25 Feb 1942, Barbara Anslow's diary

Lovely rissole today, and 1 extra slice of bread.  Colder.  I broke Mrs. K's teapot. ((We called Mrs. Kopecsky Mrs. K)).

Two months since capitulation.

Today a new kitchen staff has taken over, and mum is helping to cut up the vegetables, it means getting up at 7am.  We are just about on speaking terms with Mrs G who has temporarily stopped being so difficult since she was sick in night and Mum looked after her.

The bread ration in camp is up today so Mum and Olive are getting as much as I do at the hospital. Fairly happy working at hospital, so much better to be keeping brain going, and typing and shorthand practice.

Men are voluntarily working, getting food out of the godowns, to earn extra food - tins of bully etc. ((Just outside the camp were godowns filled with food etc. - set up by Govt. before the Jap war to provide food stocks in different parts of the colony.))
 
Future still most obscure. I like to think about rumours of repatriation to Canada or Argentina, though the journey would be dreadful. Rumours that the regular army men have already left Hong Kong.
 
I'm dying to go back to England and feel so glad I have been self-indulgent last year - boxes of crystallised ginger, many milk shakes at Repulse Bay and the Dairy Farm, peanuts and potato crisps, and went to hundreds of films, before the Japs attacked.