06 Aug 1944, Diary of George Gerrard in Stanley Internment Camp Hong Kong

The new regime is a washout and we are kept hanging around for all hours waiting on the arrival of the van with rations, they often arrive so late as to be impossible to cook for that evenings meal so that these sometimes have been gey thin and what's more these people are far from being helpful of course. They are the people who wield the big stick and can therefore call the tune, but their day is coming and it appears by all the good news we are getting to be not very far off in fact very close, however it can't come too soon let us back to freedom again. The Formosan guards who are on duty here at night time go around with fixed bayonets when there is an air raid on and are far from being pleasant.

We have each received a cake of soap, as there are three different kinds, Palmolive, carbolic and plain, when distributing I made a draw so that there would be as fair a distribution and at the same time no reflection on my distribution. I drew carbolic myself with which I was quite pleased. Palmolive was the wish of most so as to do for shaving soap. Anything does me for shaving with, I'm lucky in having a razor and blades to last a long long time. D.B.B. gives my old blades a swish up now and again. I have no shaving brush.