Everything tagged "Book" | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Everything tagged "Book"

Transport to Another World: HMS Tamar and the Sinews of Empire

The book places the story of HMS Tamar into the larger pictures of the expansion and decline of the British Empire and, in the post-war period, of the after effects of that empire, especially in the post-colonial era. It also places the Tamar in the context of a unique and little studied, 50-year experiment in which the Royal Navy designed and operated troopships as commissioned warships, and developed early systems of amphibious warfare that were not subsequently built upon.

It Won’t Be Long Now: The Diary of a Hong Kong Prisoner of War

Japan marched into Hong Kong at the outbreak of the Pacific War on December 8, 1941. On the same day, Graham Heywood was captured by the invading Japanese near the border while carrying out duties for the Royal Observatory. He was held at various places in the New Territories before being transported to the military Prisoner-of-War camp in Sham Shui Po, Kowloon. The Japanese refused to allow Heywood and his colleague Leonard Starbuck to join the civilians at the Stanley internment camp.

My Beautiful Island

Subtitle: "From England to New Zealand via Hong Kong and a War".

Featuring first-hand accounts of -

- Flying from England to Hong Kong in 1938 by Imperial Airways flying boat in 6 days,

- Working for Cyril (Ginger) Rogers of the Chinese Currency Stabilisation Fund,

- Expatriate life in Hong Kong 1938 - 1941 including yachting, climbing, parties,

Tales from The Tiger's Den - Foreigners in The Far East 1920-2020

The spectrum of Tiger's Den is immense: chronologically, geographically, and experientially. From mercenaries, misfits and missionaries, to penniless panhandlers and ambitious ambassadors. A 100-year period full of seismic shifts as Asia went from colonial to post-colonial to being the epicentre of the 21st Century.

Crime, Justice and Punishment in Colonial Hong Kong

Way back in January 2013, I sent out a newsletter titled: Please help - looking for old photos of the Central Police Station compound. The photos were for a new book, and I smile now to see I wrote, "The finished books won't start appearing until next year". The project took much longer than that, and at times I wondered if we'd ever see the book in print. Over seven years later I'm happy to see that the book has just been published:

Front cover

 

The book documents the history of the Central Police Station, Central Magistracy, and Victoria Gaol. My job was to track down the pictures to illustrate it.

 

Pictures

May Holdsworth, leader of the project, was clear from the start that the book would have pictures throughout, not just a few pages of photos in the middle as an afterthought. May also encouraged me to find as much colour as possible, as old photos and engravings tend to be in black and white, which can get a bit monotonous.

We ended up with a collection of over 1,000 candidates, but even after narrowing them down the book still has over 200 pictures. That's a lot of pictures - open the book at random, and you'll almost always see at least one - and many of them are published for the first time. Here are some examples, grouped by their source.

 

Public Archives and Collections

Archives are the obvious place to look for old pictures, and the UK's National Archives (UKNA) are always a rich source of material about Hong Kong's history. The UKNA is also a joy to visit, as despite the enormous size of their collection, whatever you order is soon delivered for viewing.

This document was the first surprise from the UKNA. It shows

A Small Band Of Men - An Englishman's Adventures in Hong Kong's Marine Police

Les Bird joined the Hong Kong Marine Police in 1976 during a period of rapid change in one of the British Empire’s few remaining colonies, and witnessed the last years of the hard-working, hard-drinking colonial policemen handing out rough justice in the World of Suzie Wong.

Battle for Hong Kong December 1941

Battle for Hong Kong December 1941 is a new book by Philip Cracknell which was published by Amberley Publishing in July 2019. It is a research-driven narrative describing exactly what happened, and where it happened, during the short but brutal Battle for Hong Kong. The author uses source material some of which has not been published before. The book is currently available in hardback form. It contains 33 sketch maps and 37 photographs. It is available in bookshops in Hong Kong including Bookazine and Kelly & Walsh.

The Hong Kong Letters

The Hong Kong Letters by Gill Shaddick is published by Australian Scholarly Press under their Arcadia imprint. (ISBN 978-1-925801-63-7) and is available through booksellers or at online book stores. Gill lived in Hong Kong for two years in the late sixties.
www.gillshaddick.com

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