70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

Just before Christmas the camp, as a whole, was feeling very dispirited and mouldy. We had been led to believe that the repatriation of invalids, women and children would take place either in November or December, but the end of Dec arrived and still nothing had materialised. On Empire Day 1943 we were first told of the repatriation of women and children from this camp. It is now exactly one year and two days since the date of that announcement and still there is no sign of it materialising! It really is disheartening, people whose spirits were buoyed up with that hope have gradually lost heart and grown more and more discouraged. It is especially hard on the invalids – such as TB cases, pernicious anaemia and other such malnutrition cases who simply cannot receive proper treatment in this place through lack of equipment and the necessary food and drugs. Their chances of final recovery are steadily growing more and more dim.

T.V. Harmon, the Govt Furniture Store man was the first of these. He was very kind and helpful when we were choosing Govt furniture for our flat. I remember bumping into him about a couple of days after the capitulation of HK to the Japanese and he took a very gloomy view of things. Poor chap, I never thought he would end up in Stanley Cemetery. His wife’s name was on the repatriation list with those other wives whose invalid husbands were to be repatriated. I do not know if this now means her name will be removed from the list. I hope not; it would indeed be hard.

A few days before Christmas, things seemed to cheer up a bit. We were each given 2 ozs of margarine, one 12 oz tin (340 grams) of bully beef between 4 people, ¼ lb brown sugar each and an 8 oz tin (half size tin) of baked beans between 4 (Chinese brand). I never really discovered whether the Japanese donated any of this; I believe most of it came from Canteen profits.

The canteen makes a 7% profit on all sales and this is used in the camp at the direction of the Welfare Committee. Some of these things might have been sent in by Zindle from IRC funds. Well, that was a start. Then, over 1,000 parcels came into camp from friends in town. To our surprise we were given two numbers and were really most excited about it – just like small children at a Xmas party! One, of course, came from the generous Yvonne Ho. She has been a good friend to us. Her parcel contained 2 lb tin of golden syrup! A tin of peas and one of beans and a most welcome pair of socks and shoes for Yvonne. The shoes were in good condition and must, I should think, have belonged to Yvonne (Ho) or one of her sisters.

The second parcel came from Devaux and contained more of our own clothes! I opened the sack and saw a pair of corduroy jodhpers which I had never set eyes on before. I next pulled out a very smart white tropical jacket which looked much too good to belong to me and I had a horrid fear that the parcel had been sent to me by mistake. However, when I got back to our room and we opened the sack properly we found they were our clothes. The jodhpers were Yvonne’s (a pair which, apparently, travel the world with her in case of equestrian expeditions!) and the two smart tropical suits were my own – looking smart by comparison with the ‘any old duds’ we are obliged to wear in here.

The parcel also included two of Yvonne’s dresses, one being quite a plebian office sort of dress and the other a nice silk afternoon frock. So by the time Xmas arrived, people in general were feeling quite cheerful. It was a funny thing, though, that not nearly so many people said, “Well we shan’t be here this time next year,” as they did at the first camp Christmas.

People have grown more wary of raising their hopes too high these days – the disappointments have been depressing. We have found it pays to be optimistic, but certainly not to be over optimistic.

For Xmas Day, Y and I opened our last IRC tin of meat and vegetables. Yvonne made some rice flour pastry with which she lined the tin, tipped in the meat and vegetables, stuck a piece of pastry on top and steamed the pudding for an hour. The result was a really delicious sort of suet pudding. For a sweet we had a ground rice blanc-mange with a tin of lychees that Maudie had given me for my birthday about 18 months earlier, I think! On Xmas evening Maudie had a party of about 15 people. We all took along something or other – Y and I a coffee cake and a flask of coffee (the coffee being our home made brand, made from roasted soya beans). Alec Potts brought his ukulele and we had a good old sing.

We had some nice Christmas services. One was a carol service with 7 lessons, like the one at Kings College, Cambridge and I read one of the lessons. I represented the choirboy – a somewhat ancient one!

Yvonne made me a kahki tie from left over bits of the IRC jerkins and very useful it proved, for my winter dress was kahki trousers (ex jerkins) and shirt, old school cricket XI sweater and brownish coat. I was able to ring the changes on warmer days with a wine coloured pull-over and tie. My old school tie, apart from being worn out, had been soaked in peanut oil when the shelf which accommodates our precious provisions collapsed and sundry bottles were broken. Y and I had agreed on no presents, so she rather stole a march on me.