Cyril Gaby represents a long-standing tranche of the Hong Kong community - that is of seamen who would acquire a Chinese mistress in the city and set her up in an apartment. It was a convenient arrangement for men who came and went. In his autobiography, Gaby has described how he acquired his mistress through the time honoured "viewing" procedure at a tea shop in Ladder Street and recorded the price negotiated with the madam, which in his case in the early 1930s was a down payment of $500 and the purchase of a $2000 apartment in Wanchai. <Read more ...>
Mr McReynolds either lived next door to 19 Broadwood Terrace in 1926 or next door to 19 Broadwood Road. He also owned a monkey. He is not on Carl Smith nor on the Jurors Lists. It would be useful to verify his actual address in order to confirm the whereabouts of my grandmother, Hannah Warren in 1926, apparently bitten by McReynolds's monkey in one newspaper report. A second newspaper report gave the victim as her daughter-in-law, Cicely Warren and the location Broadwood Road, not Broadwood Terrace. <Read more ...>
After training as a nurse in New Zealand, Kathleen Thompson went to Britain in 1936 and joined the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service.
In Hong Kong she served as matron of St. Albert's Hospital during the hostilities.
She went to Britain after the war and became Assistant Director of the Army Nursing Sevice (rank: Lieutenant-Colonel). After retirement in the 1960s she returned to New Zealand and died at the age of 94.
Source:
Arthur E. Gomes Newsletter, undated but probably March 2002 <Read more ...>
James Munro Bertram was a left-wing New Zealand journalist active before the war in China and Hong Kong. While in the Colony he worked for Madame Sun-yatsen's China Defence League and supported other initiatives designed to help China in its war against Japan, such as the Industrial Co-operatives organised by fellow New Zealander Rewi Alley. <Read more ...>
