The weather has now improved and is very warm and sunny. J.L. Anderson had a letter from his wife and he was very bucked with it. Mrs A. mentions you in her letter and says you are all right and well and at the time of writing which was a year ago you were all now reconciled to the state of affairs and not nearly so worried as you had been previously.
Pages tagged:
Very heavy rain
Police officer Harold Matches writes home:
Dear Dad,
Mail is coming into Camp every day but I have not received any. How are you keeping? You and mother are always in my thoughts...I am keeping very fit and doing a lot of swimming.
Thomas Edgar has been a little luckier:
Dear Mum and All,
Rain all day
((Following text not dated:))
End of month Arthur Woo out. Told hold tongue. Condition of release anyone who asks questions to be reported. Dorothy Lee out and several others. Apparently Scamp's case closed. Henry Ahwee ((stock broker)) tells Fred tell me keep away. He being investigated. All brokers being gone over.
Rain & wind all day.
((G))
This month did Chinese & plodded away at German. Swimming helped too.
((G))
"Kenya" (Willcocks) ((J L Willcocks had likely given a talk about Kenya, as he'd been Assistant Commissioner there.))
Roll call 9.20. L.O. 10 pm.
Issue of 5 pkts. M.B. cigs
Rain
Wedding - Robert John Minnitt and Peggy Christine Sharp (AP. Rose)
Since writing about the bracelet, Y has sold her lovely Chinese brocade housecoat for MY30 for the purpose of buying me as many tins of bully beef as possible from the canteen. Maudie says she has written to Capt. Min to ask him to send me Y20 per month if possible, which is most awfully kind of her. So it looks as though I should manage to survive if all these things materialise.
Robert John Minnitt, third assistant colonial secretary with the Hong Kong Colonial Secretariat, marries Peggy Christine Sharp, a stenographer.
Source:
Greg Leck, Captives of Empire, 2006, 639
This is a day I have been looking forward to since the first letters commenced coming into the camp for when I was down at the ration place this forenoon and whilst working on the ration figures Andy (W.J.Anderson) handed me a letter from you. Oh Boy what a thrill I got.
I got a p.c. from Edith today dated 17/7/42! - the only additional news it gave me was that Alice is home too. I have just broken the nib of my fountain pen and when you break anything here that's the end! - there is no chance of getting anything mended. So I'll shut up for the present. B.
Captain William Roy Worrall, a master mariner, marries Mrs. Raquel Bonner. The bride, whose husband was killed during the hostilities, has two children also in Camp.
Source:
Greg Leck, Captives of Empire, 2006, 618
Franklin Gimson confides to his diary that the camp 'abounds with rumours on the question of repatriation'. Many of them are said to emanate from Japanese headquarters and seem to him have the 'marks of veracity' - although he will soon find they are all false. But he's worried about the apparent leakage of information, especially because there are known to be internees who will pass on information to the Japanese.
Classical concert (AT. Lay, Bateman, Hunter, C. Brown (c), N. Reynolds, G. Stopani Thomson, Sheila Mackinlay, Robin ((sp?)) Summers, Topsy ((sp?)) Mann, D. Dodwell, J. Critchett)