera was looking straight north from Mei Foo.  Since your were far away from the hills, your camera captured farther out.  The pool was closer to the hills so the view was limited.

I used the other Trousdale's pool photo (one with springboard girl under umbrella), and the 1963 air photo at the Yick Yuen pool, springboard there hence showing the deep end.  Looking to the northwest routhly 340 degrees on compass, the hills there seem to match the  two peaks in the photo.  I wish it was proven to be my Lai Chi Kok pool.  Regards,  Peter

This Google map view is from a vantage point about 3 swimming pool lengths north of the Yick Yuen pool along the heritage trail. The mountain ranges should be about the same as viewed from Yik Yuen, but I don't see too many similarities to the SbG photo other than a pointed peak. The LCK hills may look much more similar to the SbG's if the pointed peak is viewed from the vantage point of Chung Shan Terrace.

Google map Landscape view from Mui Wo heritage trail
{C}{C}{C}Google map Landscape view from Mui Wo heritage trail, by tkjho{C}{C}{C}

 

Dear Folks on this page - with these photos and comments from you, we have finally confirmed the place where Malcolm Trousdale took this 1952 photo.  It was my mistake in thinking there was only one such unique stonewall back in those younger years when I swam in one pool near Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park.  This led to misplacement of its location, and doubts lingered on.

Klaus' recent reference to the 1963 air photo prompted me to try identify its exact location, but in the process I prolonged the error.  Then FiveStar gave new information, and others joined in with advice, photos and results of their own work.  I am humbled and thankful.    Regards, Peter the OldTimer

This swimming pool was filled with water until at least 1995, as I lived in the adjacent village then and would occasionally hop over the fence for a midnight swim, sometimes with friends. We never saw anyone else using it. 

The first photograph on this auction site is of an urban pool possibly in Kowloon so the seller might have wrongly assumed that the other photograph of Yick Yuen on Lantau was taken at the same place.  The urban pool might be identifiable by the large metal roof close by - looks rather like a market hall roof or even a railway station (unlikely). 

The sellers of the two photographs are different. I have seen the first photograph before but for now cannot place the location nor its origin. Appears to be a reproduction.

(Edit: Source - Harrison Forman Collection. The photo(s) appears here Location not given. "1933" appears on the top of the diving tower. That would rule out a number of possibilities for Hong Kong. 

Update: Not Hong Kong. In 1933 an Olympic-size swimming pool was opened at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club (RBSC). A photo of the swimming pool and diving tower appears on https://www.rbsc.org/about/ under Club History or here as the website is very sluggish.)