This frame in the 'round robin' trail of Roland Brooks follows on from:
1. Kowloon hospital (already uploaded - see Brooks family gallery)
2. Atlas plane scenes (already uploaded before - see Brooks family photo gallery)
3. the 3 Coastal village scenes just uploaded
4. next is the train scene (already uploaded)
5. This frame 48-06-16 and 2nd frame 48-08-11 of same place show several covered trucks all similar (maybe army?) in a Chinese town.
6. Following is a frame showing a small stone bridge
Next I will upload 3 more frames of what appears to be a border crossing.
Remember you can identify these frames in the film sequence by the timing on the left top corner.
Suziepie
Date picture taken
25 Feb 1948
Comments
trucks
If our assumption of your dad's round robin trip is correct (which I think it is), then this could be the Fanling and/or Sheung Shui area - which still has several PLA (formerly British) bases nearby. When the British were here there were actually several more military sites in the area which have subsequently been redeveloped. However, I'm still convinced that the stone bridge was in Tai Po - which means it should be earlier in the sequence, assuming everything is in the orrder your dad filmed it. I'm not aware of Tai Po being a major draw for the army but who knows...they could've just been stopping off for a moment for any reason.
Trucks in town and stone bridge
Thank you Phil, this is enlightening. My sequence of 'shots' is correct - and BTW there is no splicing.
From the Atlas plane at Kai Tak airport, Dad stopped to take "shots" of the coastal settlements (frames with tags 47-16-16 and 47-28-17) - now identified as Ma On Shan as seen from Tai Po Road, then Dad drove to the point where he stopped and "shot" the stone bridge (tag 47-48-11 - the "47" indicates minutes - so you can see how close the shots are).
After that he came to the town with the trucks (tags 48-06-16 and 48-08-11) - it would seem I was right to assume they were army. As you say, it could be Fanling or Sheung Shui. I'll upload another couple of frames of the trucks.
Then he came upon the Chinese women carrying baskets (tag 48-16-01) and what I thought could be a border crossing (tags 48-20-04 48-23-20 and 48-25-070. BUT It has been suggested that this could be an army barracks - I now think this is more likely given the year, the barricades and the Union Jack. It would be great if someone could identify barracks near this road.
Then Dad went through another town where they were operating a pump in a channel (49-10-06) where there was a footbridge over the channel (49-10-06). I'll upload another two frames of this town.
It was right after this that he stopped on the road to take a shot of the pagoda (49-24-23) and then the buffalo boys (49-31-00) - so you see how close all these shots were - within minutes of each other - and I repeat the film was not spliced. And finally Dad gets to what someone has identified as Castle Peak Bay where he takes a shot of a junk (50-14-09).
So - to sum up, it was definitely February 1948: the pagoda was there - the film verifies this - and that it had 6-7 levels. It was located en route somewhere between the army barracks, the nearby town and Castle Peak Bay. If it is not Tsui Sing Lau pagoda what was it? and how could it have disappeared?
There is no logical way Dad veered off to Shenzhen or thereabouts to "shoot" some distant pagoda and then suddenly revert back to the Tai Po/Castle Peak ring road. Besides which I have googled every pagoda I can find in the Shenzhen region and there is absolutely nothing resembling the shape of "my" pagoda..
Suziepie