Dec 1953 - Shek Kip Mei fire

6 December 1953   -   Last Tuesday was rather rough in this area and we had a boat out on detail.   Well, it turned out she couldn’t go through a gap, the gap into Hong Kong harbour.   Then we heard that the marine superintendent started flapping and phoned up Kowloon radio room to contact the boat.   He certainly laid it on thick enough, “this is a matter of life and death”.   When the boat arrived back the cox’n said that they had been as snug as a bug in a rug.

13 December 1953   -   “Pegasus” the amateur soccer champions are visiting Hong Kong this month and Hong Kong soccer enthusiasts reckon the colony can beat the university boys.

27 December 1953   -   No doubt you will have heard about the tragic fire we have had here…a fire started in a village, Shek Kip Mei just a mile or so north of our camp, comprising of wooden shacks.   Within four hours 10,000 shacks were destroyed and 60,000 Chinese were homeless and during those four hours I was in the middle of it.