Mum's Diaries

As children growing up in England in the 1950’s and 60’s, my sister Antonia and I were aware totally unaware that Mum had a very different history to other mothers. There were the occasional visits to Chinese restaurants when she would impress us by breaking out in Cantonese, there were her slightly strange behaviours related to food such as hoarding tinned goods and praising us for eating every last grain of rice from our plates. Then came a wonderful voyage to Hong Kong in 1962 aboard the P&O ship Chusan, and getting to know Mum’s Hong Kong relatives. 

Our Dad’s war time activities as a navigator in the RAF’s Pathfinder Force were celebrated every Remembrance Day as we watched him marching down Whitehall wearing his medals. Our Mum’s wartime experiences remained a complete unknown - although we were vaguely aware that at some point our Dad galloped in on his white horse and rescued her from dark happenings.

When my mother passed away in 2015, amongst her belongings were a disorganized pile of papers that on closer inspection turned out to be war time diary entries.  These required a lot of work to decipher and organize by my sister and I - but we were rewarded with startling insights into what it must have been like for a young Eurasian woman trying to survive the Japanese invasion and occupation of Hong Kong.

Many questions remain unanswered, and I’m hoping that those reading on Gwulo might help. For example there are no diary entries for shortly after the invasion when my mother and Paddy Pasco were volunteering as nurses, and what was the cause of Mum’s closest friend, Eileen Van Bergen’s death? Here’s hoping readers will be able to correct inaccuracies and fill in the spaces.

Jon Rollins,
Canmore, Canada 2025 

Jonathan Rollins - 2019 - Eighth (final!) Draft