27 HAA Regiment RA in HONG KONG
MICHAEL COUNSELL’S
DIARY 1955-1956
I kept carbon copies of my letters home
during my National Service. This consists of extracts from them during the period I was in Hong Kong, omitting trips to Macau
and Japan, walking in the New
Territories, and some of my church activities (I subsequently became
a vicar). I don’t particularly like the young prig who wrote them, but apart from shortening them I have left them more
or less as written.
Michael Counsell 2007.
[2 SEPTEMBER 1954. BASIC TRAINING, OSWESTRY
25 November WOOLWICH
3 December ALDERSHOT
31st March WOOLWICH
12–17 May CURRENCY ESCORT DUTY Woolwich to Lubbeke, Germany]
26 May
Embarked on the ‘Empire
Fowey’ troopship from Southampton to Hong Kong
HONG KONG
23nd June
We awoke at 6 and looked out
of the porthole. It was still pretty dark, but we could see the slumbering shapes of islands in the Hong
Kong group in the grey coverlet of the sea. But as we watched the coverlet acquired a golden fringe, and as the
sun rose in a mackerel sky the islands came to life, and we saw that the sea was dotted with junks and sampans. Chinese islands
have a dragon-like shape of their own, with a jagged back, due I suppose to monsoon erosion. But what a wonderful way to see
China for the first time! The waiters
at breakfast competed to serve us in the hope of being tipped. Disembarked at 9 am Kowloon
side. John Dutot and I, Ray Govier, Chris Jackman, John Cashmore and Mike Carr were all posted to 27 BAA Regt RA, and we were
met by a subaltern who organised transport and answered our questions. RHQ and one battery are at Stanley,
one battery on Stonecutters Island,
and a battery consisting of one troop only at Chai Wan. The postal address is British Army Post Office 1. A ferry took us
across the harbour, then we went by truck to Stanley Fort, quite a luxurious camp of 1937 vintage. Our top floor rooms overlook
a different bay on each side, since the mess is at the highest point of a peninsula. After lunch we hitched a lift into Victoria. The Star Ferry across to Kowloon
is a wonderful institution. Forces pay 10 cents (three ha’pence) and you jostle with the Chinese on the pier waiting
for it. The boats carry 100 first class and goodness knows how many below decks, and the crossing takes six minutes. Explored
Kowloon shops, prices usually half English prices. At the
Officers’ Shop (NAAFI run) we ordered three suits of properly tailored tropical kit and a monkey jacket. Returning to
Victoria we went to the Gloucester Lounge, a café which
was so air-conditioned that going in felt like plunging into a cold bath. We got a bus back to Stanley.
24th June
We were interviewed by the adjutant,
Major Brandon: ‘What school did you go to? What games do you play?’ It is part of the adjutant’s job to
be unpleasant to subalterns, and he did it well. I went to open an account at the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, known to the
Brits as the Honkers Shankers Bankers, a vast hall designed to impress, with a high mosaic ceiling, Sikh guards armed with
guns, and the cashier’s booth is marked ‘Shroff’ . Bought a white sharkskin shirt at the officers’
shop for $8 (10/-).
25th June
Interviewed by the CO, Lt Col Ian Graeme, DSO, RA. He told
us a little about the tactical situation; the army’s main task in Hong Kong seems to be to beat the local Chinese at
football so that the word goes back to Peking that we are tough. John Cashmore and I are
going to 23 Battery on Stonecutters Island.
26th June
The Padre met me at the door
of the church, and was so pleased that another communicant had joined the regiment that he nearly had my posting to Stonecutters
cancelled. We bathed at a pleasant little beach at the foot of the cliff from the local prison.
27th June
Posted to Stonecutters Island. A truck took us to a pier
in Victoria, where a native launch, or walla-walla boat,
on hire to the army, took us across. We met most of the officers when they came in to lunch. It is quite a small mess with
rooms no bigger than a private house, and there are only eight officers living in. The BC, Major Clapham, was at lunch and
interviewed us afterwards. He put John in C Troop, which has a gun position at Brick Hill on the south coast of Hong Kong Island,
and I am in D Troop, with guns on the top of Stonecutters. I am sharing a room in the mess with Bob Hyatt, another ordinand,
until he goes home for demob. Returning to the mess after an evening in Hong Kong I found a long form of personal details
to be filled in with what I thought were some rather silly questions; it was not till the following morning that I discovered
that that, and a major who drank pink gins one after another and talked about his experiences in India, were practical jokes
cooked up by the subalterns. The major was actually Lt Phil Green, wearing borrowed badges of rank; he said the pink gin made
him quite ill We have now been through our initiation and been accepted.
