70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

First Easter Day in Stanley:

The united services were held in the hall of St Stephen's College, which was crowded that Eastertime. The lilies, red and white, were in bloom. The sky, seen through the windows, was very blue. The distant hills were becoming lighter green with new growth. Men and women of different churches or of none were bound in a common act of worship. Some knelt on the bare, brown boards or on straw mats, some sat upon tools or cushions they had brought, the rest stood together at the back of the hall.

Stanley escaper Gwen Priestwood arrives in Kukong {now Shaoguan} where the British Army Aid Group is in the process of being created. As a civilian, she does not acknowledge that a military officer has the right to intrerrogate her and she initially refuses to provide information to anyone but the British Amabssador and Madame Chiang Kai-shek, neither of whom are in Kukong. Nevertheless, Colonel Lindsay Ride does persuade her to at least let him take a look at her complete list of Stanley internees.

Sources:

Easter: William Sewell, Strange Harmony, 1946, 78-79

Priestwood: Lindsay Ride, Unnamed Document, Ride Papers, WO-343-1-212, part 1, p. 42