70 years ago: Hong Kong's wartime diaries

I forgot to mention in my last entry, that the supply of electricity was again cut off on Oct. 26th; so we had only 10 days (or evenings) of light this time. It seems to me that we have seen the last of the electricity now until either this place is retaken, or until we get away from HK or until the war ends. I have made a little oil lamp with a tiny wick (for economy) which just gives us sufficient light by which to eat our supper. The Bidwells and Lammerts eat their supper by the last of the daylight at 7 p.m., but we find this rather too soon after the 5 p.m. meal and also, it makes the remainder of the evening so long, for there is just nothing to do but sit and talk or sit and think (if you can think of any thing to think about) or walk round and round the blocks till you get giddy. I am going to make a better light soon with a reflector that concentrates the light on our small table instead of shining all over the room as it does at present. We burn bean oil or peanut oil, which is very precious, and so the light has to be very small. This oil is heavy and is not sucked up the wick as is say, paraffin, so the wick has to be made practically to float in the oil.

A couple of days ago a serious announcement appeared in the paper. It was to the effect that the water supply to certain districts was to be completely suspended from 11th Nov. onwards; others were to be suspended from 20th Nov. onwards and other districts were to have water every third day only. No mention was made in the paper of the Stanley district, but Hara summoned Gimson and informed him that the Colonel had given instructions that this camp must be made self supporting as far as a water supply was concerned. I believe Gimson made a very strong protest. He said, “If we don’t have fresh water we shall die’” to which Hara replied, “I am very sorry, we shall die too,” so that was that! Any way, it’s a good story! 

The committee of District Chairmen got busy and put up innumerable schemes. They submitted a scheme that had been put forward by Woodward, head of the PWD Waterworks Department whereby he planned to tap a stream which flows into the Upper Tytam reservoir. There are three reservoirs in the Tytam scheme, the upper the middle and lower. Water from either the upper or middle reserviors will flow to Stanley by gravity, but the lower one is too low for that. We hear, much to our surprise that the two upper reserviors are empty and that our supply here has to be pumped from the lower one. At this time of year (the end of the rainy season) all the HK reserviors are normally full, and we wonder why Tytam should be so empty. We have heard various rumours; one which seems feasible, is that the 5 big pipelines leading from the big Shing Mun dam, in the New Territories, under the harbour to the island, has been damaged in an air raid and that being unable to repair it the town has had to depend for its supply on Tytam and hence the small amount of water there. This stream, that Woodward intends to tap, flows normally into the middle or upper reservoir and so can be diverted to flow by gravity to this camp. If he is allowed to go out and get this job done, our water troubles will be over (we hope).

In the meantime our amateur water diviners have been busy and yesterday, while I was in the MQ gardens, I saw Paterson, Wynne-Jones, Peter Morgan and another chap, all solemnly walking about with forked twigs (guava they used). They claim to have located a spring in the middle of Butter’s sweet potato bed and this discovery was hailed with great delight for Butters was a man who had a mania for watering his garden and had sometimes been discovered watering it even after it had rained. So to find a spring below his bed was really rather rich. Digging operations were put in hand today.

There are one or two springs in that garden, a few of which flow into a stone faced ditch and thence to a big stone faced tank. Since we have been in camp this spring has never dried up, though during the dry winter seasons it has been reduced to a pretty small trickle! This was one of our water supplies for the gardens, the other being the kitchen waste from the prison which came out through a big pipe into an open sump and thence down a ditch to the sea. The supply of clean spring water has been earmarked for hospital use only and as, when the water is tuned off, the prison will keep all its waste water for use on the prison gardens, it looks as though we shall have no water for our gardens at all. There is another small well somewhere near the Indian Quarters and the third well is outside the camp, by the former St Stephens football field which has now been converted into a large communal garden. These are, at present, the three sources of fresh water for the camp. Of course, all this water must be boiled before it can be drunk.

Yesterday afternoon, after visiting Maudie in hospital, Y and I came home and washed two blankets – the big green one which we use as a coverlet and a small white cotton one which we will have to use as a sheet this winter. This morning Y had an orgy of washing and this afternoon I scrubbed my dungarees, which were filthy. Every one is washing for dear life and I even heard one woman booking a drying space on a line when the other woman took her clothes in! Washing in future is going to be terribly difficult. All the communities have organised labour squads for the construction of large tanks for storing fresh water. They have started on a couple for our blocks, the first of which will hold about 2,500 gallons.