John Charter's wartime journal: View pages

This diary cannot keep to dates. I must go back and write an account of the brief war here; and then later, a year old account of our wedding; and later still a somewhat hazy account of the two delightful weeks I spent in Ceylon with Mother and Father. At present my manual labour (supervising and bricklaying for our new communal kitchen) keeps me very busy during the day, and as we are blacked out and it gets dark at about 7:30, there is at present little time left for writing a diary.

The weather has suddenly become very much colder. The thermometer at St Stephens School registered 36’ F (2.2C) which seems almost too low to be accurate, but with insufficient food and no heating whatsoever, added to the fact that HK summers considerably thin one’s blood, conditions are certainly rather miserable at present.

We hear an important announcement affecting the European community is to be made on 15th February, Sunday. Everyone is full of conjecture as to what this order will be; the most popular theory being that we will be allowed back to our homes. We wonder if this would be to our advantage as the price of food now is exorbitant and so far we have heard no news of being able to withdraw any money from the banks. Here we do get some food, even though it is only half as much as we could eat.

Yes; we can use the electric light tonight! What joy! Today we have had a good day – in spite of the cold!  For our evening meal we had rice, a little piece of stewed steak, any amount of stewed cabbage with a little tomato and to crown all a small pasty each of minced meat fried in pastry. It is the first time I have felt really comfortably full since I have been here. Let’s hope this is the beginning of better things.

It is really awful how one’s life seems to revolve round food these days. It makes one more mindful of the poor wretches who live perpetually at starvation’s door. I wonder if, when things return to normal we shall remember these lessons or whether we shall forget all in the general scramble for recovery. 

I was nearly frozen today, bricklaying in the open in a chilling north wind. This is exceptionally cold for Hong Kong.

The first death in camp occurred today. A Mr Shepherd died of dysentery. ((J O M Shephard died on 10 Feb 1942.)) I fear that with our low vitality and terribly crowded living conditions, diseases will spread rapidly in the hot weather. Flies are a menace even now when the sun shines for a little while. The hospital which holds 85 patients already has 65! Not too good.

I forgot to mention Marjorie Fortescue’s birthday. As a birthday treat, Tim arose early and fried the one tin of tinned bacon that he had brought. The nine of us had breakfast this morning! – a spoonful of bacon, a slice of bread and a cup of coffee! So today has been pretty good.

Yesterday evening we went to the Police Concert which was held in the hall at St Stephens College (as are most concerts). It really was very good indeed and relied very little on community singing, as most previous concerts have done. There was a Prison Inspector who had rescued all his conjuring apparatus (from $800 to $1000 worth (pdv£2,800) from the prison and gave quite a good show. The Balalaika Singers, a group of about 15 White Russians, sang Russian folk songs. The interned Russians must have become naturalised British; 3 of them were in the Police Force. Then the ‘College Rowdies’ (a Police quartet with guitar and ukulele sang ranch songs etc. There was a recitation; a solo song or two; a very humorous monologue and a few silly stories. The concert lasted from 7 to 9 and ended with 2 or 3 popular choruses with the College Rowdies.

The previous concert, held on Shrove Tuesday and organized by Father Murphy was far more impromptu and consisted mainly of community singing with a few solos. It was quite good fun, but some of the last wars sentimental songs such as ‘Keep the home fires burning’, ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary etc. gave me the pip and made me feel far from cheerful, as it reminded one of good old England too much and made me long to be out of this wretched mess.

The concert was preceded by a cinema show kindly given by some Japanese official. In the circumstances it was not greatly appreciated as it was chiefly about Japanese industrial development – picturing the manufacture of many and varied articles. The bit that caused the most interest was the bottling of beer! And the final shot of that particular item, showing frothing beer pouring into a glass produced a loud cheer!! The film even showed Japanese bombers taking off and then releasing bombs in the air. This was by no means a new sight to us! And was, indeed hardly tactful! However, we all clapped politely at the end of the film.

Today I had a nice morning’s rest. We finished the flue to the kitchens yesterday afternoon and at 4:30 I managed to get a jug full of boiling water and had a shave, shampoo, and hot wash all over. It was lovely and I put on a clean set of clothes. How one appreciates these little things now. Our soap is limited and during this cold weather I change my underclothes once per week only and Yvonne does the washing and mending. How different to our former life when I had a bath and clean clothes at least once each day.

I might explain that the greater part of the internees in this prison camp occupy the former European Warders’ flats. There are four blocks consisting of six flats per block (in the storied buildings) two flats opening off each landing. These flats contain a living room (18’ x 15’) and a dining room (12’ 6” x 15’) with a good sized balcony (9’ wide x 30’ long); two bedrooms, a bathroom and lavatory suite, and a lavatory off the hall; a small pantry, a small kitchen, a covered back balcony which is quite big and which gives access to two servants rooms, (about 10’ x 7’), a servants W.C. (Chinese type), a copper and tool shed and a small servants kitchen with chattie type fires and sink. Normally, these 24 flats would be occupied by 24 European families with (at a generous estimate) a total of 96 Europeans and about 48 to 60 Chinese servants. This is the maximum peace time capacity of the flats with two double bedrooms, and actually I expect it never exceeded 72 Europeans.

Now, however, 700 people occupy these same 24 flats. It really is disgraceful, and the risks of epidemics starting, and quickly spreading in the hot weather is very real. There are 50 British who are housed in the Dutch block and they too draw their food from our block kitchen.

I have drawn a sketch plan of the communal kitchens which I was asked by the committee to design.

At present all the rice and stews are being cooked in the coppers (normally used for boiling clothes). So the new kitchens are to cater for about 750 people. One big rice pan produces approx 270 bowls of boiled rice, so three gives enough for over 800. The meat and fish and pasties can be stewed or fried in the stew pans and the vegetables and soups cooked in the coppers. We are hoping to get some hot iron plates on which chipatties etc. can be fried or baked, and rice cakes made. These will be interchangeable with the stew-pans. In the kitchen there is a bay for food preparation, a food store and a fuel store. The intention is to store the rice and vegetables etc. in the food store, but my personal opinion is that it will prove unsuitable for rice storage, as rice is a commodity that must be kept in a dry place or it will go bad, and the hot and humid atmosphere of a kitchen where the rice and beans are boiled in the big pans for a long time will, I think, prove damp for the rice to store.
                                
Adjoining the kitchen is the General Store: this communicates with the kitchen by a hatch and if necessary food could be kept in the General Store. Water and electric lights are being laid on to the kitchen. The question of drainage may prove a difficulty.

