Diary pages from this date

A Happier New Year to you Helen. I do hope that this one will see us reunited. I think and feel that the prospects are better than they have ever been, so let's hope. Judging by the news little tho' it is, we feel confident that Germany will crack under pressure very soon and naturally the squeeze on Japan will be so great shortly that her day of reckoning cannot last much longer.

Thanks a whole lot for the lovely loving letter of 9/5/43 which I received from you on Thursday 4th January. It was splendid and it is always such a thrill to see your handwriting and read your cheery message of hope. It is also fine to know that you were still enjoying your work in Inverness. I'm very curious to know what type of business you are doing as you said in a previous letter it was a new line for you. However I'll learn of that on our happy day.

Well on Monday 1st January I made a start of the New Year by being on the operating table. Prof. Digby called me along to the theatre where he trussed me up with my legs and feet in the air, injected a local anaesthetic, a jag or two to nullify the pain of cutting off the tag, found another small tag and did likewise with it and then stitched up the larger tag. The whole business only taking about half an hour and then back to bed. I had no real after effects, just a swimming of the head, like having one over the nine or being on board ships. It didn't affect my appetite in anyway.

John Willey and his wife came in the afternoon with lots of things for me to eat which I thoroughly enjoyed. On Friday morning the Prof took out the stitches in my bot so I should be out in another day or two. I have no trouble when at the lavatory so I should be all right with my rectum for a while to come.

Bungalow F where J.F. and C.C.R. live is to be closed owing to so the Japs say, being too close to the wire and possible trading by the Indians and the Formosan guards and so the residents there are being split some to St. Stephens and elsewhere and the Indian mosque at the Indian Quarters is being opened up to take 9 of them. J.F. and C.C.R. go there.

We were to get one more in our room but we kicked hard against, N.D.M. and myself especially said our piece and eventually we won the day. The chap coming in was all right (Miller) but it was the urgency in which it was being done that got our goats as there is tons of room for many more than 9 in the mosque and the up point is that as Quarter Masters. for the block I require more room than other people as I usually have all sorts of things cluttering up my small corner.

The weather is still very cold and raw and difficult to keep warm with our inefficiency of clothing. However we will win through all right.

Short / Rose

Cold. E wind stronger, cloudy.

Last day of work.

Guards very snooty this am with people going to church. Rose & Richards were pushed around some. 

Much flickering of light to N. pm.

Day off.

Saw Mr Davis, our plays now set for 15,16 & 17th Feb.

Several people in trouble with guards; one was slapped, some had stones thrown at them (over all-clear signal misunderstanding).

Buddens came and played bridge. ((Mrs. Maggie Budden, and daughter Barbara Budden who was a stenographer colleague of mine in HK Govt.  Maggie's husband died in Shamshuipo pow camp, as did Barbara's brother Gilbert who was my age - as children Gilbert and I sat in adjoining desks at Garrison School.))

Visited Pat Cullinan (HK Police), he wants to put on trial scene from Merchant of Venice. ((Throughout internment Pat was hospitalised with TB))

Bungalow F, the only one of the three Bungalows at the Stanley Village end of the Camp to have been in continuous use up to today, is closed because of the black market activities that took place over the fence close by:

The unfortunate males who had been residents of this Bungalow for so long, were forced to forego their comparative comfort and privacy, and move into the odd places which were available. It was impossible to find adequate accommodation for all of them, and the Mosque, formerly used by the Indian warders, was taken over.

Source:

John Stericker, Captive Colony, 1945, Chapter Xiii, page 3