Junk in New Territories 1948.JPG | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Junk in New Territories 1948.JPG

Junk in New Territories 1948.JPG
Authors: 

This is towards the end of the "round robin" tour conducted by Roland Brooks in the week 14 February 1948. Having gone, it would appear, anti clockwise from Kowloon Hospital :

- he watched an Atlas plane at Kai Tak load up and take off

- passed high above some Coastal villages 

- saw a train crossing to Kowloon - Frame 47-40-01 (see Brooks photo gallery)

- and an old stone footbridge 

- passed through a town with several covered trucks (army type?) 

- passed some Chinese women with baskets crossing a bridge 

- went to a border crossing (perhaps) with barricade and Union Jack 

- and some 'official' building alongside with high barricade fencing and also Union Jack 

- then to a town where people were operating a pump into a channel

- then he passed a tall pagoda !

- on the far right of the pagoda there was a large stone arch with what appears to be a haystack or thatched roof in foreground.

- from there Roland appears to have driven  to the coast, towards a house and what appears to be a (swing?) bridge on the left of the frame 50-06-00

- and as can be seen in this last frame 50-15-11 he takes shots of a junk (and sampans). Where was this?

Was he just north of Tai Po? and then retraced the route back to Kowloon.

That was the end of his filmed 'round robin' - it would seem to have been anti-clockwise from Kowloon Hospital - so big question is where along that route would he have seen the pagoda? Could he have seen it in the distance on the other side of the border as Dave W suggests -  perhaps north of Tai Po - and is that where the "border scenes" are located? 

Roland knew HK very well - he arrived there as a boy of 14 and grew up in HK - he spoke fluent Cantonese, Mandarin and Hakka. He was involved in the "Jockey (Riding) Club" - knew Fanling and was even a jockey at Happy Valley when in his teens. He was some 20 years an officer in the HK Fire Brigade and his brother-in-law (also in Stanley POW) was in the HK police - transferring in 1956 to Kenya as a Commissioner. Roland was no tourist, he was very familiar with the whole region..

Suziepie

Date picture taken (may be approximate): 
Wednesday, February 25, 1948

Comments

This is Castle Peak Bay, the southern slope of Castle Peak (青山) in the background.