Food? came up, method of paying for extras supplied etc. Internees with frozen credits have volunteered to pay.
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Volunteer R. E. Stott is sent from Tweed Bay Hospital in Stanley to St. Paul's Hospital ('the French Hospital') in Causeway Bay where the better food provided is expected to speed his recovery from a ruptured duodenal ulcer.
He is planning an escape:
Quiet day., no news no rumours. Food not so good again. Sugar $1 per lb. pre-war 65cts for 5lb. Chinese tobacco $2 per pkt. was 20cts.
Colder.
Dearest. It is now 20/2/42 and I haven't written for nearly a week - but what is there to write about? We have all sorts of troubles here but they will be all over by the time this reaches you so it seems useless to mention them - they are mainly about food. We had hoped to get a parcel today - I wrote at least 10 days ago asking one of the Inspectors to send me in some things - I hear they are now coming - but not today! Macleod and Valentine and most of the Inspe
Fried fish today - lovely.
Glasses gone for re-framing ((hopefully sent in to town - the bridge across the nose broke during the war, and since then the lenses were tied on to the frames of an old pair of sunglasses.))
At another Extraordinary Meeting called because of the 'Cheng crisis', the Temporary Committee hears a letter from Selwyn-Clarke to French banker Paul de Roux - the idea of a committee in town that will raise money to carry out relief work is eventually to give birth to the Informal Welfare Committee.
Source:
John Stericker, Captive Colony, 1945, Chapter IV, page 17
Twenty-five elderly internees from Stanley admitted to the French Hospital in Causeway Bay.
Cold & drizzly. Stood 3hrs for 1lb tin of jam $1.
Fried ham and spotted dick. Olive and I ate the tin of pork and beans tonight. Awkward without glasses.
Today is George Washington's birthday. The Japanese have forbidden the celebration of patriotic holidays so the Maryknoll Fathers set up an entertainment programme featuring G. Washing Town. Edward Gingle supplies a large tub of real coffee, baskets of doughnuts and a sack of popcorn.
Source:
Daniel S. Levy, Two-Gun Cohen: A Biography , Kindle Edition, Location 5475
Alton / Sewell
Yesterday evening we went to the Police Concert which was held in the hall at St Stephens College (as are most concerts). It really was very good indeed and relied very little on community singing, as most previous concerts have done. There was a Prison Inspector who had rescued all his conjuring apparatus (from $800 to $1000 worth (pdv£2,800) from the prison and gave quite a good show. The Balalaika Singers, a group of about 15 White Russians, sang Russian folk songs. The interned Russians must have become naturalised British; 3 of them were in the Police Force.
Rice ration increased from 8 to 11ozs per day. Very good p.m. meal. Ample rice, cabbage & a tall tin of salmon between four.
Heard that we had captured Drusseldorf (sic) & that the Nazi leaders had fled to Sweden. (I pray it is true Marj dearest)
Curried fish.
Washed hair ((no hot water and no shampoo)). Awkward without glasses.
Peaches from canteen in evening.
The Maryknoll Sisters finally move from temporary quarters to the American Block. They now have three rooms on the ground floor and one room on the third of Block A-3.
Rice ration reduced again. The Dutch are back in Holland? Finer but damp.
The families in the United Kingdom have had no official news of the fate of their loved ones in Hong Kong, but worrying rumours have been cicrculating and today Sir Percy Harris, the Liberal member for Bethnal Green, South-West, brings them to the House of Commons:
New kitchen staff (work every 3 days)
Russia declares war on Japan?
Received extra bread ration.