These communal kitchens, stores etc. are being built in a block of 14 brick and concrete car shelters. The back and ends of the block are entirely enclosed, there being no partition walls or doors to the garages. We built up ¾ high walls in front, between the columns, knocked a wide doorway in the end wall, and cut long, narrow, horizontal ventilation slits at the back, above the cooking range. Most of the new walls we constructed are built of the hollow concrete blocks which had been used for building blast proof screens at the back entrances to the flats, to act as air raid shelters. These walls had to be demolished, the concrete blocks cleaned up and then re-laid.

We had only four 90 lb bags of cement for use on the stoves (built in brick) and the brick flues and stack. We had to use 1 cement: 3 sand: 6 red earth for this, and the concrete block walls are bedded entirely in red earth mud. It is amazing how affective this red earth is. As it happens, the concrete blocks (which measure 1’ 6’’ x 9” x 9”) are very heavy and stand up quite well if bedded evenly in mud. Each block weighs approximately 90 lbs and when the walls were four and five feet high, it was very exhausting work lifting up the blocks and laying them gently in position. It was rough on one’s hands too, and very soon the skin on my hands began to grow tough and the tips of my fingers became quite considerably less sensitive to touch.

Our kitchens have not proved a success alas. I made drawings of the stoves and flue etc. as previously described. However, a very stubborn little fellow named MacCormack, a foreman bricklayer from the Dockyard, who had been appointed chief bricklayer, insisted on building things as he thought fit. He refused point blank to build in the dampers as I had indicated; he refused to build in the fire doors; I had started building a 14” x 14’ chimney stack which I had intended to narrow at the top to about 12” x 12”.  But he finished the upper portion and battered it back so that it measured only 12” x 7” at the top (this to take the smoke of 8 stoves). I had alas intended to build it in to the edge of the projecting concrete flat roof to give the flue additional support. Why was he given his own way?  Because if anyone remonstrated or tried to get him to do things differently he merely put down his tools and refused to work. As it was he had taken a whole week off, and as he did more work in a day than three of us unskilled workers (and better brickwork at that by a long way) Neilson and MacCrea ((possibly McRae)) (the latter in charge of labour) said,“Let him carry on and we can alter things afterwards”. 

This has proved fatal. Precious cement was wasted and the stoves could not be used. He had allowed a depth of 7” only between the fire bars and the bottom of the big rice pans. This was inadequate as the rice in the bottom of the rice pans tended to burn before the rest was properly steamed. I had shown the depth as a full 12”.

So I had to knock down the part of the chimney stack he had built and rebuild it myself; the blacksmiths have cut and fixed fire doors; Blackmore and Ogden have had to remove the fire bars, cut out bricks and mortar from the bottom of the big stoves and lower bars and all by 3” and raise the pan itself by building up a brick and cement rim. That is nearing completion and there will be a full 12”. The blacksmiths have cut dampers out of the heavy sheet iron and some metal guides out of the glazing bars of a metal French window that had been blown out by a shell! Now it remains for me to chip out the channels for the dampers and cement in the frames. What a lot of time and trouble could have been saved if it had all been done in the first place.

One of the chief troubles is that this low block of garages is flanked on two adjacent sides by the 3 storied blocks of flats and this means that a very strong down-draught is caused in our kitchen flue when the wind comes in a N.E. direction, over the high blocks and down onto the garage blocks. We cannot help this, but I am hoping to counter it with a cowl or T piece which we will fix on top of the flue. Before, the down draught blew the smoke straight into the kitchens and with no damper or fire doors the fires were impossible to control. When the cowl is fixed I hope everything will be in order. The Blacksmiths have laid on water from a tap on the lawn. The Electricians have installed electric lighting; the window openings have been covered with wire netting to discourage flies and prevent possible theft of food and utensils. There is talk now of laying on power to the kitchens and moving in 8 electric stoves…………and so it goes on.

On Monday 16th February 1942 the Japanese sponsored paper ‘The Hong Kong News’ announced with banner headlines the fall of Singapore. We found this bit of news very depressing and would not at first believe it.  Singapore had been looked upon as Britain’s impregnable Eastern fortress and its early fall makes one realise how gravely the Home Government, or someone, has underestimated the strength of the Japanese. Truly we are a race of muddlers, and it is only our tremendous tenacity and considerable wealth that will enable us to emerge, with our allies, victorious in the end.

I believe too that the democratic principles for which our allied cause stands are right, and though, cut off from news of the outside world as we are, I believe that ultimately our cause will emerge victorious. Without this belief, life here would indeed be intolerable. This we presume, is the ‘good news’ that the Japanese officer had ironically told us we should hear on 15th February. Apparently, according to the Japanese timetable, Singapore was scheduled to fall on the 15th February, and fall it did! There are apparently only about 120 European women and children in Singapore, but according to the ‘Hong Kong News’ some 60,000 troops (regulars and volunteers) were captured. The Japanese also state that the Philippines have fallen, though apparently American resistance there has not yet completely ended. High Ho! The Japanese army is certainly proving a very efficient fighting machine.

The weather has been quite pleasant of late, thank God. It has been warmer and quite sunny on some days. This means we are able to sit outside a little more and so avoid being herded together quite so much in our one room.

The unfortunate bachelors who were quartered in the St Stephens Prep School were informed that they had to vacate their premises and move to the ‘Indian Quarters’, another block which had previously housed the Indian warders and which has now been vacated by the Indians. 

This is the second time that some of these unfortunate men have had to move, for some occupied rooms in these ‘Married Quarters’ to start with and were asked to transfer to the Prep School which was reserved for single men, or men whose families were not in Hong Kong. I helped carry over some of their medical supplies for them. The cause of this transfer is that the Japanese have moved out (as far as I can make out) all Consular officials, except, one would imagine, the Consular officials of their allies – German, Italian etc. These officers are to be housed in the Prep School. This would appear to be quite contrary to International Law. I believe Consular officials need be given 24 hours notice only to clear out of a place, but they must be given safe conduct to a neutral country – and this the Japanese could not offer I presume, or else they must be treated like ordinary civilians. However, a gang of Chinese workmen were busy building up a wall of these hollow concrete blocks (embedded in mortar) round the edge of the garden. This I presume, is so the Japanese can claim that they are not housed behind barbed wire and therefore not being treated as prisoners.

Last Tuesday Yvonne and I helped Mr Wilmer bring Mrs Wilmer back from the hospital to the small Amah’s room that had been allotted to Mr Wilmer. He was able to get a ground floor room, which was essential as Mrs Wilmer had been in hospital because of her heart. She had spent 6 weeks there and it was nice to feel she was so much better, in spite of the poor food. Mr Wilmer and I carried her downstairs and put her on a stretcher trolley and wheeled her up to her new home.

