NTHQ

NTHQ must surely stand for New Territories Headquarters. I don't know where this was located in 1964, but I  remember that in 1984 and for some years thereafter, it was situated on the hillside on the west side of the Shatin valley. I visited it at that time but can't remember much about it except that it was small, old and had a pleasant lawn. I can't find it on google maps. 

The wiki page of old police buildings ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_police_buildings_in_Hong_Kong ) says Shatin Old Station was on Tung Lo Wan Hill Road, which is in roughly the same area as the building I visited, but says it was built in 1950 and demolished in 2004. My memory tells me the building I visited was older than that, and I thought it was now being used for a non-policing purpose, so I'm not sure if it's the one I vaguely remember.

Hi GW,

If it was the Christian camp that you mentinoed, I vaguely remember Phil had blogged about it, with photos.  He had actually ventured inside and was greeted by the Administrator there, according to his blog piece.  I have forgotten whether he posted it here, or in his own blog elsewhere.

T

Confirmed with an ex-colleague. Yes, the building which was NTHQ in the 1980's was the one on Tung Lo Wan Hill Road. Still don't know if it had been NTHQ back in the '60's.

Hi Phil,

Just found the following in "Asia's Finest; An Illustrated Account of the Royal Hong Kong Police" by Kevin Sinclair (ISBN 962-232-002-3) published in 1983;

"Headquarters of the New Territories region was for many years located at Tsun Wan, but with the growing complexity of policing the New Territories and the subsequent growing of headquarters staff, more room was needed than could be provided in the old premises. In 1980, after the new Shatin district headquarters was opened in the centre of the new town, the regional headquarters moved into the old station."

Still doesn't confirm where NTHQ was located when your movie was made, but Tsun Wan, or Tsuen Wan as I think it's more often known these days, seems a good possibility. Tsuen Wan Police Station in the 1960's was the building at https://gwulo.com/node/45869 , but don't know if NTHQ was housed there or a different building.

Maps and blackboards with stencilled formats for displaying things such as manpower deployment and crime statistics were commonly used in police stations in those days, as seen in your photo. Is it possible to enlarge the wording on the blackboard in your photo as that may give us a clue to where it was taken?  

In 1959/60 NTHQ was based in Tsuen Wan, not in the police station,but further down Castle Peak Road.  Opposite was the Tsuen Wan branch of the HSBC

Traffic NT and CID NT werw also based in this old building.

I remember it well having visited it many times in that period.

Having dredged my memory banks, I can now remember that the HQ building was  a one storey buidling housing the HQ and CID whilst Traffic NT was in a wooden building slightly off to the main buidling. At rthe time theAssistant Commissioner was resposible for not only the NT but also Marine

Hi Phil,

Thanks for posting the extra stills. Under full zoom they contain lots of relevant details.

The top pic (man with cigar) shows a blackboard with a table divided into columns for various NT police units and stations. Furthest from the camera is a column with vertical writing of which I think I can make out "Tsun Wan", "Yuen Long", "HQ NT" and "Frontier", admitedly a bit of imagination is required to read "Tsun Wan" and "Frontier". Lower down, the part entitled "Patrols and Road Blocks" seems to contain the initials of NT Police Stations, of which I can see the following;

C.P. - not sure about this one. Castle Peak?

P.S. - don't know.

L.F.S. - Lau Fau Shan.

P.H. - Pat Heung.

T.P. - Tai Po.

S.T. - Sha Tin.

S.S. - Sheung Shui.

S.T.K. - Sha Tau Kok.

T.K.L. - Ta Ku Ling.

The second photo (female smoking) has a different blackboard headed "Incident Board" with one of its columns entitled "Loc" for location and containing the following initials, again of NT police stations.

Y.L. - Yuen Long.

illegible - ?

L.W. - Lo Wu.

G.I. - ?

S.S. - Sheung Shui.

C.U. - ?

L.M.C. - Lok Ma Chau.

The third pic shows a giant wall map on which most of the New Territories and Lantau have been divided up and labelled as follows;

Lau Fau Shan, Yuen Long, Pat Heung, Sheung Shui, Lok Ma Chau, Sha (Sha Tin), T (Tai Po), Mui Wo, Tai O.

I presume these were the policing areas under the command of NTHQ.

I can't see anything relevant in the bottom pic, except those NTHQ chairs you have already mentioned.

Considering the blackboards, wall map, chairs and other furniture together, I'd say they are entirely consistant with this room being a command room in NT HQ. You know more about the movies than me, but I'd be very surprised and impressed if a movie production company took the time to include this much accurate detail in a set they constructed. It looks like the genuine article to me. 

Hi There,

PS would most likely be Ping Shan.  The building is still there.

The others are likely corresponding to old Police Statioin building back then.

T

Missing stations on the board.

TKL  Ta kwu Ling

MKT Man Kam To

On the map, it marks with "Current" where is Tai Po

Besides, NTHQ should also be Tai Po

(I don't know how to upload pic, tried but failed)

I think the list on the right is resources available and has nothing to do with the sub divisional boundaries