70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

At present I am working with the construction gang (of which I am a member) cutting a pathway down a steep bank to a new refuse dump. The existing one is nearly full. Prior to that I had been helping to build division walls in the garage block to form compartments for an auxiliary bakery and wood store, a blacksmiths shop, a rice and flour store, a shoemakers store, a store room for the Americans and a sewing (or machining) room. These rooms are built up to a height of 5’ 0” with the concrete blocks and then the upper part is fenced off with wire netting supported by angle irons wedged between wall and ceiling (taken from one end of the tennis lawn in front of our block). The blocks are all set in mud. We managed to obtain about 5 x 90 lb bags of cement that the hospital did not require, and with the cement we finished off quite a number of jobs.

I completed the 3 additional stoves I had been building by myself in the kitchen: one 3’ 0” rice pan, which is used for broiling meat in joints or rolls, frying doughnuts and meat pasties occasionally etc; one copper boiler for boiling vegetables; and one hot plate on which they intended to fry chipatties, but which actually is never used and may be converted into another copper boiler. I am glad to say that these stoves work quite well, using less than half the amount of fuel that do the existing boilers which were built in the wash rooms (boiler rooms) of each of the flats here. These latter are very badly designed and at least half the heat must whistle up the flu.

After the stoves I helped complete a new sump and open drain from the kitchen. This was a highly skilled job! As we had only about 2” fall in about 12’ 0” of channel. The sump has three compartments: the first catches the solids - rice, cinders etc. - and has one extended side which is ramped so that a spade may be pushed down to clear the collected solids; the second has a tray that I made of fairly small wire mesh and this catches the floating refuse such as bits of cabbage leaves, chips of wood etc., so that the water that flows under the dividing tile between the second and third compartments is quite clear of solids. The sanitary gang clears out the sump each morning and it keeps it pretty free of flies.

I am also re-fixing the doors to the old kitchen stoves. They were first put in temporarily by the blacksmiths and hinged from the top. I have now cut up angle irons, bored holes in them to take the hinge pin and hinged the doors at the side. This is a better arrangement apart from the fact that the angle irons (I hope!) will prove a much firmer fixture than the former doors which were always falling out.

This is a laborious business and I reserve it for wet days! The blacksmiths have quite a business-like shop now. The Japanese sent in a much needed anvil and one of the police made an excellent forge with bellows; thus tools such as chisels, punches, metal drills etc. can be made. The difficulty is to get hard steel - the fairly thick spiral springs taken from some derelict motor vehicle found early on, near the camp has proved a useful source for some time, but these have now been used up.

There is a carpenter too who has managed to lay his hands on quite a selection of tools and now quite a lot of useful camp necessities are turned out from this shop: bread baking tins, frying pans, electric hot plates, tin mugs with riveted handles; jugs, kettles, saucepans etc. are soldered (a large quantity of solder having been taken from an old watering can that, fortunately, had evidently been mended in the days of plenty by a very extravagant and inexperienced amateur!). Furniture is mended; small tables, babies’ cots, wooden clogs etc. are made. We make our own nails by cutting up galvanized iron wire (from the fence round the tennis court and from dismembered barbed wire) and filing points.

I made my own staples for use in our clogs. Our hinged clogs are quite a success except that the canvas hinge is not strong enough and the wood is too soft. I have now a teak panel from the centre of the foot of our bed (I had to cut the foot off the bed in order to fit in our wooden framed wire mattress which was just too long for the bed) and from this I think I can make two more pairs and have the leather from the uppers of an old boot which will make a stronger hinge. Yvonne has made herself a pair of ballet shoes from some canvas with sacking on the sole. She has started ballet dancing now that the weather shows signs of cooling.

The small table I made some months ago has been doing some yeoman service. It really is quite extraordinary how men and women have turned to and manufactured things out of almost nothing. Yvonne spends much of her time dress-making and mending and washing. She has made a very smart sun suit (sun top and shorts) out of material she was given by the welfare committee and is at present making a shirt, shorts and jacket out of an evening dress that Mrs Dawes kindly gave her.

The days follow each other with pretty regular monotony and we shall be grateful for a change (for the better!). We arise at about 7:45 or 8:00 a.m. for breakfast. The orderly pair (Harold and Elsie, Tim and Isa and Yvonne and I) is responsible during the day for setting the table, getting the food and drinking water, washing up and sweeping out the room and hall. The orderly gets the tea for breakfast and also our ration of bread, which is given out at about 7:15 a.m. We have a 1 lb loaf between two people each day and as some loaves are a little larger than others we always draw for order of choice! It would save a lot of trouble if we drew in a rotating order, but it adds to the fun to draw a card, so we do this with great solemnity each morning. Sometimes we have some porridge (from our sour oats - it is a shame that all the oats from the canteen and in our $75 parcels was sour when it came in) but generally bread and jam and tea.

Yvonne and I bought as much jam as we could, when we could, as we all did, and with additions from our $75 parcels and parcels from Yvonne Ho we laid in quite a good store. We make a 12 oz tin last us 4 days - or one tin of marmalade (for breakfast) and two tins of jam last us 12 days. I have no doubt that as our stock gets low again, unless it is replenished, we shall have to make a tin last 5 days and then a week!

Some occupants of the flat wash before breakfast and some after. This is necessary because there are so many for the bathrooms and two sinks. I wash at a sink after breakfast and have my shower before lunch at 11:00 a.m. Yvonne has her bath or shower after breakfast. Then we make our beds, tidy up the room and go off to our various jobs.

Tim works in the Colonial Secretary’s Office; Harold saws and chops up logs for the kitchen; the girls do housework. I work from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and as it is fairly hard manual labour I get a workers ration tab which entitles me to an extra half ration at the evening meal. At 11:00 a.m. I come in for my bath, the orderlies queue up for the food and we have our lunch. The warning bell for the food queues goes at about 11:00 a.m, then the bells for the various blocks. We queue in a rotating order (the four blocks), our block is fourth one day, third the next, second next and first on the fourth day, and then repeat. This considerably cuts down the length of time for queueing. It takes about ten minutes now, where in the early days it took about ¾ hour.

These days our lunch consists of boiled rice and stew (about 3 desert spoons of minced meat and gravy) and sometimes a vegetable. We augment this quite often with some little fried onions that Maudie Min has kindly given us or some beans that Yvonne Ho has sent us. We have also bought some soy sauce which we sometimes use to change the flavour. After lunch Y and I indulge in the luxury of some black coffee and a cigarette. We bought 1 ½ lbs of coffee about 2 months ago and with careful use (re-boiling the grounds almost indefinitely!) we have made it last well. Some times we fry the community stew in curry powder which the community bought long ago. This was a very good buy, for though it does not make very good curry it certainly makes a welcome change now and again. These culinary efforts are carried out on two electric hot plates that the room possesses.