I wish Yvonne and I had an Amah’s room to ourselves; it would be lovely. The Fortescues had one on this floor offered to them when Gilmore had to vacate it and go to the Prep School (soon after we arrived here). But they hesitated because of Adrian, and in the meantime the Revd and Mrs Sandbach moved in, “For the night only”, as Mr Sandbach said. Once in, however, it has proved impossible to move them and we found relationships with them becoming a trifle strained, so we dropped the subject and are making do with our one crowded room.

On February 25th we held a General Election for a Camp Council. The election rules were briefly as follows:-

Eight candidates were Block Representatives, elected from and by their blocks; the 8 candidates had to receive at least ten nominations, and the remaining six were General Representatives elected by all blocks. These nominators had to be residents from at least 3 different blocks or sections of the community – i.e. Married Quarters, Police Block, Bachelors, the Bungalows; St Stephens and Indian Quarters. The committee was to consist of 14 members. The Chairman and Vice-Chairman were to be elected by the community from the successful candidates and not selected by the candidates themselves. This would be an even more democratic form of election than in the British Commons, where the PM is elected by the successful party and not the nation.

We here hope that Neilson will be elected Chairman. Wylie (of the South China Morning Post) seems to be the other likely candidate though results (now coming in) give Neilson a lead. Neilson is a New Zealander who has spent some time amongst Americans in the Philippines and has something of their hustle and ‘go getter’ characteristics which makes him (in my opinion) a good man for the job. He is a Mining Engineer here in HK, head of Neilson and Co.

The election results are:

• Chairman - Neilson (General)
• Vice Chairman - Wylie (General)
• Members of Committee:
  • Sandbach (Blocks 4 + 5 )
  • Seth (Blocks 2 + 3) - Light and Power
  • Marker ( Blocks 12 + 13 ) - Medical
  • Alton ( Blocks 14 + 15 )
  • Stericker (General) - Religion and education
  • Pennefather-Evans (Block 10) - watch committee
  • Witham (Bungalows) - Billeting
  • Newbegging (Prep School) -  Canteen
  • Gillespie (General) - Labour
  • Roberts (General)
  • King (Blocks 8 + 9) - Finance
  • Sheldon (General) - Legal
  • M.F. Kay - Hon. Secretary.

On the previous day the Japanese Gendarmes had asked the British Police block for volunteers to load lorries with cases of tinned foods stored in the British Military food godowns, situated within the boundaries of this camp. I believe only one small godown was for Military food stores (the one I subsequently worked at) and the other two big ones (and two more outside the camp boundaries) were built by the HK Government for civil requirements.

At first there was a feeling of indignation against the police for consenting to do what amounted to coolie work; but when it was subsequently discovered that these European ‘coolies’ had rather a good day and had been allowed to open tins of milk, jam, bully beef etc. and eat plenty of food, in addition to being given a packet of biscuits and two tins of food at knocking off time, there was a rush for volunteers the next day. Labourers of all kinds (including Tim and myself) did not report for ordinary duties but legged it to the road opposite the godowns, where already, scores of men had turned up to await the arrival of the lorries and the selection of labourers.

Actually, a certain number of men had been selected the previous evening - so many from each community or block - (a total of 40 was required) but that did not prevent scores of other hopefuls turning up! The gendarme officers arrived and called for “20 big men” to line up. The rush that followed was really disgusting – the police being the worst. Men literally shoved and scrambled up the bank in their efforts to be amongst the selected 20, and the Chinese supervisors and Japanese gendarmes were borne backwards under the pressure. I do not stand to judge people, for I frankly own that I went only with the hope of being chosen to work in order that I should manage to scrounge as much food as possible;  but I must say that morning I felt ashamed of my fellow countrymen. What an exhibition to make!

Most of us stood by and watched the rush – the American contingent of previously selected men was exemplary in its behaviour; not one of them tried to join the scrum, due chiefly I think, to the example and restraining effect of the leader of their squad. However, in poor defence of the British, it must be said that the Americans (many of whom had no real wartime duties) had managed to bring into the camp much more money and tinned food per head than the British, and had probably not suffered the same pangs of hunger that many of the British had since the time of internment, and had not quite the same incentive to scrap for work.

However, to continue, another batch of 20 men were asked to line up in the road – in fact we were already standing in a line – and the Chinese supervisor counted out 20 quite irrespective of whether or not they were standing in the line of officially selected men or not. I thought my luck was in for I was amongst the second batch. However, a Japanese officer counted out 20 again, and as he started counting from further down the line, I was just not included in his count. This second squad was marched 200 or 300 yards down the road to the small Military godown. The rest of us hung around for some time to see if any more men were required and then started to move away. Before going, I decided I would walk to the small godown to see how things were there and I found this second squad of men still lined up waiting to go into the godown. I had caught up with Terrence Feltham and Fraser and we decided just to tack ourselves onto the back of the queue and see what happened: four more men did the same thing behind us!

At 9:30 punctually the lorries arrived, being furiously driven and swaying all over the road in a most dangerous way. The queue started filing in and each one of us was given an official Japanese arm band. There must have been some 30 of these bands for everyone in the queue received one and Tim, who strolled along just then, came in and asked for one too and was given it. The work consisted of carrying the cases of tinned food (which were not particularly heavy) outside to the lorries. When these were filled, we piled the cases by the edge of the road. After working for 20 or 30 minutes we knocked off for ten minutes (by order of the Japanese officer) and the Japanese raised no objections to our opening tins of things!

 It was simply superb. I made an awful mistake, for I punched two holes in a tin of ‘Evaporated Milk’ which was sweetened and would normally be diluted with an equivalent amount of water, and I drank the whole tinful. By the time I reached the end of the tin my poor stomach – for so long unaccustomed to anything at all rich – showed signs of revolt!  However, I shared a 12 oz tin of bully beef with another chap and then, alas, I felt I could eat no more. Others were eating tins of jam as well!

Then we worked for another 20 minutes, by the end of which time there were so many cases piled by the road that we were told to stop again. One little gendarme very kindly presented me with a cigarette which I smoked with great relish, though unfortunately I did not feel like eating anything except a biscuit from a tin someone had opened. People were pocketing tins of goods quite openly and the gendarmes seemed to turn quite a blind eye to it.

Marjorie and Vera had by then strolled down to our godown and Tim and I pocketed some tins and took them out to them. I gave two to Bridget but later an officer took them away from her. Lunch for the working party consisted of two packets of siege biscuits (about 8 or 10 biscuits) with as much margarine as you wanted. I had gone back to our block at tiffin time and ate my ordinary small helping of rice with lettuce stew and a little gravy: this my stomach could manage more easily than condensed milk! Then I returned and ate a couple of biscuits that were left over. 

