Growing up in Hong Kong in the 1950s | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Growing up in Hong Kong in the 1950s

Primary tabs

Submitted by peak mansion re... on Tue, 2022-01-25 15:53

My family and I lived in Peak Mansions from 1951-1954. My dad was in the Navy and was chief Engineer in the dockyard. We were housed on the Peak, as I had 2 baby brothers and it was said that the temperature was 10 degrees cooler there. We lived in flats 6 and 16 (not sure which way  round) and we were moved so that our flat could be refurbished. I remember that my room had been a bathroom as there were the remains of a lavatory and the walls were tiled.

To begin with, I went to a school on Kennedy road (I don’t remember its name), and then went to King George V on Kowloon (Peak Tram, taxi, boat and bus each day then vice versa). This was a very international school and I enjoyed it.

My mum and some of her friends had Chinese art classes at home with Prof Chao Shao An, and she became rather proficient at this. Prof Chao gave her one of his paintings, and I have several of his books with copies of his paintings.

Some of my many happy memories of Hong include going swimming with my family at Deep Water Bay, Repulse Bay and Big wave Bay. I also remember going to the celebrations of the Coronation and seeing all the Chinese floats passing by, I have photos of some of these.

I also remember seeing a massive fire on Kowloon from the Peak one Christmas.

I don’t know if any of this is of interest,but thought I would send it in case!

I love all your Hong kong information, please keep up the good work!

Best wishes,

Liz Marchbank

Forum: 
General
  • Log in or register to post comments

Submitted by TimHK on Mon, 2022-01-31 19:01.

Thanks for your reminiscences Liz, would love to hear more. And see some of your photos. I was a toddler, living on the Peak just before your time.

 

Submitted by David Costello on Mon, 2022-01-31 21:17.

Lovely to hear your memories of Hong Kong.

I suspect the fire in Kowloon was the Shek Kip Mei fire on Christmas Eve 1953.  See details on Shek Kip Mei fire - MMIS (hkpl.gov.hk)

There's a good thread on the fire on this Gwulo page Shek Kip Mei after the fire, 1953 | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Submitted by Lindsay1999 on Mon, 2022-01-31 22:30.

Liz, 

It was Kennedy Road Junior School and it opened accourding to it's website, in 1961. My junior school was Quarry Bay, but when I was in KGV (1965-1970), KRJS was used as a venue for Saturday morning detention for students whose families lived on the island. I will not confirm or deny whether I ever had to waste a precious morning stuck there for a few hours. 

We lived on Bowen Road when I was born in 1954 and returned to what was then a new block of flats called Viewpoint in 1965. I too took the peak tram down but would walk to the Star Ferry, cross the harbour to Kowloon and pick up a school bus to KGV. It meant a very early start and when the first Island School opened just down the road I opted to stay in KGV despite the inconvience and never regretted it. 

Thanks for sparking old memories.

Submitted by Ngaire Atkinson on Tue, 2022-02-01 17:38.

I lived in HK in the early 1950s and attended Kennedy Road Junior School which was basically an old, ordinary house converted into a school.  It was up a long flight of steps from Kennedy Road (or they seemed long to me then) with a playground on the right half way up. Inside the school there was a ground floor and upstairs there were verandahs off two of the classrooms.  The only teacher's name I remember was Mrs. Parsons who taught the top class. I think later this school moved into a new building mentioned in a previous post by Lindsay. The house was deemed not fit for purpose and a new Peak School was built where we all transferred to. I think that was probably in 1952. I was there for one term, taught by Mrs. Crozier whose husband was the head of education, and whose daughter, Corin, was a friend of my eldest sister, Eve, at KGV.  My sisters attended KGV.  We lived up Magazine Gap Road on Mt. Cameron.  And, I also remember the beaches: Big Wave Bay with its wonderful surf and of course, no shops and Sheko which was the bay just before Big Wave Bay. 

Submitted by Alison. on Tue, 2022-02-01 14:55.

Thank you for your memories, Liz.  I too have lots of memories and have recently compiled a book of photos and stories from my childhood as well.  Hong Kong was home to me and my sister for 16 years.  My sister was born at the Queen Mary Hospital in June 1948 and I was two years old.  We first lived in Kowloon at Kadoorie Avenue and my first school was Kowloon Junior. Then we  moved to Lugard Road, on the Peak in 1954 and we went to the Peak School.  Miss Ogle was the headmistress and I remember several of the teachers and lots of my friends.  After school we would walk from the school to the Peak Tram via the Dairy Farm for our Beanos and Sour Plums and my mother would meet us with the car to drive the short distance along the narrow path which was Lugard Road.  We went to Ballet classes at the Helena May with Carol Bateman and also went to the library there once a week with our mother and after selecting our books for the week we had pikelets and jam in the lounge - a real treat! Piano lessons were with a teacher Mrs Macaulay who lived on Barker Road, so we took the tram to get to her house.

Later my father was promoted and we moved to the Manager's residence at Mt Kellett - even easier to walk to school.  Our weekends were spent on our little yacht - Phaeon - at numerous bays and islands  and we also went to lots of launch parties with water skiing and picnics.  If not on the water we were at ShekO or Big Wave Bay.  I remember going to the cinema often and also to "The Gloucester" for lunch or afternoon tea. Sometimes to went to the Repulse Bay Hotel for lunch on Sundays where there was always a buffet and a band playing popular tunes which you could request - and which we did often!

We went to boarding school in England and flew out for the summer holidays - as did so many in those days.  I have many letters written to my parents at that time including one written in 1960 on board BOAC which took us back to the UK and it describes minute by minute the journey - which was so long and involved stops in Rangoon, Karachi, Teheran, Beirut, Frankfurt and London including a night in Karachi at Speedbird House - the BOAC hotel where they served meals as well.

My mother did lots of voluntary work as well as Chinese Art lessons - must have been a thing at that time!

Amazing looking back - I finished school and spent a year in HK studying at HKU before going back to UK when my parents were transferred to Head Office. That was a heady time as a teenager with lots of parties and balls and trips to Fanling and the NT.  

I love checking in with Gwulo and noticed quite a few friends of my parents who were interred in Stanley pop up in your lists and stories.  I also reconnected recently with our old Cook's family who we grew up with and who now live in Canada! That was thanks to Gwulo.  Many thanks.

Alison