Lila Melitza Nozadze was the daughter of a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Imperial Russian Army. She was born on a train en route to Vladivostok as her mother and grandparents were fleeing Baku in 1917.
Forced to leave Russia by the communist victory, the family ended up running a restaurant in Shanghai, where Lila Melitza was educated at the English School. After a brief marriage to an British policeman, she met George Pio-Ulski at the St. George's Hotel in Shanghai, where he worked as a musician. After their marriage, the couple left Shanghai because of the unsettled military situation there, arriving in Hong Kong in 1938.
Mrs. Pio-Ulski was an accomplished pianist, and she and her husband sometimes performed piano duets that were broadcast on Hong Kong radio. A daughter was born in 1939.
As neutrals the family were not interned during the Japanese occupation. They shared the general hardships of those left 'in town', nevertheless Mrs. Pio-Ulski managed to get parcels of food and necessities into the Kowloon Prisoner of War Camps by throwing them over the barbed wire.
After the war she became manageress of the Linen Chest (later Paquerette in the Gloucester Building) on Chater Road.
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Name changes
My father changed his name to Parks after I was born as I think he thought having Pio-Ulski as a surname in a British colony was a bit of an anvil around our necks.
Mom was christened Melitza but hated it - she was always called Lyalya by her Russian friends so called herself Lila. She had Lila Melitza on her passports.