There wasn’t very much work during the afternoon, chiefly because of the shortage of lorries; but the Japanese got hold of two of the youngest Europeans and set them to boiling water in the adjacent kitchen and diluting tins of ‘Carnation’ milk. We all had several glasses or mugs of this most excellent beverage and I felt much fitter and stronger on the following day. By then I was able to eat some more and I had some Kraft cheese and later a little bully beef. I only wished Yvonne could have been with me to have a good tuck in too.

I took away two tins of jam for Minnie (Maudie Minnhinick) and by the time I had given them to her and returned I found work had ceased, that the chaps had given up their official armbands and had each been presented with two packets of biscuits (four per packet) and a tin of corned beef and a tin of bully-beef. I thought I should prefer to keep my arm band in the hope of getting another job on the following day, as there was still stacks of food to be removed and so I did not return to the godown.

Well, Tim and Vera and I were able to get quite a few things for our own community chest. But the number of tins that had unofficially left the godown was so great that the Japanese decided to employ Chinese labour for the rest of the work! I suppose they were more honest! Actually, I cannot imagine why the Japanese did not stop the scrounging if they did not mean it to happen: it was proceeding most blatantly and none of the gendarmes seemed to mind. Perhaps we all looked thin and hungry and they felt sorry.

It transpired that a night or two later some members of the Police were caught, by the gendarmerie, looting one of the godowns. Apparently the Japanese handed over Moss, the chief offender to be tried by Sheldon, the senior HK Magistrate (and allegedly the only one of the four that survived the war. That means Lowry is killed………a very sad loss; both Y and I liked him very much). The others were released on condition that the Hon. C.P. Mr Pennefather-Evans recovered from the looters, and returned to the Japanese, all the stolen goods. This he was eventually able to do. One hardly blames these men for stealing food when our rations are so very small. I shall, in the future and in normal life, take a very lenient view when I hear cases of starving or badly fed people stealing food.

One day, one of the Police, Sergeant Walsh, who had been working in the garden attached to the block of St Stephens which the police occupy, felt a bit dizzy and so knocked off work and walked back to the block. He got no further than the verandah when he collapsed completely and died before anyone could render assistance. It was a tragic case of an undernourished man who overtaxed what little strength he had. Really if we are here for any length of time on this slow starvation diet there will be more such cases and an epidemic of anything will kill us off like flies. The funeral service was held on the lawn outside our block of flats and many people attended: the European police turned out in procession.

I must have been feeling a little blue when I made my last entry! Since then a crop of more cheerful rumours have been circulating and the food rations have improved slightly so I am feeling a little more cheerful.

The flour ration has been increased of late to as much as 4 oz (112 grams) of flour per head per day. I do hope this increased ration will continue for it means that if we can build an oven we can have almost ½ lb of bread each per day and that will make a tremendous difference to our food. About 3 weeks ago the food situation seemed to be getting worse and worse and all of us felt we were literally starving: I felt weak and lethargic and we all lay down and just slept for about 2 hours after the eleven o’clock meal; at nights I was kept awake by the pangs of hunger and could do nothing but lie and think of food. It really was wretched.

Maudie Minhinnick who weighed 188 lbs when she first arrived in Hong Kong in June 1939 had reduced her weight to 156 lbs just before the war by a course of exercises:  now, with no particular exercise at all, she weighs 133 lbs! Still, she is looking very fit and well and if she does not lose any more weight she will not suffer for this enforced dieting. Yvonne weighed 135 lbs at the beginning of December and she now weighs 115 lbs. She really has a beautifully sylph-like figure which greatly pleases her and she is even prepared to admit she was too fat before this internment. She means to keep slim after the war…………I wonder! I have always been pretty lean; I weighed 154 lbs when I came to Hong Kong in 1939. By last December I had lost 9 lbs which brought me to 145 lbs, this being exactly my weight on leaving school at the age of 18. Now, at the age of 29, I have lost 11 lbs more and weigh only 134 lbs (60 kilos). I have lost less weight than most people here, chiefly, I think because I have very little surplus flesh to lose. 

Harold weighed 165 lbs in December; he now only weighs 134 lbs. He has lost 8” round the waist! Poor old Mr Wilmer has lost 50 lbs since he has been here and many of the stouter men and women have shed a similar burden………many of them, it must be admitted, look all the better for it, though the reductions have been a little too quick to be good and have now reached a stage where further reduction will only be weakening.

Many people are deficient in some food or another. Yvonne had an outbreak of spots on her face about a month ago which turned out to be impetaego. This was due chiefly to lack of calcium. In the early days of our internment the Canavals came to our room one evening and Helen mentioned the fact that the lack of calcium would have very bad effects on people – skin, teeth etc……and she wondered how we could possibly produce calcium. I suggested, that if the grissel and animal matter could be dissolved out of the beef or buffalow bones that are sent for our rations, it would leave more or less pure calcium. I had in mind dissolving it with acid. Helen thought that a good idea, consulted a little chemist here and in a day or two she issued calcium powder to all the people in these blocks 2, 3, 4 and 5.  It was a very good effort. I think that after the bones had been boiled and boiled for stock, she gets them burned somehow so that all animal tissue is burnt away and then the hard calcium is ground down into a powder. I believe this particular form of calcium is not easily absorbed by our systems, but we must absorb some of it at any rate. Very little food is wasted in this camp!

There has been much trouble about the cooks. Many people have complained……… and often quite legitimately………that the cooks have been eating considerably more than their rations of food. Few people, if any, objected to the cooks taking their small perks, but unfortunately they considerably overstepped the mark in many cases. An enquiry was instituted, following some letters of complaint that were submitted by various people; Tim and Harold composed and signed one of these letters. The findings of the special enquiry committee were that the rations reached our store room in full measure, thus exhonerating the ration squad; the quantities issued to the cooks in full measure - clearing the storekeeper - but leakage occurred during the process of preparing, cooking and serving the meals. Mrs Lucas, the caterer and Keates, chief cook of the second cooking squad offered their resignations, which were accepted. Some caustic comments were shouted by members of Block 5 when Charlie Ingledew, chief cook of the first cooking squad, was appointed chief cook of the combined cooking staff; but Block 5 is, by common consent, the most ill mannered and disgruntled block in our community………more scandal and slanderous accusations seem to emanate from them than the other three blocks put together. However, they were ‘shushed’ and Mr Sanbach asked people to give the new rules and arrangements formulated by the committee a chance of working. Stores were to be issued by a storekeeper and the chief cook was to keep the key. This announcement brought forth fresh hoots.

