Barbara Anslow's diary: View pages | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Barbara Anslow's diary: View pages

Mrs G back from x-ray today, and bought us food and a hotplate  ((a tiny plate like a hob which plugged into the socket in our room:  very primitive but very efficient except when, as often happened, the wires broke and had to be continually re-connected with bit of tin pressed together.))

We are so rich in food - So wonderful to have all that food, 'choko (21 oz), 1 lb Vitacup, 3 tins of cream and wheet, 1 lb porridge, pkt prunes, pkt muscatels, pkt table salt, raisins, 2 lbs wong tong, half a lb white sugar, 1 jar syrup, small tin treacle, 1 lb 'Mother's cocoa', and 6 small tins jam; 3 (12 oz) tins of butter, and a bunch of bananas.  Most of that was bought with Olive's $50 note, and we have a 5 lb tin of jam to come, and a tin of salmon to celebrate Mum's homecoming tomorrow.  These last 2 evenings Mum, Olive and I have been sitting outside hospital on the grass,eating our supper - Mum sitting enthroned in the rocky wooden invalid's chair. Almost every one who passed commented that it looked as if Mum was the Queen holding court and we girls the handmaidens draped around.

 


Mum came home yest.

Frightfully hot.


Despite having my glasses, am beginning to have trouble with eyes – no sunglasses.  Went with Mum to Welfare, she got milk powder and apricots.

Mrs. Grant has lost 70lbs. ((This is the neighbour and friend who, when we were shipped to Stanley, cried that she couldn't jump from our ship into the junk to take us ashore.   Mum too had lost a tremendous amount of weight, she weighed 133 lbs. when she came out of hospital, having been about 170 pre-Jap attack.))

We may be swimming next month!


Talk of tiger, that one has been shot.


Mum getting stronger day by day.

Photo in newspaper of tiger caught in Stanley; yesterday there were rumours about tigers being loose and being seen - they must have been true.  There are said to be another, and cubs, and a leopard loose - I think from circus.


Some trunks arrived today from Repulse Bay HotelMrs. Longworth ((in neighbouring room)) got one, and so did the Puckles Makes me think that perhaps some of our trunks at home ((Happy Valley flat)) may be more or less intact. ((They weren't... even the trunks had been taken))

Mrs G borrowed a razor and we all shaved under our arms - wonderful after all this time.

Mum doing fine.


News of DMS wanting nursing sisters for Kowloon.

Tongue is sore.


Every one got 2 pairs of shorts and 2 shirts from Welfare today.  ((The shorts were a peculiar shape, and unisex but adaptable.  The shirts were bright colours which did wonders for our morale, in a sort of cotton ribbing.  We girls mainly wore our shirts upside down , cutting off the original v-neck which became the bottomt hem; the original bottom hem was then sewn up to go across the shoulders, forming a more circular neck which looked quite stylish - to us.))

Frightening to remember that now it stays hot like this right through till late October - Mr Fraser's original estimate of our incarceration.

Tiger still at large.

Dr Selwyn Clarke came in yesterday and wanted nurses for Kowloon Hospital.

Mrs. Greenwood very disappointed – they wouldn't consider her because she has an operation pending.  I do wish they would make it an exchange and send Mabel to us.  Mum longs so much for her.

Some of the Americans have had their $75 parcels in.  

Mrs K sick.


Tiger still loose.

Mum weighs 150 lbs, Olive 131, me 113 (rice fat).


Rumours are that we will ALL be repatriated.

Some of the Americans have had their $75 parcels.  

Mrs K sick.


No fresh meat in today or yesterday.


Dr Erooga said Mabel had a goitre – that he saw it when she was in Queen Mary Hospital (just before the war) with dragging foot.


Tonight concert given to the Americans because they are due to leave soon.  Costumes grand. Carol Bateman arranged it.  Graceful dancing, piano duet by Elizabeth Drown and Mrs Barton.  Chorus with good lines about how 'we do like to be beside the sea-side', and 'the joys of Stanley prom, but the lack of to and from.' It was on the Prison Officers' club ground - lovely and cool.  At the end Mr Gimson gave a good speech, and said more than one would have expected.

The principal reason for the concert - departure of the Americans for HOME - seems far too good to be true.  I know we must all leave here some time (except for those of us who may die in the natural order of things) yet it would be so wonderful to set out for Home - almost a dream.

Electricity went off for a while.


Two nurses here were suddenly informed this evening to be ready to go to Bowen Road Hospital tomorrow at 10 ((I think they had volunteered earlier to go)), that must mean some must be coming here. Hope that Mabel will be among those to come in.

Tonight Mum and I started brushing up our French with Mrs Cryan.


Up early. Raining, so got into my shorts, borrowed Mrs G's clogs and short mack, and hurried up to admin. bungalow on hill.  Heaps of people waiting there - men for the ration lorry; some to collect parcels sent them from people in town, and nurses waiting to go to B. Rd Hosp.   After a long wait, Mr Nielson came over and said the rain was stopping the arrival today.   The hopes of Mabel coming have almost diminished again, because during the day I've heard of heaps of people who had been agitating to come from the hospital into camp.   Blister on foot from clogs in the rain on an incline in a hurry.


But Mabel came, after all, about 4.30pm.

While I was working in the hosp. I heard from one of the nurses that a young girl had arrived to join her mother, with others from the Bowen Rd. Hosp., so careered up to the blocks.  Outside the Dutch Block a business-like person was directing unloading operations on the lorry - Mabel, wearing unfamiliar clothes: competent, capable, independent ((not like my little sister, 5 years younger than me))  She's fatter in the face, and brought messages ((including one for me from Arthur, written in January - this is what he says:

'My dear Barbara, Your very welcome notes eventually reached me – the first one when I was at Wanchai Gap and the second here, both of course brought by Sid.  I certainly was relieved to know that you were well and had not been put out too much, though of course I realise how you must feel about the home and losses involved.  Never mind, my dear, everything WILL be OK before long.  How about those bedsocks right now?  Brr,  When we first came back from the mainland, after that pitiful effort at holding the enemy, I tried to phone you from Taikoo, seven times in one day.  I had no luck; however, one female voice said you were in a tunnel – I didn't think for a moment she was sane, though I heard afterwards you were working under the ground.

