Louise Mary GILL (née NEWMAN, aka Billie) [1916-2006]

The following obituary was published in the AAFI-AFICS Bulletin for Sep 2006:

Billie GILL, M.B.E., 1916 to 2006

Louise Mary Gill, M.B.E. – “Billie” as she was affectionately known – was an extraordinary woman produced by extraordinary times. Her lethal combination of charm and steel was forged before she joined the UN, which she felt privileged to serve twice, in different eras and different parts of the world.

Billie died at her home in Geneva on February 22, 2006, at 89, following a severe stroke.

Born in China in 1916 – she adored her Sichuanese mother and her English father, an officer in the Chinese Maritime Customs Service -- Billie grew up in Shanghai during the raucous, pitiless city’s heyday in the 1920s and 1930s. Shanghai girls needed to be quick-witted and enterprising to survive. They strove to look their best, were lively talkers, and knew how to drive a hard bargain.

Typical of the volatile circumstances that framed her life was the way Billie obtained her nickname. During the Sino-Japanese war of 1937, she was seconded to work for the Mayor of Shanghai, taking verbatim notes of his press conferences for foreign correspondents. Before one conference came the news that the government broadcaster had been taken ill. Mayor O.K. Yui told her, “I would like you to read the news tonight.” She listened dumbfounded as the Mayor added that it was too risky to use her own name as the Japanese would be listening. He proposed the name of a famous Chinese actress of the time, Billie Dove.

Bemused, Billie was driven in a bullet proof car to a clandestine radio station where she entered a booth, found a script in her hands and, when the technician switched on the red light, heard an unfamiliar voice announcing, “Good evening, this is Billie Lee, of Station XGOY of the City Government of Greater Shanghai.” At the end of the broadcast, the Mayor told her she would keep the job.

Upon the fall of Shanghai, Billie fled with her colleagues for Hong Kong, where they set up a Chinese Government Information Office. She met many “China Hands,” including Edgar Snow and Ernest Hemingway.

After Hong Kong fell in 1941, Billie spent 3 ½ years in Stanley internment camp which, she said, taught her the truly important qualities in life: decency, integrity and a sense of humor.

After the war, and the birth of her son Ian, the Chinese Government Information Office offered her a job in Nanking as a feature writer. She arrived by ship from England only to find China racked by hyper-inflation. Her first month’s pay, so attractive on paper, was equivalent only to the value of a pair of nylons. During these times, she thought of the prison camp where at least she had received two bowls of gruel a day.

Relief came in the guise of a United Nations job. The UN had set up various agencies in Shanghai and Billie joined the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in February 1948. 

But China was in turbulent transition and, in 1949, as the Communists came to power, Billie was evacuated to Manila while the UN conducted negotiations with various countries for a new regional headquarters.

That summer, Billie joined UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) – forerunner of ESCAP -- after it transferred to Bangkok. She recalled how in those early days, staff were proud to feel part of rebuilding a poor and war-devastated region. The sense of mission compensated for the trials of sweltering without air conditioning!

Although a promotion to professional level was in the offing, Billie resigned in 1953 to start a life in England, including sending Ian to school. In 1958, by which time the world had moved into the Cold War era, Billie rejoined the UN in Geneva to work for the Three Power Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapon Tests. She was a key staffer for the “Disarmament club” for nearly two decades while it expanded from three members to 31. An American interpreter recalls, “We called her ‘Scotch tape’ because she held it all together. Whenever there was a problem, we would go to Billie and she would fix it.”

When Billie retired in 1976, the British Ambassador hosted a reception and presented her with a Union Jack that had been raised during liberation in the Far East. The following year came one of her proudest moments -- for her services to the UN, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (M.B.E.) at Buckingham Palace.

Billie remained in Geneva in retirement, playing bridge, working as a tireless fund raiser, and being grandmother to Brian and Sabrina, the twin offspring of Ian and daughter-in-law Jean. Several current and former UN staffers attended her memorial service at Jean XXIII Centre, Geneva, on February 27. 

Ian writes:

I am looking for a possible mention of my mother's marriage.
My mother, Mary Louise Newman, married Arthur Robert Hirst Gill (a warrant officer in the British army) at the Hong Kong registry office  on January  31, 1940.
I have enquired at the Hong Kong records office for a marriage certificate but it has found none and say many records were destroyed in the war. 
I enlisted the help of Anthony Wong, resource officer at the South China Morning Post, to look for the information in the microfiche archives of the SCMP but he also found nothing.
I wonder if I could ask you, please, how I would go about trying to find this information in the archives of the China Mail circa January 31, 1940.

Just to be sure, the inquiry for the marriage certificate should go to the Immigration Department, not the Public Records Office. See: http://www.immd.gov.hk/eng/services/marriage/Searching_Marriage_Records_...

Then to look for newspapers from a specific date, please follow the instructions at: http://gwulo.com/node/23672

Good luck with the search, and please let us know what you find.

Regards, David