Ingledew was not present, fortunately. From the beginning of this internment camp he has acted as chief cook for the squad of seamen (most of them skippers of coasting vessels who were caught here at the outbreak of war) who started cooking meals for the community in blocks 2, 3, 4 and 5 before the camp had any internal organization at all. In fact at one time they were cooking rice and soup stew twice a day for over 1500. They are a very nice crowd of chaps and have worked extremely hard, as I can witness because of my association with them whilst building additional kitchen stoves. One of the regulations was that supervisors should be appointed to inspect the cooking and distributing of food; another was that two groups of cooks should be appointed (mainly the same personnel as before) and should work as before doing 3 days on and 3 days off duty.

The Ingledew gang of cooks objected to both regulations and after much hithering and dithering and committees it was decided that their resignation en mass should be accepted and a new squad appointed. So now there are two squads, each with its chief cook, Capt. Ried and Mr Leslie, with Mrs Greenwood as caterer; she it is who decides how the food shall be prepared and she simply works like a Trojan, doing a good deal of the actual preparation herself and working day after day without a pause. I believe another woman has been appointed to take 3 days alternate duty with her but she evidently feels she is the only one capable of doing the job! The new arrangements seem to be working quite well at any rate.

All ‘burnt rice’ (the encrusted skin left on the rice pan after the boiled rice has been removed) is now sent to the clinic where it is fried in oil and given to the children for breakfast. It used to be eaten by anyone who managed to scrounge a piece - the cooks getting first whack - and there were crowds of people who flocked round the cookhouse door at each mealtime. I worked in the kitchen on the stoves and I always managed to get a big tin full of rice pan scrapings which I took back to our room and shared between the eleven of us. This rice biscuit is really excellent as it is very hard and is good exercise for our jaws - most of our food needs no chewing at all. I must say, though, that it was a hateful business hanging around and collecting this burnt rice with everyone else trying to get a piece, and I was quite relieved when the new regulations precluded its distribution to all and sundry. As a matter of fact, supervision of the cooks has already become a merely nominal duty that is hardly ever carried out by members of the committee due, no doubt, to the feeling of embarrassment caused by the hostile looks of the cooks! Anyway, a good deal of burnt rice still does not reach the clinic, though apparently the clinic gets as much as it wants.

It is significant that all the other blocks, with perhaps the exception of the bungalows where the numbers amount to only 40 or 50 in each, have had trouble with the cooks and the cooking staff in general. This must be because food is so scarce and is so precious that we all watch it and its preparation with eagle eyes; also, if the cooks and their families had plenty of food, there would be small temptation to take any from the community.

The standard of morals in this camp has sunk to a very low level: the imperceptibly fine line between scrounging and thieving has, in many cases, absolutely vanished. Peoples’ washing disappears from the lines; mugs, spoons, etc. that are not clearly marked have a tendency to disappear and if a mug, say, similar to a lost one suddenly is included amongst one’s after tiffin washing up, the idea is to hang on to it until someone enquires if a such and such coloured mug has been found, and if no one comes to enquire, well so much the better for you; little or no effort is made to find the owner - for the very good reason, of course that it might possibly be the mug that was pinched from you three weeks ago, and anyway, as yours was pinched you had a right to replace it if the owner was careless enough not to come and reclaim it!

One really forms a habit of automatically picking up things that one is in need of - of helping oneself, say, to a few screws from the precious store in the community tool shed without asking if they have been reserved for anything; of getting permission to obtain things for the community and then keeping some of the things yourself - say planks of wood or odd tools such as a hammer. I am sure a lot of that has happened.

The other day someone had left a roll of toilet paper in the lavatory (a very rare commodity these days) and really my first thought was to help myself to some of it!  And then I realised I had no right to it at all. I wonder how long, after we get out of here, we shall continue to think in this manner!

Then, the spirit of camp life here is very low indeed. Everyone is just out to fend for themselves and their families and maskie anyone else. When the additional rations that hard manual labourers were getting were cut right out because of the very small rations the community as a whole were receiving, most of the men just stopped working altogether. True, most of us felt so weak that we could do only a little work, but the work had to be done, rations had to be fetched, wood had to be sawn, drains and gutters had to be swept and kept clean and refuse had to be disposed of, and most men could have managed 2 hours per day.

I have been disgusted by many people here; it takes the unusual in life, sometimes to show what we are really like. And some of the biggest grumblers and biggest talkers are often those who are least willing to do a job of work. I do not consider our small community in room 11 exceptional in any way, but Jack, Harold and Tim have kept on with wood sawing all this time (until Harold was ordered to stop work by Dr Canaval because he had overdone things and worn himself out); I have kept on with work in the kitchen (building three additional stoves entirely by myself - I have had to carry the heavy concrete blocks, bricks being unavailable, dig the red earth, fetch the lime and gypsum blocks and pound them up and burn them to make mortar, mix the mortar, and cut and lay the blocks - all unaided);  Yvonne and Isa have kept on with their work in the clinic; Vera and Marjorie have their respective children to look after, Elsie is the only one who does nothing but her share of the housework, but she is not strong and at the outbreak of war the doctor at the military hospital, where she should have started nursing, told her she was not strong enough for it, so it is best for her to conserve her energies now. She joined Harold at Fire Brigade headquarters during the war and acted as telephonist, stenographer and cook! So I think room 11 has pulled its weight for the community as a whole. 

But things have happened here that have made me ashamed of the European community of Hong Kong. I must record my disgust at the behaviour of Justice Cressal, Puisne judge of Hong Kong. His conduct during the war was most reprehensible when he seemed to loose his nerve. He was attached, I think to the Food Control and would not go out during any shelling. He apparently parked himself on the War Memorial Hospital, where he was not wanted, and was drunk for most of the days of the week. When he came to the camp it was found he had appropriated to himself a large quantity of the food from the Food Control stores that should have gone to the community - and strange to say Sir Athol Macgregor has tried to shield his actions. Sir Athol’s sense of brotherhood of the law must be very strong.

I have always disliked Mr Justice P. Cressal since the first time I met him at the Kilies birthday lunch at the Hong Kong Club shortly after Cressal had arrived in Hong Kong - a great mass of boastful flesh and blubber, full of his own importance; why the Minhinnicks ever tried to cultivate his friendship I cannot think; Minnie says she now certainly has no intention of continuing it. Cressal must have lost pounds since he has been here and he really looks very fit and all the better for it.

Cressal is by no means the only black sheep, but on the other hand there are many real heroes and heroines amongst us, of people who behaved and are behaving magnificently, and are worthy of our national traditions and spirit.

Yes, the hot weather has come and both today and yesterday the temperature must have reached the eighties. Fortunately there were quite a few electric refrigerators in these flats and with their help it is possible to keep the meat overnight and prevent it from going bad. I believe some of these ‘fridges have been distributed to other blocks in the camp.

The food has improved quite a lot, thank God. We still rise from our meals feeling we could eat more, but we don’t get up feeling hungrier at the end than at the beginning as we did a few weeks ago. I suppose the very act of eating makes the digestive juices begin to flow which increases appetite and really after those scanty meals, we felt just as hungry at the end as at the beginning.

