Camp women much upset by paper report of sinking of Lisbon Maru with loss of 900 HK prisoners of war. The report makes itself ridiculous in detail although perhaps the ship was lost with loss of life.
No news.
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Well the blood count is now ever so much better Haemoglobin 62% and count up to 2,900,000 - so I am really on the mend. I haven't got my proper injections yet either so when they come I'll soon shoot up to normal. No word about you yet and I worry all the time - I can't sleep much and so I think of you all and the appalling mess we have got into But will clear it all up some day. All my love B.
Not feeling so sure that our men are all right. Yet no good worrying. Mabel is taking it well.
Mrs. M. E. Blair died (in her fifties).
Dr Selwyn-Clarke came, gave us girls (in office) sweets between us.
Lilian Hope has gone to Shanghai and thence to Canada.
Death of Mabel Evelyn Blair, aged 58.
She was the wife of K. Blair and the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. T. Walker of Sydney.
Source:
Geoffrey Emerson, Hong Kong Internment, 1973, 271
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/92708028
Death of Mabel Evelyn Blair (58), wife of KG Blair
Mabel broke down and cried, so unsettling about the 'Lisbon Maru'. Today's notices are that Mr Yamashita is trying to find who was on board, survivors etc., and willl try to find out whereabouts of any one whose name we give in to C.S.O.
Mr. V. C. Seymour of the Fire Brigade and Mrs K. Seymour have a girl, Maureen Kathleen Seymour..
Sources:
China Mail, September 15, 1945, page 3
Stanley Roll
Churchill depicts short war. Lille bombed. 164 Ger. planes downed. Unrest in Germany. Russian news as for yesterday. Dr. Farr’s brother’s telegram intimates early meeting. Solomons & N.Guinea all ours.
((Following text not dated:))
Awful lot of dysentery, typhoid and dengue.
Reportedly 10,000 Japanese in Hongkong against 500 before the war.
Fish very dear. Small fish (fry) at $4. We live mostly on beans. Shocked to discover spent hundred dollars in four days.
To town for flour. Up five sen. North Point and Causeway Bay Eurasians refused rice because get flour. Complaint to Peter Sin who is in charge of rice rationing scheme. Says will fix.
Mabel allowed out ((of hospital)) for a walk in evening; she Olive and I scrambled round path up from hospital by Leprosarium, and sat on a stone while service was going on.
After choir practice I walked round with Marie Barton.
Better weather.
News very good.
Fed up tonight. Must try to think less of G.
((But that didn't work. From early November on, Jones mentions her each day. Sometimes simply "GX" or "GXX", other times a few words "With Gxx after 8PM. Quarry."
On 25th December, he wrote:
"Had G to supper. Nativity Play at St Stephens. Quarry GX. Lovely Xmas considering conditions."
But just the next day things take a turn for the worse:
Dr says Mabel has filled out nicely since she has been in hospital. She is being allowed to come to Elizabeth's playing tomorrow evening.
This evening Olive and I went to see Billie Gill and Brian.
Two bankers, T. J. J. Fenwick and J. A. D. Morrison, make their first contacts with British Army Aid Group agent Lo Hung Sui ('No. 64') at the Sun Wah Hotel where the HKSBC staff are living. They meet again a few hours later at a restaurant in Des Voeux Road. Today has been chosen because it is a Japanese holiday. Tomorrow they will begin their escape.
Source:
Frank H. H. King, The History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Volume 111, 1988, 617
Athletic sports on I.Q. ground
Impromptu concert, SS
Drown Heath
Mrs. Hess in Switz. asks Britn for sanctuary. We have new bullet-proof plane in action. All news good.
Mrs. St. searched re stolen ring. ((Not sure who 'Mrs. St.' was))
Better day.
The bankers T. J. J. Fenwick and J. A. D. Morrison begin their escape.
At 7.30 p.m. they leave the Sun Wah Hotel 'with a Hong Kong basket containing socks, shaving gear, a spare shirt and a quarter of a bottle of whisky and a bottle of Napoleon brandy'. At 7.45 they board a tram for Saukiwan, now accompanied by two Chinese agents of the BAAG. Opposite the Star Ferry a Japanese petty officer gets on.
Fenwick: