Diary pages from this date
8.30am. Slept beautifully, delicious breakfast of bacon and egg and porridge.
10.30pm. Mabel and Clifton are married!
Olive, Nan and I went to town to try to find whereabouts of everyone, and met Dr. and Mrs. Valentine (from Smiter) who said Clifton was on board 'Empress of Australia' in the harbour. Later, I saw Mabel and Clifton on the other side of the road, swinging along as if walking on air, arms entwined. We rushed over to them. 'Hey, we're married!' Mabel announced - they had been married this morning, in cabin on ship, by Father Green, the padre who was in Shamshuipo; Clifton in shorts and shirt, Mabel in shorts and blouse, with wedding ring made in camp out of a ten cent coin.
Mabel has jumped ship, and as Mrs. C. T. Large, will travel with Clifton, who was in an absolute daze, I don't think he even realised we were there. They went in to Echelon Barracks and I haven't seen them since, though I met Mrs Greenwood who said she saw Mabel after the Red Cross had fitted her out and she looked fine. I'm terribly happy for them, I'm sure they were made for each other ((They had over 60 years together. Clifton died in 2006, Mabel is now 93.))
Olive and I, Nan Grady and Van (H. Vanthall), Elliott (Mr. M. E. Purves) and a few others hired a rowing boat to take us out to the Empress. We weren't allowed on board at first as none of us had any passes. Eventually, Mr. W. J. Carrie - an HK official at the gangway - arranged things. Mum appeared, so smart in a newish dress, she is fatter.
Some of our pows from Japan are on board, others got off at Manila to go to Rest Camp there. News that Arthur (Alsey) is alive and well, and sent his regards. Topper (S. Brown, Olive's fiance) died of dysentery in Japan in 1944. About 3,000 on board.
I'm trying to get berth on Empress in Mabel's place.
East Asia's been swept by a tidal wave of emotion since the Japanese surrender, and it's not over yet. Today sees a reunion in circumstances that would be considered improbable in a Hollywood film.
Mrs. 'Topsy' Man served as a nurse at the temporary hospital in the University during the hostilities. Her husband, Captain C. M. M. Man, led a band of soldiers from the Middlesex which, with the help of Canadians and Indians detached from their regiments, mounted a last ditch defence of Leighton Hill on the Japanese approach to Victoria and then fought building-by-building against the advance through Wanchai. Immediately after the surrender, he persuaded his Medical Officer to issue him with a false 'casualty' certficate so he could travel in a Red Cross ambulance to say goodbye to his wife.
Mrs. Man has not seen her husband since. She's spent the war in Stanley, while he was one of the POWs sent to work in Japan. Today she's in a hotel room in Colombo with a fellow nurse, and they're about to raise a tooth glass to their lips to drink a toast to her fifth wedding anniversary, when her husband, who unknown to her had arrived on the Empress of Australia, walks through the door.
Source:
Stanley/Japan work: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030002196
Reunion: Oliver Lindsay, The Lasting Honour, 1980, 137-138
My Wedding Day.
When I awoke on my Wedding Day in 1945, I was on board the Empress of Australia, in Colombo Harbour, and thought my fiance was miles away, in Hong Kong.
In 1941 I was a Prisoner of War in Stanley Civilian Internment Camp in Hong Kong and there I met Clifton.
By 1944 we considered ourselves engaged, and planned a celebration. Clifton sold a broken watch to a Japanese Guard. the gold case being worth a few Yen. With this he bought a piece of fatty bacon, 2 eggs and 6 spring onions. I cooked these in an IXL jam tin over a fire ... using a few pieces of parquet flooring from the floor in the room I shared with my Mother, two sisters and two other women.
When the end of the war came in August 1945, several hundred of us – including my Mother and me – boarded the Canadian Pacific liner. the Empress of Australia on September 10th.
Clifton, being Canadian, was expecting to be repatriated to Canada with his parents. My two sisters expected to follow on another ship.
The Empress sailed the next morning, arriving in Singapore a few days later. We sat in the harbour for 10 days while those in charge decided where we would go. Eventually off we went to the Phillipines – and there we sat for several days.
All around us in Manila Bay were the wrecks of sunken ships, and The Empress was tied up to the mast of one of these.
Finally we set off for Colombo, Ceylon. We arrived there on October 2nd.
I was sitting on the deck when someone tapped my shoulder...and there was Clifton.
He had arrived in Colombo on an Aircraft Carrier the previous day and was billeted nearby to await a ship going to Canada. Clifton’s Mother and Father, and my two sisters also came on the Aircraft Carrier.
Having been separated once we decided to see if we could get married on the ship, and Clifton went off to see what he could do.
I found my Mother and told her what we planned to do. She was in the cabin we shared with 8 other women. The Steward in charge had told us that we were in King George VIs cabin, used by him when he and Queen Elizabeth travelled to Canada shortly before the war started. It was quite a nice cabin, but I’m sure it didn’t have 10 bunks in it when the King used it. When I wallowed in the bathtub I used to think of the King doing the same thing.
I should describe my Wedding Clothes here: I wore a blouse made from my Mother’s petticoat....a pair of blue shorts made from a piece of curtain given to me by a friend on my 21st birthday...a bra I made from Clifton’s Scout Scarf, one half blue and one half yellow, and a pair of underpants made from a mosquito net...and no shoes. Clifton wore shorts and shirt, and a pair of sandals I made him, using rubber from an old car tyre for the soles.
A woman in the cabin fetched her husband and they were witnesses. The ring we used was made by Clifton...a Hong Kong 10 cent piece with the centre drilled out and filed.
After the short ceremony the Priest wrote out a Certificate on a scrap of paper. We said goodbye to my Mother and left the Ship.
And that is how we came to be married in King George VI’s bedroom on board the Empress of Australia in 1945, with a 10c Wedding Ring.