We now get on average per day: 8 ozs rice, 7½ ozs flour, an average of 200 lbs of meat and bone for our blocks (750 people) which means we get about 2½ ozs (70 grams) of actual meat, and the bones, grissle and uneatable portions of the meat are boiled for meat stock. We are given a variety of vegetables: lettuce, spinach, egg plant (brinjals), cucumbers, marrows, occasionally tomatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots, and the amount varies - usually about 200 to 250 lbs per day or about 5 ozs  (140 grams) per day per head. Sugar and salt is still about the same, about ½ oz per person per day.

The flour is an absolute godsend: a competent gang of workers, including Blackmore and Ogden (bricklayers), Wallis, Black, Hamilton, Robinson, Greenwood, (blacksmiths) and Howel, Fuller and Mackie (electricians), got together. Blackmore designed the oven and the others worked with him and built a really first class electric bakery oven in which can be baked 72 lbs of bread (in 12 pans with 6 lbs in each). Wallis started to make yeast from raisins, feeding it on flour, sugar and warm water. Mrs Wallis tended the growing yeast which had to be kept warm with hot water bottles (!) and fed every four hours. The net result of all this labour is that we each get ½ lb of bread per day, and the difference this makes to our general well being is quite phenomenal. It takes approx. 4 ozs of flour (or a little more) to make ½ lb of bread, so we still have about 3 ozs of flour per person left over each day and with this the kitchen staff makes Cornish pasties or sausage rolls or biscuits, generally for one meal in 3 days. The pastry is rather hard and leathery because the only shortening available is peanut oil, which (by the way) is supplied in small quantities with our other rations. These are cooked in the electric ovens of which there are about 5. To make and cook 750 Cornish pasties or 1500 biscuits is no small task when only 5 ovens are available.

The bakery oven is very useful for these pasties also. Three ovens were dismantled and the electric elements used for the bakery. This bakery oven has thermometers on the doors to register the heat of the oven (it reaches the requisite 400 degrees Farenheit quite easily) and even boasts a brass plate to say it was erected by the engineers of Blocks 2,3,4 and 5 of Stanley Prisoners of War Internment Camp, May 1942. It was built in a ground floor kitchen of block 3, of hollow concrete blocks, finished on top with Canton tiles (flat roofing tiles) and coated all over with asbestos lagging in which the hot water cylinders in the flats had been lagged. The doors were made of metal window frames (blown out by a shell) covered with sheet iron and filled in between with the lagging. The only criticism of the bread is that it is rather inclined to taste a little sour. This is because the bakers cannot procure proper yeast.  But it tastes very good for all that.

To get over the difficulties of issuing money to the internees it was decided that people should be allowed to make out lists of goods they required and that a British, American and Dutch representative should go into town and order these goods from one or two of the big Chinese shops, Wing On, or Sincere, or China Emporium or through a Compradore. Parcels would then be made up and sent into camp and then the Japanese would pay the lump sum direct to the shop or shops.

We were told by the British Communal Council that HK$30 ((pdv £85)) was going to be deducted from everyone’s amount with which to buy essential things for the community, such as condiments for cooking, brooms, cooking utensils etc. They also proposed to spend about HK$20 per head out of this fund for purchasing rolled oats with which to give everyone porridge in the mornings.

This all happened about a month ago and the parcels are still in the air! All sorts of difficulties seem to have cropped up to prevent the purchase of the goods. We had been told to guide ourselves in assessing the purchasing power of our remaining HK$75 by pricing our lists on current canteen prices. Later we were told the Japanese were disappointed, and in fact, felt a little slighted because about 80% of most lists consisted of items of food and only a small percent on clothing and other requisites; while the Japanese considered our extra food rations were quite adequate for our physical needs. Yvonne and I had HK$150 between us. We ordered food.

Items of Food:          

• 5 lbs Rolled Oats @ 3.20 – $2
• 2x Tins Syrup @ 7.30 per tin - $14.60
• 8 lbs Brown sugar@ $2.40 per lb - $19.20
• 12 oz 12 x tins jam @ $1.20 -   $14.40
• 1 ½ lb Margarine @ $5.60 lb - $8.40
• Soya Bean Milk Powder - $14.00
• ½ lb Tea @10.40 lb - $5.20
• 1 lb Salt @ $2.20 lb - $2.20
• 1 lb Cocoa @ $5.60 lb - $5.60
• ½ lb Milk Powder @ $6.60 - $3.30
• Peanut oil @ $15.00
• Total - $117.90

Items of Clothing:

• Tooth brushes and tooth paste @ $12
• Washing soap @ 40c per cake
• Matches $1
• Toilet paper x 2 rolls - $3 ((pdv £8.40))
• 2 x pairs of rubber shoes - $12 ((pdv £33))
• White sewing thread - $1
• Packet of needles - $1
• Total- $32.10

Grand Total: $150
                
In later canteens the prices of various commodities have varied and so the representative buyer will be guided by the prices we have put against each commodity. Syrup is now HK$8.80 ((pdv £24.75)) per 2 lb tin while it was HK$7.30 a month ago. On the other hand tea can be bought at HK$5.00 (Ceylon) or HK$2.40 (Chinese) per lb instead of HK$10.40, and margarine at HK$2.80 instead of HK$5.60 per lb. In view of the advent of bread and things we have been able to purchase at later canteens, we should have liked to revise our list a little. However, we are fairly satisfied with what we have ordered.

Our aim was to buy things which would improve the food we were getting for rations rather than buy such things as flour, dried fruits etc. with which to make entirely new dishes. Many people are cursing themselves because they ordered fairly large quantities of flour, while as it happens the committee twice decided to issue flour because the bakery was not complete and we were getting a surplus of flour (which incidentally is full of little maggots and weavils which have to be sifted out with much patience). Each of us has received 1½ lbs of flour with which we can make biscuits of sorts or plain dumplings (without the suet) which we eat with sugar or jam. We had heard of the vague possibility of an increased bread ration so we ordered a fair amount of jam on the off chance of it being true and we are glad we did. Anyway, we could have eaten it with part of our rice as a sweet-course after the rice, meat and vegetable course.

At about the time of this (canteen) parcel news, the Japanese sent us 100,000 cigarettes. They seem to do this sort of thing when they are celebrating a victory or the capture of some place or other! However, we were mighty glad to get the cigarettes. I had given up smoking except for an occasional pipe full of some cheap Chinese tobacco mixed with an equal quantity of dried and chopped up pine needles to drown the taste and smell! The cigarettes were divided evenly between all people over 17 and we each got 38. We had to pay for the cost of transport only and that amounted to 35 cents each person. Cigarettes in camp - these cheap Chinese makes like ‘Globe’ or ‘Golden Dragon’ - which get in some way or other have been selling at HK$1.40 per packet of 10, while before the war a similar packet cost only 10 cents.  Before the war a tin of 50 ‘Players’ or ‘Gold Flake’ etc. cost only HK$1.00 (pdv £2.80)! Thank goodness I am not a tobacco addict, nor is Yvonne, though we are both moderate smokers and enjoy a cigarette.

