11 May 1943, John Charter's wartime journal

Y and I between us make a 12 oz tin (335 grams – 6 meals) of corned beef or mutton last for 3 days, a 15 oz tin of fish lasts for 4 days. With this arrangement our tinned food will last until the end of July – by which time, surely something else will have turned up. At the moment we have about Y2.40 left!

On Saturday, 24th April, we helped Maudie to move house. Up till then she had lived in ‘C’ bungalow in a very crowded room – 9 women to start with. By the time Maudie moved, there were only 6, and she left 5. No extra person is being moved in as the room is still pretty full with 5. Maudie has moved to Block 10 and now lives on the top floor with Vera Murrel and Mrs Rudolph. The latter is in hospital, undergoing a lengthy treatment for something or other, and is unlikely to be in the room for sometime. Maudie sacrifices the garden, and the fine view from ‘C’ bungalow, but gains, in exchange, the blessed seclusion and privacy that is so entirely lacking in this place. It is no exaggeration to say that the only place in which you can be sure of being alone is the lavatory! And then there is usually someone else rattling at the door!

There is quite a nice view from Maudie’s window if you stand at one side and look past Block 9. Vera is out a lot of the time and Maudie often has the room entirely to herself. Being on top of the hill that forms the narrow neck of Stanley Peninsula, Blocks 8 and 9 get a pleasant breeze in summer, though it is rather cold and blustery in winter. As they have a hot plate in their room, Maudie has very generously lent us hers. This is much nicer for us, for, though Isa and Mr Lammert lent us their hot plate very readily, we often felt we could not boil things like peas, and beans for any length of time.

I may have mentioned our disasterous efforts to make a hot plate. I cut the necessary grooves in a thick and flat ‘Canton Tile’ (which are used for insulating purposes on these Married Quarters roofs) and then for the large sum of MY10 (pdv £100) we bought a length of element coil and I fitted it and tried it out. The coil burnt out after 5 minutes! Some canny Chinese had evidently got some steel wire, wound it into a coil and sold it as element wire. The chap who supplied it to me had got it in ‘under the fence’ and though he sent it back and endeavoured to get it changed he was not successful. He had bought some 10 strands of this stuff for the purpose of making hot plates; he had sold 2 pieces (and when he sold them he said as far as he knew it was good stuff but if I took it I should have to take all risks) and was left with 8 more dud pieces – representing a loss of MY80. Most of the other element wire that has been smuggled into camp however, is quite good stuff, and as hot plates are so essential to have in this place we think, at the risk of being stung again, we would do well to try and buy another element if we ever get another allowance. This is made additionally necessary because of some quite exciting domestic news we heard the other day. 

About 3 days ago Professor Forster of HK University came to see me and to tell me that for some time now the Education Committee in camp has been trying to push forward the idea of a Technical School for some of the older boys. This Technical School has in fact, been established, but the Education Committee is anxious to carry the idea further and turn it into a semi boarding school type of school. With this object in view they applied through the BCC, to the Japanese for permission to use Block 7 (the old Chinese master’s house attached to the Prep School) as a hostel for the older boys. The boys in question between the ages of about 16 and 18, have been approached and some 11 of the 15 or 16 of them have expressed their willingness to move into such a school. The others do not wish to move presumably for family reasons. It is probable that if we are given the use of this block (which is outside the barbed wire fence), we should be given passes to enter the camp, but the Japanese may refuse to give permission for other people to visit the block. This, I believe, is the reason why the idea of holding the Technical School in the block has fallen through – for those not living in the block could not attend. But that part of the scheme was relatively unimportant, the boarding school part of it being the real idea; and it was found that many of the older boys still at school are quite keen on the idea, so the requisite number of boys could be made up.