70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

We managed to get into the canteen a week ago………at long last……on one ticket. In the old days the canteen opened about once in three days on average. People often started queueing at 7:30 a.m. to get a place which would enable them to buy (what few things were available) at the canteen which opened at 1 p.m. and closed at 4:30. It was quite useless to queue at all unless you took your place before 8 a.m. and even then many people waited all day and yet did not get in, either before 4:30 or before the scanty stocks were exhausted.

In those days the administration of the camp was under the direction of a Chinese superintendant named Cheng and canteen supplies were purchased by him and then re-sold to the camp. In fact, he first opened his own canteen on the hill until the Camp Council prevailed upon him to let us run our own canteen. We were still in his hands however and the ‘squeeze’ he obtained from the already almost penniless internees by adding his profits was really disgusting.

Things have been put on a better basis since a Japanese superintendant has been in charge here, though no doubt there are still the middle man’s profits! Now the canteen opens when there are sufficient goods to be sold, and that seems about once in two weeks.

To avoid the awful queueing and to make sure everyone had a turn, people were issued with tickets bearing a serial letter and a number. The Canteen Committee then decided how many people could be served (usually either 400 or 200) and a corresponding number of purchase tickets were divided proportionately amongst the various blocks. Each of these tickets enabled 4 people to buy. All serial numbers were placed in a hat and all the various blocks drew amongst themselves for these purchase tickets. When 400 people could purchase at the canteen, 100 purchase tickets were issued, which meant that our blocks (known as ‘the Married Quarters’ because the married European Prison Warders normally occupy these flats) with 750 people were allocated with 14 purchase tickets; this enabled 56 people from this block to buy goods. These people relinquished their ‘A’ serial tickets which were replaced with ‘B’ serial tickets and ‘B’ ticket holders could not buy anything more till all ‘A’ tickets had been used. The person who drew the purchase ticket could choose the other 3 who would purchase on the same ticket and he (or she) bought the goods for all 4, thus reducing the queueing to a minimum.

The goods available are classified into groups and priced, and each person is allowed to purchase one lot from each group. Isa Watson ((probably Florence Isabel Watson)) drew a purchase ticket at the first of the re-organised canteens and she and the Bidwells and Mr Lammert bought goods. We were unlucky and drew nothing for about 2 months, when John Armstrong drew a ticket. The Armstrongs had already been invited to purchase on two other tickets so they had two free tickets on John’s purchase ticket and they offered one of the remaining two to the Fortescues and one to us.

The Bidwells had spent their last cent in buying food and we decided also that it was better to buy food while it was available than to keep idle money. By this time we possessed $35 between us. We had previously spent money in communal purchases. Miki Haan had kindly purchased things for us and sent them in during the early days when parcels were first allowed in. So, although Pudney had, by good fortune, been able to advance me $50 to replenish our dwindling reserve, this had again dwindled. I did not like the idea of spending our last cent, as I believe it always wise to keep a little money in reserve for an emergency.

However, the cost of the goods was, and still is, constantly rising, and we decided it would be wisest to buy tinned foods while we could, and keep them as iron rations, and buy other foods such as oatmeal to eat periodically, and thus keep up our strength and resistance powers against illness as much as possible.

For the sake of record I will set down the commodities that could be purchased at our canteen.

I have ticked off ((marked with an asterisk in the table below)) the purchases we made. We wanted to buy as much as possible in the way of sugar and jam, but unfortunately these were mostly in the same group.
 
You could buy one lot in each group only. Fortunately the Wong Tong was in a separate group to sugar. We had hoped to exchange our raisins for dried apricots which had been sold at a previous canteen, and with them and the Wong Tong make apricot jam. However, the people who had said they would swap changed their minds, so we re-sold the raisins in the hope of buying jam later. Fats and sugar are things we need.

                         
Well, these extra things make an enormous difference to our food. It is grand to finish off a meal with bread and margarine and some sugar or wong tong. We managed to buy from someone else, two 12 oz tins of jam at HK$1.10 and two tins of Quick Quaker Oats at HK$4.50 per tin ((present day value £12.60)). We put the jam in our iron rations and took out the 2 lb tin of Lyles golden syrup which we had brought into camp with us. We are trying out these extras for 2 months.

Also, about a month ago, the Japanese announced that a grant of HK$300,000 ((present day value £843,750)) had been made by them to the internees - to be charged to the British or Hong Kong Government! That meant each of the 2,800 internees would receive HK$105 each ((pdv £295)). The Japanese proposed to give the money in big notes - HK$100 - but owing to the difficulty of disposing of big notes, the Communal Council strenuously opposed this idea.

When we came into camp, shopkeepers and people in a position to change money were giving about HK$75 for a HK$100 note; now the exchange rate has sunk to HK$62 in spite of the fact that the Japanese have stated that HK$100 and HK$50 notes are still legal tender. The Japanese Military Yen (which has no real value) is being circulated at the exchange rate of one Yen to two Hong Kong dollars.