The latest news I heard re the Stanley folk, was that they were being treated well, and had no cause to complain of treatment, and trust this correct. We have had many new arrivals from various hospitals nearby, and they were all under the impression that we were living in grand style out here (Shamshuipo Camp) and so on and so on.  How the .. do those yarns get around?

We get two issues of rice per day, the morning one without fail naked and ashamed – just plain rice.  The evening dish is sometimes accompanied by a cupful of vegetable water, sometimes a cupful of soya beans, and sometimes a cupful of stew, which tastes suspiciously of meat – though visible signs are definitely lacking.  However we've been told that the messing ? WILL improve and that we will probably get SOMETHING WITH BOTH ISSUES OF RICE.

Before we left Victoria Barracks we got a number of tinned goods, and some tea and sugar.  The tinned stuff has long since gone, tho I'm pleased to say the tea is still available.  Smokes of course are out of the question, unless one is lucky enough to get an occasional fag-end from these lucky people who get parcels sent in.  I wonder how long these will continue.  I really think the people outside will have a devil of a job to get food or money in the near future.

Well, enough of the moans.  Except for a continuous emptiness in all regions, I feel quite well and have been told that I look VERY WELL.  There are a few instruments here and a band of sorts functions occasionally. I take a turn in conducting and blowing a saxaphone.  A few weeks ago I woke at 4am and thought about a phrase 'How's your morale?' - and before daylight I had outlined a verse and chorus and a tune.  The thing is on paper, but I really don't think the time is ripe to put it before the troops.

I am lucky to have borrowed a Pitman's shorthand book and have started to scratch at angles and circles. I find it very fascinating, though the paper question is rather acute.

Sid doing well as a cropper of heads – pardon me, hairdresser. Topper looks well on rice diet, he even appears to be putting on weight. I hesitate to predict my weight after many more months over here.

No doubt you hear many rumours as to the rest of the war. I am keeping a Propaganda Book and so far it is full of contradictions.  I hope you are keeping very fit and managing to find enough to do, to make the days pass quickly by.  This cold weather is just too bracing for words.  I've been sleeping with as much clothing on as I can get on, but I rarely sleep for more than 4 hours at a stretch – it is just too, too cold.

Please give my very kindest wishes to your Mother and to Olive.  I trust it won't be long ere we all may meet once more. What a lot of yarns will be swopped across the room.  Keep cheery . Sid has just said 'I bet she doesn't get chips with her meals' – what a hard neck!  The favourite pastime here is making up menus for future reference. Hope you get this before Christmas.  My love to you, Arthur.'

There was no date on this letter, but it was obviously written months before I received it.)). 


I'm beginning to feel sorry we brought Mabel away, and that I didn't stick out the nursing lectures and have been with her.


Farewell dance for the Americans; we waited outside hall, too crowded to stay inside.

Mabel missing the companionship of the girls at the hospital, she was having the time of her life there, where she was the youngest. ((Mabel was also missing her bed at the hospital: the only bed we had for her was made by piling one suitcase on top of another.)) There was always the chance to hear from Sid (long since discharged from the Military Hospital, now in Shamshuipo Camp, but lorries from there sometimes brought sick soldiers.) I have been hearing about soldier Bickley who was so brave though blinded, and how she wept buckets when she fed him; how she was always breaking thermometers.

Volunteers are being asked for Military Hospital, how Mabel's face lit up when I told her about it.  She said, 'Let's you and I go there.'  I would love to but the name Redwood would hardly get pass HQ after the fuss we had to get her here.  I hope Nan and the other VADs will come here soon.

Selwyn-Clarke came in to office today and gave me, Olive and Dorothy some lovely milk chocolate.

We had a feast tonight – bully beef.


We only have one tin of bully left, and are counting on our $75 parcels coming in.

Mabel is to start piano lessons which should help out with her boredom. ((Several pianos had been left in the camp, some relics of personal furniture in the flats pre-war.))

Went to Mr Shields ((dentist, known as Sammy)), at last he has found the reason for my ache- a large cavity half the size of the tooth. It was horribly painful.

Americans were to have gone tomorrow, but now postponed till Saturday.


Mum said – please yourself, (about Mabel volunteering to go to Military Hospital) but I know she was hurt that we should want to take steps from her.   As it turned out they are trying to get 3 from Military Hosp. without exchange, but have names ready in case there has to be an exchange. Volunteers for Military Hosp haven't come forward in any numbers.  Mum says Mabel can put her name down to go back if she wants to – tho I blush to think what Selwyn-Clarke will think about it.  Mabel says, why don't I try to come back with her?.  I would like to go with Mabel, but feel afraid lest I couldn't do all the jobs there.  Mum would be happier if I went with Mabel than if she went alone.

Americans were to have gone tomorrow, but now postponed till Saturday.

Today some women (including Mrs G and Mrs Macklin) got an allotment from their husbands ((in Kowloon camps.  Although these money allotments were very small, the wonderful part was that these ladies saw their husbands' handwriting sanctioning the allotment so knew they were still alive.))

News isn't good.  Tobruk has surrendeed, it's said we have lost 25,000 prisoners there; also glum news of attack on a convoy in the Med.

We have heard guns these past few days, it was suggested that the Japs are re-enacting the capture of Hong Kong.


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