Last Saturday was quite a red letter day. News came through that each of us was to receive in cash the sum of HK$17.20, this being our portion of the HK$30.00 kept for the community purchase of rolled oats that could not be spent because rolled oats were not obtainable in such quantities. This was excellent news, and the actual money arrived almost as soon as the news. Usually such news arrives as a rumour which most people treat with much scepticism. Generally the rumour turns out to be only a rumour, but sometimes, after a day or two or even several weeks, the rumour turns to fact. This time it turned to fact very quickly.

Almost concurrently with the money issue came a second cigarette issue. This time it was 40 ‘Golden Dragon’ cigarettes in packets of 10 at 20 cents per packet. Yvonne and I bought our share and decided to smoke 30 each and sell our last two packets in a week or two for 80 cents each packet when the price would again have reverted to HK$1.20 or HK$1.40 per packet. Thus we would get our 30 cigarettes for nothing. This sounds rather mean, but it is not below Stanley standards! And anyway, there are many men who happen still to have quite a lot of money who are only too glad to buy the cigarettes and would buy the whole lot if they were offered at HK$1.00 per packet. However, now we have an extra HK$34.40 we may be real devils and smoke the lot!

Yvonne was very sweet! She had saved two of her last packets, unknown to me, and was keeping them for my birthday. However, on looking at them the other day she found them beginning to go mildewy and so we had to smoke them. It will be miserable if she has to spend her 21st birthday in this wretched camp. I hope and pray we shall be out before 6th August.

On Saturday also the Welfare Committee issued clothing sent in by the International Welfare Society. I think it was probably organised by the Swiss Consul under the aegis of the International Red Cross Society. At any rate, it was really a splendid effort.

Yvonne drew: a dress length of grey and white small chequered cotton material, a reel of white cotton and some ‘poppers’, two cotton handkerchiefs, a pair of khaki shorts, washing soap, and a small packet of Chinese toilet paper, also one fork. I drew: a pair of khaki shorts, one khaki shirt, one brilliant yellow shirt with a bright blue collar and a purple ‘V’ neck decoration, 2 handkerchiefs, a pair of sandshoes (not yet received), material for repairing one pair of leather shoes, bar of washing soap and a packet of toilet paper.

I was most pleased with my draw for shoes: I have two pairs of leather shoes, one which is almost worn out and which is so old that no further repairs can be executed on them, the other which has never been repaired and whose uppers and heels are good but whose soles are so worn that I can see daylight right through them. Consequently in wet weather my feet are perpetually wet. I have finished Yvonne’s clogs and have half finished my own, so our shoe position is brightening. In addition, we have each ordered a pair of sandshoes in our HK$75.00 parcels and if these arrive we shall be able, more or less, to look the weather in the face again. I took my shoes along to Major Begley and his assistant who are the shoe repairers for our blocks and who are doing all the repairs with the Welfare material. I was lucky to get repairs and shoes - I hope the shoes will arrive in due course.

Every man who applied for them received 1 pair of shorts and two shirts, two handkies, soap and toilet paper: every woman a dress length, shorts, one shirt, soap, handkies and toilet paper. The Bidwells drew a straw sleeping mat which makes it infinitely cooler at night than sleeping on blankets or even sheets. The Fortescues drew a large mug; unfortunately none of us drew an enamel washing bowl.

These brightly coloured shirts, the cheapish khaki shirts and the shorts are made for Messrs. Dodwell or Jardines, I think for export to Africa, in normal times, where they are sold in large numbers to the Africans - hence the gaudy colours of the coloured shirts. They all have collars of a different colour to the shirt; blues and yellows, plum and green, blue and plum, brown and green and numerous other combinations. Yvonne very cleverly spotted a woman with a blue shirt (the same colour as my collar) and a yellow collar, so she suggested unpicking and swapping the collars.  This they agreed to and now I have a really smart looking all yellow short sleeved shirt and the other girl has an equally smart blue shirt. Yvonne also removed the strip of violet decoration (all these shirts have this strip of colour round the neck in third and brightly contrasting colour!) Another African fancy is, apparently, to have shorts with turn ups at the bottom, for all these shorts are carefully turned up! The Africans must be short in the body and have enormous stomaches, for these shorts are enormous round the waist and are very short in the crutch. My normal size is 32 and Yvonne’s 28 and we had to get 38 and 34 respectively to get them to fit. Size 40 would have been better for me but they had no 40’s left. So, quite a lot of adjustment is necessary. Well, this is the first time I have lined up for free clothing!  I remember how, two years ago, we took clothes we could spare to the Cathedral where they were dispatched to a little tramp steamer that had called in on its way from Vladivostock to Australia full of British refugees who had escaped across (then Central) Russia from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania with hardly more than the clothes they stood up in, when those countries were occupied by Germany.

This morning there was some excitement because a tiger had been seen on one of the beaches near the camp. The report sent in to the Community office by an internee who saw it, described it as being about 4’ 6” long (head to rump) and standing 2’ 6” to 3’ 0” high, with a long bushy tail. It encountered a Chinese guard and mauled his face and later a party of these police guards went in search of it and shot it near Stanley Village. It can be seen (or could this morning) in the distance from the PWD bungalow at the Gendarmerie Headquarters, but it is too hot to toil up there for that doubtful pleasure. Apparently this tiger’s mate (the female) and its two fairly large cubs are still at large in the hills in the vicinity of the camp, but whether they are in the hills of the island at the back of this Stanley peninsula or in the hills at the end of the peninsula (where the fort is situated) is not quite clear. It is many years since a wild tiger visited Hong Kong - they swim the short distance from the mainland.  I cannot imagine why they should come now.

Bradbury, the Dairy Farm butcher who was taken in to town by the Japanese for the purpose of skinning the tiger, has now returned. Apparently there was no one else in Hong Kong capable of skinning this tiger! He performed his duties at the Happy Valley police station - now Gendarmerie Divisional HQ. He had a room to himself in which he was locked from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. and he had to eat all his meals with the Chinese cooks. 

