12 Feb 1944, Chronology of Events Related to Stanley Civilian Internment Camp

Lane Crawford baker Serge Peacock (Bungalow D) is about to receive some bad news. Today the International Red Cross in Hong Kong receive a telegram from his mother through their Shanghai Delegation telling him that his father died on January 19.

Peacock was a naturalised Russian, who'd changed his name from Piankoff. The late Mr. Piankoff had worked alongside his son in the Lane Crawford Bakery on Stubbs Road during the hostilities, but had presumably remained uninterned as Russian or stateless and gone with his wife to Shanghai.

Mrs. Peacock also asks her son about 'Tkachenko' - but, as far as I know, no-one from that family was in Stanley.

Now that Stanley is under the control of the Japanese Military, it is no longer thought appropriate to have democratic mechanisms working in the camp - so the (third) British Community Council is abolished and holds it's final meeting this morning. According to Franklin Gimson, who rarely saw eye-to-eye with the B.C.C., the most noteworthy occurence is a 'long tirade' from L. R. Neilsen on the rations.

Source:

Gimson, Diary, Weston Library, Oxford, p. 53 (verso)

Note: Gimson soon starts recording B.C.C. meetings again - without any comment as to the reason for its re-appearance. I get the impression that it meets rather less often and that some of its power has been lost to a committee of the Chairmen of the elected Block representatives; but it seems that the Japanese went back on their decision to abolish it completely - unless the British revived it in an 'unofficial' capacity.