Happy Birthdays | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Happy Birthdays

I wanted a Birthday-themed photo for this week, and remembered this one:

1950s (?) Children's party

It's definitely a party of some sort, check out the bottles of pop and cake-shop food:

1950s (?) Children's party

But the other photo that came with it shows such a range of ages I doubt it was a birthday party.

1950s (?) Children's party

Some sort of youth group instead? I guess it was taken in the 1950s/60s, given that the boys are wearing shirts, ties & jackets. And possibly somewhere in Kowloon, based on the little booklet the two photos came in:

Photo booklet

I hope someone will recognise a face and tell us more. 

Here's another photo, courtesy of Jill Fell, and this one definitely shows a birthday party:

Veronica Walker's birthday party

The birthday girl is Veronica Walker, and the photo was taken at her house on Broadwood Road [1] around 1937. Can you identify any of the other children? (You can click any of the photos above to see a larger version you can zoom in to.)

If you have any photos of old Hong Kong birthday parties, I'd love to see them. Here's how to upload a photo to the website: http://gwulo.com/node/2076


It's my birthday today, the one that marks the half-way point to becoming an antique [2]. It's also the last day of term for our daughters, so this evening's birthday party will be on board flight BA028 to London. Maybe the air hostess will give me an extra bread roll to celebrate?

There won't be any new photos from me for a few weeks while we're away, though I plan to post up several from the archives. We get back in mid-August, then in September it will be time to get the long-delayed website upgrade underway.

But first there is cool weather and warm beer to enjoy!

Best regards,

David

Also on Gwulo.com this week:

The next chapter from Betty Steel's memoir:

References:

  1. The Walker family's house: http://gwulo.com/node/19791. The father, Vernon Walker, was General Manager of HK Tramways.
  2. The US Customs define 100 years as the starting age for antiques.

Comments

Joan Izard writes:

Regarding your 3rd photo - I think it wasn’t unusual in the 1950’s for parties to include people of all ages.