Fine, cold.
Y20 issued.
No news.
Choir practice 6.30pm. With Steve after.
(Parade on Friday pm?)
Pages tagged:
Fine, warmer.
Big rush on Canteen.
German lesson.
Choir practice 5pm. With Steve after.
No news.
((Following text not dated:))
To Kowloon first time in two years. Place depressing.
Gharries like three mice hitched to old buses. Tricycles with boards narrow like mudguards for passengers to sit.
Cameron and Carnarvon Roads in mess.
Wongs' garden in Kowloon Tong pitifully neglected. They living upstairs mostly.
Cloudy & cold.
Apparently no more meat coming in. Had none for more than a week, fish for ever.
Pr.sunglasses from Welfare.
Choir practice 5.30. With Steve after.
Cloudy & cold.
Wrote music.
German lesson pm.
Lousy rations.
With Steve pm.
(Chinese merchants in town request Japs to declare HK an open city?)
Rome, Warsaw, Rabusl [?] captured? ((The rumours aren't true this time: Rome won't be captured until 5th June, and Warsaw until almost one year later))
New moon.
Sir Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, shocks the House of Commons with a statement on Japanese treatment of POWs and internees.
He talks about conditions in both the Northern and Southern areas, the first including Hong Kong:
His Majesty's Governemnt are reasonably satisfied that conditions generally in this area are tolerable, though...the scale on which food is provided is not adequate over long periods to maintain the health of prisoners. I should add, however, that conditions in Hong Kong appear to be growing worse.
Camp roll call parade postponed.
Better weather.
No flour issued by Japs today.
A revision of ration scheme to come.
Cigs issued.
Choir practice 5.30pm. With Steve after.
The flour ration is over, and Thomas Edgar and his fellow bakers make their last bread from flour - except for a Christmas and New Year loaf baked from four year old emergency supplies. From now on, there's even more rice in the internees' diet:
After flour finished in the Camp we made a substitute bread from rice flour (ground in the Camp on Stone Mills). Although not very good it was better than nothing at all.
Edgar also notes that meat deliveries come to an end at this time.
Note:
Under the headline BARBARIANS the (London) Daily Mirror publishes an account of Foreign Secretary Eden's January 28 speech on Japanese treatment of POWs and internees (page 5). Talking about Stanley, Shamshuipo and the other camps in the ‘northern’ area, Eden said:
Usual cleaning duties.
Fine, warm, cloudy.
Military have taken over rationing from F.As. which explains no flour or sugar. ((I think "F.As" means "Foreign Affairs", indicating the control of the camp is shifting from the Japanese civilian administration to their military.))
Didn’t see Steve tonight.
Concert in the Hall.
No news.
I am now quite well again, but since leaving the hospital last Sunday I have had a very rough time with diarrhoea and haemorrhoids (piles). I think I must have got the looseness there and I just had to keep my bed and unfortunately with the lavatory so far away (45 yards) it was a trial indeed to get there in time sometimes.
(B.C.C. bulletin)
Dow / Brown
New M.Q fuel boiler in commission.
Drown / Jenner
Colder, cloudy.
Detailed for “lunatic guard” today. ((He will be looking after A. Frain - see tomorrow's diary entry.))
New order re no light till 7.30AM enforced today in A.1, 2 & 3.
The hunger bogey appearing more & more.
With Steve pm.
Due to having a reserve of flour we got half bread ration. Most blocks made rice biscuits in lieu of bread. Poor substitute for bread.
Denis Anthony Clarke was born (the 2nd to that family in camp, the first died.)
((Other births about this time: Eunice Jean Nance (American); Christine Stevens; Barry Clarke Tanner.))
Update: It's now known that Camidge and probably Leiper were arrested on February 6. I'll leave this entry here until I've established exact dates for the arrests of Foy and Cruickshank.
Birth of Dennis Anthony Clarke to Goscomb Goddard Clarke and Mildred Clarke (née Liu).
The Clarkes' first son in camp, Anthony, had died after 12 days following a premature birth.
Mr Clarke attended the 2015 Stanley Camp Reunion orgainsed by Geoffrey Emerson.
To Mrs. Clarke, a son.
The old and the new years have gone and come; Christmas has come and gone and so has ‘Laburnum Grove’ and I am very much behind with my diary.
We had another air raid on Sunday 23rd Jan and a rumour went round that a Japanese cruiser in the harbour had been hit. Japanese officials from the camp and prison are supposed to have gone to town to attend the funeral ceremony of some Naval officers who were killed.