Articles tagged "All" | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong

Articles tagged "All"

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Summer update - UK visit / H2 plans / Next photos

Submitted by David on Tue, 2017-08-15 02:00

This is the Jetlag edition of the weekly newsletter. Today we flew back to Hong Kong after a few weeks in the UK visiting family & friends. Though it's past midnight there's no sign of anyone feeling sleepy ...

I'll start with a few "Gwulo-ey" places we visited in the UK, then look at plans for the rest of the year, and finish with a question about what photos you'd like to see here.

UK sights

We started with a few days in London. I'd tried to go to the National Army Museum there earlier in the year, but it was closed for renovation. It's the home of the Tyndareus Stone, which used to be up on the Peak, but was moved back to the UK before the handover. The museum has re-opened, so I made another attempt to see the stone. Unfortunately, after the renovation the stone has been moved into storage, so it is no longer on display.

Still, the museum was an interesting place to spend a couple of hours, but not big enough to need another visit for a few years. The Science and Natural History Museums are a different matter, and they are regular favourites. We've also started visiting the Victoria & Albert Museum, which I'd ignored in the past. The Science Museum has a new mathematics exhibition this year, that went down well with our 11-year-old daughter, while our 14-year-old preferred sketching in the V&A.

From London we collected a hire car and drove over to my hometown in southwest Wales. A rainy day gave me the excuse to visit a couple of museums along the Milford Haven waterway, starting with the

Help finding a friend from Hong Kong

Submitted by mongkokdessert on Mon, 2017-08-07 08:38

Hi. I'm trying to locate our family friend (who also happened to be our domestic helper) that we've lost contact with over the years. We last saw her in Hong Kong about 10 years ago and haven't heard from her since. We used to exchange Christmas Cards and the last time we were in HK her phone line had been disconnected.

Views along the tram line in the 1920s

Submitted by David on Sat, 2017-08-05 19:00
1926 Praya East

Join us on a tram ride through 1920s Hong Kong, keeping an eye out for these along the way:

  • Typhoon damage: Several photos show trams damaged in a strong typhoon that hit Hong Kong in August 1923
  • Industrial action: One photo shows a tram with a banner, “Tramways volunteers apply here”. The photo was taken during the strike and boycott of 1925-26. 
  • The trams' changing appearance: At the start of the 1920s, the upper decks on trams had a canvas roof, but open sides. The canvas roof was later replaced with a solid roof, and by the end of the decade all trams had enclosed upper decks, looking similar to the trams we see today. It took time for changes to work their way through the whole fleet, so you'll see some photos show two different generations of tram.

Now on with the photos:

72 years ago: August 1945 and the end is in sight

Submitted by David on Sun, 2017-07-30 01:49

Seventy-two years ago: our wartime diarists knew the end of the war was in sight, but would they live to see it?

The good news

They had two good reasons to believe the end of the war was coming. First there was the steady advance of the Allies as they fought their way from island to island across the Pacific. The local newspapers in Hong Kong emphasised the Allied losses at each stage, but it was clear the Japanese were in retreat. By April the Allies were attacking Okinawa, less than 400 miles away from the Japanese mainland. Barbara Anslow, interned in Stanley Camp, wrote about the attack in her diary entry for 6th April:

"Newspaper is full of landings on Lu Chius made on Sunday morning"

(The modern name for the Lu Chius is the Ryukyu Islands, and the largest of the Ryukyu Islands is Okinawa.)

But the big news came next month

Mody House, Kowloon

Submitted by Philip on Tue, 2017-07-25 09:43

A few years back I wrote about a  wedding which took place in HK in August 1936. The story got started with a photograph provided to me by Judy Bercene, which showed  her relative Sheila Haynes as one of the Bridesmaids.

Who do you recognise in these photos?

Submitted by David on Sun, 2017-07-23 04:00

We've got a good selection of group photos here on Gwulo, but many of the faces remain unnamed. Here's a recent example from Barbara Harding (née Landau), showing her with form 3A at Maryknoll Convent School in 1963-4:

Maryknoll Sisters School, form 3A, 1963-64

 

Barbara can spot herself at 2i, Tina Payne at 1b and Rita dos Remedios at 3c, but says though she recognises the other girls "the names have gone..." Please can you identify any of the other people in this photo, or forward it to anyone else who might be able to help?

 

Zoom!

You may be wondering how you'll recognise any of those faces at such a small size. It'd be much easier if we could see a larger view:

Zoom

 

Fortunately the Gwulo website has a Zoom feature, that lets you zoom in to see a photo's details. If you haven't used it before, please take a look at this short tutorial video to see how the zoom feature works.

 

Here are some of the other group photos we have that I'm hoping we can add some names to. We'll start with ...

Coroners Reports

Submitted by tomcrean on Fri, 2017-07-21 22:55

Hello.  My gggrandfather died in Hong Kong in 1858 where he served as a member of the Medical Staff Corps.  I have some details (including his death and burial date) but he was accidentally killed and I believe there was a coroners report. I have searched the HK Public Record Office but am unable to find coroners reports.  Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Many thanks, tomcrean

How to zoom in to a photo

Submitted by Admin on Fri, 2017-07-21 04:46

When you're looking at a photo on Gwulo, there are often times you'd like to take a closer look at some detail. This video shows how to use the Zoom feature:

The army in Hong Kong.

Submitted by brianr on Fri, 2017-07-21 04:41

Seeing the recent photograph of the gunners in Hong Kong 1911 prompts me to post a similar picture taken in 1917 of the Army Ordnance Department. I have no idea where the photo was taken nor any further details.

The chap in shorts is my great grandfather who, on retiring from the army, returned to Hong Kong and served as secretary of the Hong Kong Club from 1923 for about 10 years.

1923-24: Photos from Warren Swire's fourth visit to Hong Kong

Submitted by David on Sun, 2017-07-16 01:02

On Warren Swire's fourth visit to Hong Kong, his photos show he'd settled into a predictable routine as far as the places he visited. There was one major change on this visit though. He'd learned a new photographic skill, panning the camera to form panoramic shots like this one, looking up the valley behind the Sugar Refinery:

View up the valley behind Quarry Bay

 

Taikoo Sugar Refinery

I used the computer to make that panorama from three of his photos. Here's one of the original photos, titled Taikoo Sugar Refinery housing, Hong Kong. 

Taikoo Sugar Refinery housing

 

At first glance it just shows a row of houses, but that faint line running up the hillside caught my eye. It shows us the

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