happy valley

Thanks Moddsey.  Yes, I can now see that there is the same curved road in the centre foreground, with several rows of terraced buildings leading away from the curve in each photograph.  It would seem that the two photographs were probably taken in very quick succession.  I don't think that it can be the Happy Valley area.  Is it more likely to be over the Kennedy Town or Western District?  That would fit with your locating at least one other of Ken's images being in that general area.

Living at the Blarney Stone, Ken would have travelled that way every day when on his way to and from his work places at R.A.F. Little Sai Wan or up at Battys on the Peak.  He also completed a degree in Mandarin at the University of Hong Kong and on one of his frequent flights in a small plane he would have delighted in flying over Blarney Stone and around that part of the Island with which he was so familiar.  In most cases, these flights were in a single engine Auster plane and the flights were used to maintain his flying hours (and pay), but also to provide other non-pilot ex aircrew with the same benefit.  He must have been a popular guy.  On at least one occasion he took a colleague who was an excellent photographer and that was when the splendid monochrome photograph of Battys and the Peak was taken.  In the case of this current group of colour photographs I suspect that Ken took them himself while still at the controls and using a very cheap and simple camera - hence the rather poor quality.  It amazes me that he flew so low over the urban areas, but that's not unlikely considering that years earlier as an eighteen year old war time pilot he was court martialled for flying too low on a firing range 'to get a better approach on the target!'