No sleep, waiting.
Fine, hot, light E wind.
Felt lousy this morning, tired & washed out.
x G before going to church. G to town with Mrs Ballean, back at 3.30pm.
Dried pears, peaches, 8oz bread & 2oz Navy cocoa issued.
Started packing.
Supper with G & V. On roof till midnt ⨳
To St Joseph's, plus Mum and Olive. Very few people there. Revolver shots nearby while in church.
To work, busy; Megarry said I could have afternoon off, so collected Mum and Olive, we had tiffin at Olive's hotel.
Then Mum and I trammed to Happy Valley (but had to walk from Tin Lok Lane). There's an overgrown shelter/pillbox beside ARP School & HQ (my old office.) ((Afraid I can't remember anything more about the overgrown 'shelter' or 'pillbox' beside the ARP School (at one time post war it was Harcourt Health Centre). Since you don't have any record of a pill box in that area, perhaps it was a shelter of some sort.))
Went to No. 19 Gap Road, our prewar flat. Stairs in very bad state, no wood on them. No door on our flat, the floors completely bare - and empty. the only recognizable thing was a dead plant lying on verandah, minus pot.
Some of next door's front windows were dangling into our verandah, a bomb must have caught that flat.
In the bedrooms there were odds and ends of broken glass; a few books in Chinese writing, and 2 lampshades one of which we think was ours. No woodwork of any kind - no partition no cupboard door no lavatory, but the bath was there; the remains of the lav. cistern was lying in our bedroom (Mabel's and mine). Many bricks lying in bathroom. There was nothing to show that Mum, Olive, Mabel and I had once lived in that flat.
A well-spoken Indian who was a sort of caretaker living downstairs, came up and very pleasant.
Mum & I went to cemetery, very overgrown but undamaged except for the top area where parts of some crosses are buried in rubble - either a landslide or else been blasted. Dad's grave all right. We couldn't find Mr Cole's grave (George Cole of Naval Yard, killed during the fighting at Aberdeen), the area where it might have been was very much overgrown.
We trammed to Asia Co., had icecream and cider, I left Mum at hotel (for bus) and returned to office... where Eileen Grant and husband (!) rolled up for registration of their marriage, which had just taken place at Wah Yan College Chapel. She looked very lovely, with a perm, large picture hat, and powder blue georgette dress, with corsage. Klaus and Lundy (friends of Grant family), and Eileen's sister Kay and mother Mrs Grant were in attendance.
Peggy, Tony and I had lemonade at Canadian Cafe; one of the relieving forces there asked Tony if he was from Stanley, did he know J. Joyce (which we did); it transpired that he was a young brother of J.J., on the 'San Feugh', been here 5 days but hadn't yet got in contact with him.
Mrs M. Budden found photographs in her pre-war flat.
T. J. J. Fenwick, who escaped from Hong Kong in October 1942 with the help of the British Army Aid Group, arrives back in the colony. He's been sent by the Chief Manager of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Arthur Morse, to report on the situation there.
The battle of ideas going on during the re-occupation is reflected on the front page of this morning's South China Morning Post and Hong Kong Telegraph. An editorial headed 'The New Hong Kong' begins:
The upheaval through which humanity has lately passed shook our civilization to its foundation and brought crashing to the ground a great many outworn ideas. The brave new world is about to be built. It is most necessary that the people of Hongkong, whose minds have always been more or less isolated, insular and insulated, should realise fully that the old order has gone and can never return.
To re-inforce this point, one of the headlines reads:
NO DISCRIMINATION
Relieving Forces Caring For All Communities
Official Assurance
Whether this is happening is a matter of debate; but the fact that such assurances are given at all has its own signifance.
The first service since liberation is held in St John's Cathedral.
Sources:
Fenwick: Maurice Collis, Wayfoong, 1965, 234
Service: http://www.stjohnscathedral.org.hk/history.html
Note:
See also September 16, 1945