28th June
The TCOA of our battery, Sgt
Corr, was in Dave’s battery in Korea.
They use a static gun rotated by remote control, and an old type of predictor, which were both strange to me.
30th June
A man collapsed during marching
drill with all the signs of appendicitis. We threw the Battery Commander and Battery Captain out of their jeep, which was
passing, and sent him in it up to the MI room (medical room) which is on the bend of the road leading up to the gun site,
and eventually I went with him in a lorry to the hospital; it took three of us to hold him still on the ferry, and we crossed
all the traffic lights at red at 40 mph. It turns out that he had a kidney stone.
2nd July 1955
The sergeants’ mess invited
the new officers down for some drinks before lunch, and suspecting foul play I ordered orangeade. Not to be defeated they
doctored it with gin; ‘This Watson’s Orange tastes
as though it’s gone off,’ I said. ‘No, it’s perfectly all right, have another,’ they replied.
I finished off with beer, which was quite fatal, and I could hardly walk back to our mess; lunch was quite hilarious. In the
evening went to the cinema in Hong Kong and saw ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ with Chinese
subtitles.
7th July
Took a guard over to Brick Hill,
through rural Hong Kong with vegetable patches and men with a watering can hanging from each end of a yoke cultivating them
[later I discovered they use human sewage.] Passed through Aberdeen,
a big fishing village, its harbour crammed with hundreds of small sailing boats, on which whole families are born, live, eat,
sleep and die; its flavour is both romantic and fishy. At Brick Hill I had to mount the guard, and do a monthly check on the
condition of the truck working from an instruction book. They taught us nothing about trucks at Mons except how to disconcert
the driver by letting him think you know more than he does: if there is a little noise you say ‘Your little end has
gone’; if there’s a big noise you say ‘Your big end’s gone’; and if there is a tappety noise
you are to say ‘It must be the tappets!’ There is no breeze here like on the ridge at Stonecutters, so I had to
sleep with a sheet covering everything except my nose, and the mosquitoes bit that.
8th July
I was paying officer. We collect
the money from the bank in Victoria, have an ice-cream in the air-conditioned Gloucester Arcade, and visit the long-playing
record shop, if necessary go to Brick Hill and then to Stonecutters to pay 150 or so men, which takes till tea time, or longer
if the books don’t add up; several times I made up the discrepancy, which must have been my fault though nobody ever
complained about being over-paid, out of my own pocket. Today I bought a waterproof shower-proof antimagnetic luminous 17
jewel stainless steel Rolex Tudor Oyster watch for $170 (£10 odd); let’s hope it lasts a lifetime [It didn’t].
11th July
A shoeshine boy offered to clean
my shoes for 5 cents, so I gave it to him as it was all I had. But he hadn’t really meant it, and started an argument;
we had great fun with me using all the worst Chinese words I knew and him replying with some quite choice English words; we
parted the best of friends.
12th July
They have made me athletics officer,
water polo officer and photographic officer! The BC and his wife invited four subalterns to supper at their flat on the Peak
above Victoria, with a fine view though it is often shrouded
in mist.
20th July
Visited a couple of men in the
Military Hospital.
Then saw ‘A Soldier of Fortune’, a lot of it filmed in Hong Kong.
23rd July
Walking along a rarely used road
on Stonecutters Island
I disturbed a snake; it didn’t stop to tell me its name, and I haven’t heard of anyone being bitten. [Forty years
later I was told the Japanese used Stonecutters as a research station to extract serum from all the most poisonous snakes
in the Far East, and were so cross at losing the war that they set them all loose!]
27th July
I was a member of a Court of
Inquiry into damage to a gun part; quite fascinating learning how to collect and sift evidence. There is an Irish Bombardier
here who seems to have such a residual level of blood alcohol that he only needs topping up, which he can do successfully
in the NAAFI between finishing work and catching the ferry home. As he told the magistrate the next day, ‘Oi was jhust
swinging moi fist about and this stupid Chinese lorry driver simply ran his chin into it!’ The magistrate was so amused
he let him off with a caution.
30th July
Collected a tropical suit from
a tailor who had made it for me; blue-grey ‘palm beech’ material for $170 (£11). Clothes will never again be as
cheap as here.
1st August 1955
I went up the Peak on the Peak
Tram, which gives you a splendid view of the harbour. There is a little walk from the tram to the summit but the view from
there is well worth it. You can see for miles, dozens of little islands like the coils of a sea serpent in a glassy sea.
August 2nd
Our new Battery Captain is Frank
King, a married man who has come up from the ranks. Major Ken Lovell is going to be our new Battery Commander.
