X Only direct trading with camp guards &/or China Supervisors: ((shorthand)) - HEC is withheld"
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Fine.
Some plane activity.
Meetings am & pm re letters of apology for trading. People concerned much concerned as to what to do about it. Gimson wrote pm to Hattori explaining all details & apologizing for the whole. Developments awaited.
Rec. oil, tea, sugar, & curry powder.
Repaired grinder.
Steve to practice pm.
Pui cha [? cup tea in phonetic Cantonese?] before 8pm.
Ground rice for congee.
Roll-call 2pm
(Rome fallen?)
about 80 persons went up hill
very heavy rainstorm
Sudden roll call 9pm & lights out
Pearson
Overcast, rained all day, some of the heaviest showers this year.
Ground rice for congee.
Investigation of “Traders” began. The Japs are going to be very thorough by today’s showing.
Baking oven under repair, congee pm.
Cassino evacuated by Germans. 17th inst.
Saw Steve pm.
4 Pkts. cigs issued.
Early roll-call, lights out 9.30pm.
On Thursday I received three glorious letters from you dated 22/11/42, 8/3/43 and 1/4/43 and the latter is the most recent of the letters from you I have received. I am very grateful to you Dearest for the faithfulness and goodness of your dear self for I know by the dates of the letters I have received that you have written to me every week and tho' they take a long time to reach here nevertheless they are very precious and have been joyfully received.
Sandbach / Myhill
Drown
Heavy rain storms early am cleared up during the day.
Ground rice for congee.
C.S. thinks we’ll be relieved during the year sometime.
With Steve pm.
Quiet day, no news.
Pay tomorrow?
Death - Mrs Ethel Kate Wilmer (63)
Rotten weather, no news.
Ground rice & chopped wood.
With Steve pm.
Hattori expected but didn’t arrive.
(Rome fell 17th? Hainan in US hands?)
Issue of toothpowder, toothbrush, toilet paper
Cheape "13 wonders" at Mah Jongg. ((Not sure if he's referring to June or George Cheape))
((Following text not dated:))
Walking to town great strain particularly wet weather. Thinking moving Central. Depressing see neighbours all pushing out one by one, leaving us.
Charlie Suen going Macao. Says costs him Y4,000 monthly to live. He eight kids. We five, but our living very poor, cost under Y1,500. Bill Shea was thinking of going. Now says changed mind. Sister Rose Peters by time got to Macao spent enough for eight months' chow. Also things dear there, crowded and unhealthy.
Better day.
Windy.
Ground rice.
Poor rations 82% sprats 18% bigger but most of it rotten & condemned.
1 sheet toilet paper & a mouldy toothbrush issued.
With Steve pm.
No news.
Paper fairly good between the lines.
New Moon.
Almost three weeks after it became known in Stanley, the (London) Daily Mail publishes an article based on an interview with Sir Arthur Blackburn. It is an upbeat but largely accurate account of life in the camp that must have gone some way to ease the minds of relatives distressed by the 1942 reports of atrocities in Hong Kong:
Stanley Camp has been a triumph for the internees. The 3,000 people - 2,600 British, the rest American and Dutch - have made it into a well-governed town....
Fine.
Ground rice, chopped wood, sweat plenty.
Made Steve a mute for his ‘cello.
Poor rations, squid or cuttlefish pm.
With Steve pm.
No news or rumours. When will it end we wonder.
Issue of Y10 (not for people getting money from town)
Just before Christmas the camp, as a whole, was feeling very dispirited and mouldy. We had been led to believe that the repatriation of invalids, women and children would take place either in November or December, but the end of Dec arrived and still nothing had materialised. On Empire Day 1943 we were first told of the repatriation of women and children from this camp. It is now exactly one year and two days since the date of that announcement and still there is no sign of it materialising!