70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

My Wedding Day.

When I awoke on my Wedding Day in 1945, I was on board the Empress of Australia, in Colombo Harbour, and thought my fiance was miles away, in Hong Kong.

In 1941 I was a Prisoner of War in Stanley Civilian Internment Camp in Hong Kong and there I met Clifton.

By 1944 we considered ourselves engaged, and planned a celebration.  Clifton sold a broken watch to a Japanese Guard. the gold case being worth a few Yen. With this he bought a piece of fatty bacon, 2 eggs  and 6 spring onions.  I cooked these in an IXL jam tin over a fire ... using a few pieces of parquet flooring from the floor in the room I shared with my Mother, two sisters and two other women.

When the end of the war came in August 1945, several hundred of us – including my Mother and me – boarded the Canadian Pacific liner. the Empress of Australia on September 10th.

Clifton, being Canadian, was expecting to be repatriated to Canada with his parents.  My two sisters expected to follow on another ship.

The Empress sailed the next morning, arriving in Singapore a few days later.  We sat in the harbour for 10 days while those in charge decided where we would go. Eventually off we went to the Phillipines – and there we sat for several days.

All around us in Manila Bay were the wrecks of sunken ships, and The Empress was tied up to the mast of one of these.

Finally we set off for Colombo, Ceylon.  We arrived there on October 2nd.

I was sitting on the deck when someone tapped my shoulder...and there was Clifton.

He had arrived in Colombo on an Aircraft Carrier the previous day and was billeted nearby to await a ship going to Canada. Clifton’s Mother and Father, and my two sisters also came on the Aircraft Carrier.

Having been separated once we decided to see if we could get married on the ship, and Clifton went off to see what he could do.

I found my Mother and told her what we planned to do.  She was in the cabin we shared with 8 other women.  The Steward in charge had told us that we were in King George VIs cabin, used by him when he  and Queen Elizabeth travelled to Canada shortly before the war started.   It was quite a nice cabin, but I’m sure it didn’t have 10 bunks in it when the King used it.  When I wallowed in the bathtub I used to think of the King doing the same thing.

I should describe my Wedding Clothes here:   I wore a blouse made from my Mother’s petticoat....a pair of blue shorts made from a piece of curtain given to me by a friend on my 21st birthday...a bra I made from Clifton’s Scout Scarf, one half blue and one half yellow, and a pair of underpants made from a mosquito net...and no shoes.  Clifton wore shorts and shirt, and a pair of sandals I made him, using rubber from an old car tyre for the soles.

A woman in the cabin fetched her husband and they were witnesses.  The ring we used was made by Clifton...a Hong Kong 10 cent piece with the centre drilled out and filed.

After the short ceremony the Priest wrote out a Certificate on a scrap of paper. We said goodbye to my Mother and left the Ship.

And that is how we came to be married in King George VI’s bedroom on board the Empress of Australia in 1945, with a 10c Wedding Ring.

Mabel & Clifton's Wedding