August 6th
A small rowing boat was washed
up on the beach in the storm, so we repainted it and named it Charlotte.
The troop from Brick Hill were over here for a photograph and stole it, so two of our officers went over there, spent two
hours in their camp undetected by their guard, and stole it back.
24th August
Called on my school friend John
Vernon in 15 Med Regt RA at Gun Club.
3rd August
I blew my month’s wages
on a Zeiss Super Ikonta camera for £18.15s.0d and an exposure meter for £5, a flash attachment, a timer, and a tripod. Altogether
£27.10s.0d – Phew! Never spent so much money in one lump before.
2nd September
I celebrated halfway through
my National Service; but I was orderly officer, and had a telephone call half way through the night to deal with a man who
was said to be hysterical, but in fact had only drunk too much. I was only half-conscious when I started to deal with this,
from the effects of my own celebration; perhaps I should have been called the disorderly officer!
5th September
We are normally not allowed to
fire the anti-aircraft guns on Stonecutters Island,
in case we actually hit an aircraft. But on one glorious day of the year, it seems that every aeroplane in the Far East must
be grounded so that Stonecutters can have what is called its ‘Check Fire Day’; ostensibly this is to check the
accuracy of the guns’ aiming and firing; in fact it is an excuse to use up our year’s supply of live ammunition
and spend the rest of the year scraping the paint off the guns and repainting them. This was today; we had to set up wireless
communication with Kai Tak airport and half a dozen other places, and send two launches filled with artillery officers and
Chinese policemen, clearing junks out of the area of sea we were firing over. Then observers stood with binoculars looking
for stray planes, and a whole team of safety officers were waving red flags and blowing whistles if the guns weren’t
pointing the right way. When we were eventually ready to start, the airfield said a Vampire was out of control and might fly
in front of the guns, so we had to wait forty minutes until it ran out of petrol and could make an emergency landing. Then
we fired off one round from one of my guns which immediately developed technical trouble, and was out of action for half an
hour. Meanwhile we fired the other gun with very good results by way of accuracy (the shell must burst on the cross-wires
of a telescope on the radar). When my guns were firing I stood behind the guns watching; otherwise I was TCOA (Tactical Control
Officer’s Assistant) which merely means shouting ‘Fire’ into a microphone when someone else reports he is
ready. I got the BSM to take some photographs with my new camera, one of which appeared in the local newspapers.
10th September
Saturday, after lunch I caught
the ferry from Stonecutters, which seemed like the original Slow Boat to China,
and only just made it in time to catch the twice weekly 2pm boat to Hay Lmg Chau leper colony, just east of Lan Tao Island.
There is a staff of seven and nearly 400 lepers; they only started there in 1951 and are still building. Dr Fraser, the superintendent,
showed a party of eight visitors around. There was a well-equipped hospital for bed patients. Some of them had shrunken limbs
and were horribly deformed, although I have seen worse about the streets of Hong Kong. But
all seemed quite cheerful and most were doing quite good needlework, in spite of having no sense of touch in their fmgers.
There was another building for patients with TB as well as leprosy. Many are cured, but it is hard to get rid of them, partly
because they are happy on the island, partly because family and employers cannot believe that they are no longer infectious.
There is no risk of infection to visitors, nor to the staff if they wash.
13th September
When I was orderly officer last
night the guard commander was missing and had left the island. I had a fair idea why, so phoned the Military Police to go
to his home to arrest him. When he was brought before the Battery Commander this morning he dismissed the charge; the man
had suspected his wife was up to something and had gone home to find her not there; there are rumours of a divorce. Roland
Dallas, John Warren and I have been ordered to act as judges at some motor cycle trials tomorrow at Sai Kung in the New Territories, so
we went today to inspect the course. It was a fascinating journey, my first sight of rural China: steep valleys, paddy fields; clear streams, tiny villages, pigs, oxen, smells
and views. Sai Kung village is hardly touched by western civilisation except that one street vendor was selling vests printed
with ‘Merry Christmas’. Narrow streets with dark shops-cum-houses on either side, thronged with the peasants from
the peninsula up to market, and those who sell to them. Even a town crier, an old man with a goatee beard (no European could
grow one so straggly) carrying a bell and a placard with a notice on.
14th September
I had to judge the motorcyclists
following a crooked course through trees; we were quite close to some stone jars containing somebody’s bones, I’m
sure the relatives would have been horrified if they knew that we disturbed the spirits with the noise. Some Chinese women
working nearby refused to be photographed: do they think the camera contains an evil spirit, or that it will capture their
soul?
