Pages tagged:

Short / Rose    

Drown / Jenner

Warmer. cloudy.

Parted with my ring at last. Sorry Marj darling.

Nos.1P24m raffle for dress.

With Steve pm.

Optimism mounting because of US progress down south.

I suddenly developed mild dysentery, through fish poisoning, and was taken to hospital by Clifton.  I was followed by more hospital staff victims - Dr. Barwell, Dr. Yaroogsky-Erooga, Mr. E. Hopkinson, Bill Ream.

In Shamshuipo telephone engineer Les Fisher hears from two friends:

I got a letter from Bert and Win Cox from Stanley. They are lucky, having an amah's room to themselves, and are also getting food from their garden like we are.

Source:

Les Fisher, I Will Remember, 1996, 109

Fine & warm but clouded over pm.

Food carrying, rice grinding, wood chopping & cleaning.

Bit of sunbathing aft.

Choir practice 6.30pm.

Saw Steve after.

Except for mythical report of “glorious last stand” of garrisons of the last two Islands lost there is no news of the Southern Regions today.

Fine.

German lesson aft.

Many rumours going around re increase of rice ration, repatriation & Churchill’s speech.

Choir practice 5-6pm.

Harmonium a nuisance.

Saw Steve pm.

Thomson voted chairman. ((There were several men surnamed Thomson, so I don't know which one this was.))

Y1 to Cond [?] fund.

Elizabeth Tai writes to Hilda Selwyn-Clarke in Bungalow D:

Dear Hilda,

You will be grieved to learn that Rose and Koh passed away December first. We are living at Kennedy Terrace, not so nice, but convenient for auntie who has to get up every morning at five and deliver her food by seven thirty. We think of you and Mary and love you.

Elizabeth Tai

Source:

Selwyn-Clarke Papers, Box 1, File 1, Item 71, Weston Library Oxford

I left hospital on 4th March.

Mabel going about on crutches with heel in plaster.   Once heel was out of plaster, they put wrist in plaster.

'A Bill of Divorcement' put on by Bill Colledge, very well done, with Norah Witchell, Nina Valentine (Dr's wife), R. Hughes.

Ground nearly all the bread rice & all the beans myself.

Steve got me syrup.

Fine & warm aft.

Saw Steve pm. Paper news keeps us optimistic. 

Canteen prices to be greatly increased. Gimson has asked for bigger allwce in consequence.

Canteen prices becoming impossible, soap from ⅓ bar Y1-18 to ¼ bar Y2-38. Rubber shoes originally 50cts now Y21, tea & wong tong up too. Sure indication of Jap conditions home & away.

German lesson.

My brain is pretty poor lately.

Food carrying.

Fine day.

With Steve pm.

Watered garden.

Japs at plane practice as usual.

George Wright-Nooth's diary records eloquently what's probably the dominant feeling of 1944:

Hunger is like a ghost that can find no peace...It is always there, a perpetual groaning in one's stomach...It pervades every thought; it sets you dreaming of steaks...you must fight with your all your will power against these dreams....or they will become your master. It is a hard fight that only those who have been really hungry can understand.

Source:

((Lt. Kerr has been hiding in a “Rock Cave” near Ma On Shan since February 21, 1944…))

Fine.

Some gun action 10.30am & much conjecture as to what it was all about.

Clouded over aft.

Ground nearly all bread rice again. Ground rice for Steve. Saw his new daughter for the first time.

Helped Steve in garden pm.

9yrs in Prison Dept. today. £300 salary.

Issue peanut butter

Jenner 

((After two weeks in the Rock Cave, Lt. Kerr has been moved around Three Fathoms Cove and hidden in a house.))

Fine, warm.

Quiet day. No proper news.

One sovereign worth 650Y in town.

With Steve pm fixing black-out so that M can feed baby.

4pkts cigs & 2 matches issued Y1-18.

Hungry as usual.

Richards / Johnston    

Drown ((sp?)) / Jenner

((The guerrillas have moved Lt Kerr to the Sai Kung Peninsula and are hiding him in a “grass house”.))

I awoke into a more restful world.  The sun was sending dozens of bright searchlights through the crevices in the bamboo matting walls, the air was warm and springlike…Looking out, I could see several people tranquilly working in the rice fields, a few clustered houses, and scattered cows, grazing on the sparse hillside.  All very rural, all very quiet…

Fine.

Ground bread rice.

Tea & cake at Steves aft.

Anti-Cholera injection.

With Steve pm.

(US paratroops land in Canton. Battle in Formosa Channel. Kwanchowwan [?] re-captured “Lion & Temerre” off coast of Japan gunning?)

Issue peanut oil

B.O.