((Written on 21st June 1942:)) After the tiger had been shot at the beginning of the month, there was much speculation about its origin. It was suggested that this family of tigers had escaped from the circus that used to be held at Causeway Bay, and this seemed quite a probable explanation. However the ‘HK News’ suggested that these fine specimens had been roaming the countryside in search of food, explaining that tigers seldom resort to eating human flesh unless other food is very scarce or unless the tiger is getting old, but ended up suggesting that the tigers were attracted to Stanley by the 3,000 well fed internees in the European Internment Camp there! These journalistic efforts are often most amazing especially when one remembers they are written in all seriousness. Bradbury discounted the menagerie origin of the tiger, saying that the animal he skinned was a fine specimen of a wild male tiger, about 3 years old and in excellent condition. He cured the skin and said it was flown in a special plane to Tokyo where it was presented to the Emperor.

Apparently this tiger killed a Japanese gendarme (not reported in the paper) and mauled an Indian guard, so he did his bit for the war effort! The paper displayed a photograph of the tiger, lashed to a pole and it certainly looked a fine beast, beautifully marked and like the big Malayan type of tiger. It weighed about 250 lbs. The paper also said that local Chinese stated that the appearance of the tiger meant that a long period of prosperity was about to begin. Perhaps there is more in that than meets the eye! The other day we saw a triple rainbow (the first I have seen in my life), a fine sight. What would not the Ancients have forseen from that? Well, we too have faith!

Incidentally the tiger episode did not end with the shooting of the tiger, but let me finish with the first tiger first. Earlier in the night on which it was shot (at about 10 p.m.) a couple of Chinese women and an old Chinese man had come into the camp somehow or another with cigarettes and sweets etc. to sell to the internees. Loseby, a little man full of his own importance who is living in ‘B’ bungalow, reported these unfortunate Chinese to the guard and the man was dragged off. One of the women found ‘Goldie’ (Police Sergeant) who is living in the garage at ‘B’ bungalow and asked him to intercede with the guard on behalf of their father or husband. Goldie, who thought it unwise for the woman to stand about in the open said, “You’d better come around here and tell me what has happened,” and led her to the small grotto or alcove in the garden, covered with creepers and only dimly lit by the lights from the bungalow.

As he was almost at the entrance he noticed his shoelace was undone and stooped to tie it up. As he did so, there was a snarl from inside and quickly looking up from his crouching position, he saw to his complete horror and amazement, a large tiger leaping right over him! He said he saw its teeth and claws and all!! It just sloped off into the bushes and shrubbery and disappeared! To finish the story of the Chinese pedlars, I regret to say the old man was taken outside the camp to Stanley Police Station and there was summarily shot.

The morning following the shooting of the tiger a great round up was organized by the Japanese occupying the battery at the end of the peninsula. During the morning we could hear a great noise of gongs being beaten and could occasionally see the flash of an officer’s sword as it caught the sunlight. They combed the whole hillside and report had it that three dark objects had been observed swimming towards some other islands out to sea. Whether or not this is true I do not know. The tigers are now reported to have been seen near Wong Nei Chong Gap, in the centre of this island and apparently a leopard has now joined their ranks! Probably one of their cubs. But before leaving Stanley, they made several more visits to the camp, (after the organized tiger hunt). Two nights later Maudie herself was sleeping outside in the garden of ‘C’ bungalow with several others when a man shouted “the tiger!” and they all rushed for the bungalow. A tiger was seen in the gardens of the bungalows on two nights and we could hear the shouting and see the flashes of torches from our block. One gentleman kept flashing S.O.S. but who was going to save him no one knows!  At any rate the tigers departed with no harm done.

On about March 15 1942, the Chinese supervisor of this camp was replaced by a Japanese supervisor, Mr Yamashita. This change, I believe, had been brought about by representations made by the Camp Committee to the Japanese Gendarmerie, pointing out how unsatisfactory it was for us to have to do all our negotiations about camp affairs through the medium of a Chinese puppet and asking very strongly that a Japanese Supervisor be appointed. Mr Cheng (the Chinese) had been, it was suspected, ‘squeezing’ the internees to a considerable extent. At about that time he became indisposed and is said to have developed TB of the lungs, at any rate, he went and Mr Yamashita came in his place. I was working in the kitchen when he came on his tour of inspection. Imagine my surprise when I found him to be the hairdresser at the Hong Kong Hotel who had often cut my hair. Conditions in camp have greatly improved since he has taken charge of things and it has proved far more satisfactory to negotiate directly with the Japanese than through the Chinese.

We have been having some lovely weather recently. The early part of this month was very hot with the S.W. monsoon wind blowing. As our room faces East there was little or no air moving in the room and the nights were very hot. Vera, bless her, lent us a beautiful green sheet which saved us sleeping on a hot blanket. Actually, Yvonne had put both our mintois into one cover and had cut the other cover, thus making two sheets, albeit somewhat stained by marks from the floor and the red cement skirting to the room. In the humid weather the moisture condensed on these skirtings and the red came off onto anything that touched it.

At the beginning of the month the moon was full, giving a brilliant light: we could see quite clearly all the islands to sea. Yvonne and I decided we would try sleeping up on the flat roof of our block, for although the S.W. wind was blowing the weather seemed to have set fair. We carted up all our blankets, the mintois and our green sheet, selected a suitable spot and made our bed, puttiwng all but one blanket under the mintois to make the bed as soft as possible. There was a lovely breeze blowing on the roof and it was much cooler than in our room; in fact, in the early morning we were quite glad to put a blanket over us. We watched the enormous moon rise out of the sea……it looked the size of a house. By the time we were in bed the moon was so bright that it rather kept me awake. Then we were wakened at about 7 in the morning by the sun. There is so much power in the sun at this time of year that it made us begin to perspire soon after it had risen and we too had to rise, though usually we stay in bed until 8 a.m.  

There were two or three other couples on the roof as well, so we selected our own bay, formed by chimney stacks and water tanks and left our bedding up there all day in the sun. On the third night I woke up at about 11 or 12 o’clock and saw clouds rolling up. We did not know whether to risk it or not, but when another couple set the example and took up their beds and walked, we decided to follow suit, for it would have been an awful scramble getting down the cat ladder to the second floor with our bedding. The Fortescues had moved to our bed (which was in a cooler corner of the room than theirs, so we quietly made up our bed on theirs and safely ensconced ourselves. We had hardly got into bed when down came the rain! We pictured the scramble of the others still on the roof. Just then Marjorie woke up and said to Tim,

“It’s raining, we’d better get our bed ready for the Charters”. 

Tim staggered out of bed half asleep and came over to us. He looked hard and then said, 

“They seem to be here already!”

We had a day or two of real monsoon rain and then the wind veered to the East or South East bringing cooler and much drier weather which has lasted up to date. I don’t mind high temperatures at all when the atmosphere is dry; in fact I quite enjoy hot, dry weather; but the damp heat of the monsoon weather is terribly trying and enervating.