70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

((Peter Pan was performed at St Stephens during Aug. 1944. Eric MacNider mentions its performance in his diary entries for August 11th & 12th.))
 
Sheila Haynes, Jacquie Anderson and myself produced this play. Norah Witchell also helped. Eileen Grant put the show's songs to music. Pauline Beck played piano accompaniments to the dances which were arranged by Peggy Barton and my sister Mabel.

The cast:
    
    PETER - Mavis Thirlwell (13)
    WENDY - Ruth Sewell (aged 11)
    JOHN - Malcolm Kerr (11)
    MICHAEL - Gloria Mejia (7) alternating with Anne de Broekert (7 - Dutch)
    NANA - Ingeborg Warild (14 - Norwegian)
    MRS DARLING - Anneke Offenberg (15 - Dutch) & Kristine Thoresen (14 - Norwegian)
    MR DARLING - George Cullen (18)
    TINKERBELL - Eileen Hill (10)
    TIGER LILY - Dawn Rose (12 - her mother died in camp, leaving Dawn and younger brother Gerald on their own, as their father was a POW in Kowloon camp.  Mrs. H. Aitken thereafter looked after Dawn and Gerald until the end of the war.)    
    CAPTAIN HOOK - Georges de Vleeschouwer (13 - Belgian)
    CROCODILE - Pauline Hill (13)

LOST BOYS:-
    SLIGHTLY - Pauline Pemble (12)
    TWIN 1 - Dolores Bonner (11)
    TWIN 2 - Delia Mejia (12)
    CURLY - Moira Cameron (11 - whose mother died in camp)
    NIBS - Joan Eager (9);
    TOOTLES - Tinneke Offenberg (11 - Dutch).
    
PIRATES -
    Brian Clark (11 - Australian)
    Pat Corrigan (12)
    Billy Bethell (15)
    Eddie Aitken (13) ((Eddie Aitken is the son of Mrs Aitken who mothered the Rose children))
    plus some others.

REDSKINS -
    Billy Seraphina (11)
    Denis Roe (9)
    and others.
    
FAIRIES -
    Jacqueline Barton (10)
    Rosemary Barton (9)
    Sally Leighton (5)
    Mavis Hamson (8)
    Cynthia Eager (8)
    Terry Simpson (6)
    Rose Twidale (7)
    Daisy Cullen (8)
    Flossie James (7)
    Matilda Hardoon (8).

The production assistants:-
    R. E. Butler (lighting;  an engineer who did the lights for most Stanley shows)
    Richard Cloake (Dick); T. A. Concannon.
    Harold Bidwell, Clifton Large, George Anderson, Quentin MacFayden.  (These trained the Redskins and the Pirates.)

The biggest hit of Peter Pan was the crocodile (Pauline Hill) who slithered across the stage in an amazingly realistic garment made by one Teddy Harris.

((I was so pleased to meet up with Ruth Sewell (Wendy), Pauline Pemble,  Flossie James and Tinneke Offenberg (all 3 Lost Boys) at Stanley Reunion in UK in 1997; Eddie Aitken has visited me several times in recent years.. I have also met up with Dawn Rose (Tiger Lily), and Rosemary Barton, one of the fairies. At VJ Celebration in London 2015 quite by chance I bumped into another fairy, Daisy Cullen – now known as  Barbara –  who remembered dancing in 'Peter Pan', we had a wonderful chat.

Another fairy was Mavis Hamson, whose  daughter Allana Corbin  has written a most interesting and forthright  book about life in Stanley of her mother, uncle, grandparents, great-grandmother and aunt – 'Prisoners of the East', ISBN 0 7329 1110 9, published by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited.))