Fred Evans' photos: Army life in 1950s Hong Kong

Submitted by David on Sun, 06/28/2009 - 18:41

Fred arrived in Hong Kong in June 1957, stationed here with the 1st Royal Tank Regiment. He was based at Sek Kong throughout, sailing home again in October 1959. Below you can browse through several hundred of the photos he took during that time.

Fred is a family friend, who lives a few houses down the hill from my mum. She heads along there every week for Sunday lunch with him and his wife. One time he mentioned that he'd been out in Hong Kong with the army, and had some photos. The message was duly passed on to me, and so when I visited mum last year, we arranged for a time to go and see Fred and his photos.

I only expected to see a handful of photos, but instead out came two albums. Fred had been a keen amateur photographer, and had taken several hundred photos while he was in Hong Kong. Of course most are of his army life, but there are also plenty of photos of the countryside, local people, and visits into the city.

As he talked me through the album I took photos of his photos with my digital camera. You'll see that some came out better than others – when they look blurry it's my shaky hand that's the cause, not Fred's! He very kindly agreed to let me share his photos here.

Readers Moddsey, Raymond and Oldtimer have already done a great job of filling in the background information about what you can see in many of the photos. I hope you'll add further comments if you have any memories or information to share.

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