15th September
The whole troop loaded into a
landing craft and went to Cheung Chau
Island. We are supposed to send four men to inspect some slit trenches
there every month, but for a change we all went, practised some infantry attacks in the morning, and while the troops swam
in the afternoon I explored the native quarter with my camera.
18th September
There is a lady radiologist who
attends the Cathedral, and she invited some of the young men to lunch at the YMCA then tea at the Queen Matilda’s hospital
where she works. As she drove us in her car away from the Cathedral I asked, ‘Isn’t this a one way street the
other way?’ ‘Yes, it is,’ she answered, ‘but I have an infallible instinct about when it’s safe
to ignore petty regulations like that.’ Then we met a bus coming the other way filling the whole width of the street.
24th September
Electrical storms are quite common
but last night’s was particularly spectacular. The whole sky seemed to pulsate as purple light tries to batter its way
from behind mountains of cloud, darting out jagged flames like a serpent’s tongue, then subsiding exhausted. This from
four or five different clouds every other second. Typhoon Kate may possibly visit us over the weekend, so the people who have
gone into the New Territories on mobile training are returning, and we spent the morning getting everything under cover that
might blow about, lashing down the guns and slapping thick green grease all over them (Ugh!) I was orderly officer and expected
to be called out, but next morning the wind was growing less, and in the evening it was safe to take the ferry to Hong Kong.
29th September
The whole mess decided to go
and see the premiere of Marilyn Monroe in ‘The Seven Year Itch,’ which was extremely funny in a Marilyn Monroe
sort of way. Then we had dinner at the Yacht Club, where the speciality is Baked Alaska, ice cream in a coating of hot meringue.
30th September
I was launch safety officer for
the Brick Hill guns to fire. This meant spending the morning buzzing about in a landing craft moving junks out of the firing
line. I dread to think what harm I did to relations with the Chinese by shouting ‘Fai-dee Ja-wa’ at all the skippers,
which is probably very rude in Cantonese. I got told off for not recognising that a government launch was flying the flags
which indicated that it had an emergency medical case on board. And on one occasion there were four loud bangs, followed by
a message on the radio: ‘We are about to start firing again, will you move out of the danger area?’ This evening
was Chinese Moon Festival, when all the houses are decorated with pine branches, giving a lovely fresh smell among the blend
of others which produce Hong Kong’s distinctive atmosphere, and very inflammable looking
paper lanterns. They also eat moon cakes to commemorate some ancient revolution when messages were passed on papers inserted
into buns, and get drunk on rice wine, ‘sam shui’.
1st October 1955
I was roped in to take the money
at the door of the room with the puppet show, at the Cathedral Michaelmas Fair. This provided an interesting study in maternal
instinct: ‘Could you just let me take a peep inside, to see if my Willy’s all right?’
9th October
I was met at Queen’s Pier
by Mr and Mrs D.B. Evans, who took me in their car to their house in Shek O for lunch. They are quite unlike the majority
of British civilians here, who are nouveau riche and colonial in their attitude to the Chinese. The Evanses are intelligent
and tolerant. Shek 0 is a lovely spot, like unspoilt Cornwall,
and from the verandah of their house you can watch the liners going in and out of Lye Mun Gap. Mr Evans is a solicitor, and
another solicitor from his firm came to lunch, together with the director of Cathay Pacific airways and his wife, and another
couple who had only just arrived in Hong Kong. We spent most of the time talking, then some
of us went for a very exhilarating bathe in the breakers on the beach.
10th October
An audit board of Maj. Clapham,
Lt Peter Postlethwaite and myself are to audit all the regimental accounts; we started with Stanley Officers’ Mess.
I had little to do except count bottles and play with the adding machine, but it is to train me how army double-entry book-keeping
works so that I can take over as mess secretary at Stonecutters.
13th October
Our Troop had a practice firing
camp at Brick Hill; all the equipment went wrong and everybody got discouraged; then one of our shells exploded very close
to the sleeve (towed by a light aircraft) that we were aiming at and brought it down, more by good luck than judgement. The
CO dislikes Stonecutters because we are so remote he has little control over us, so he seized the opportunity to tell us what
he thought of us.
16th October
I went hiking on Lan Tao, an
island larger than Hong Kong Island
to the west. At the top of the pass is a Buddhist Monastery, where I stayed the night. Because this is the Sunday before a
Public Holiday Monday, there are nearly a hundred walkers staying there, and only seven Europeans. Rae Govier who was on the
troopship with me, and Keith Buckroyd and Mike King, all Stanley
subalterns, and three middle-aged civilians. We got preferential treatment and ate indoors. The monks wear black nightshirts
and plus-fours, sky blue stockings and slippers. One spoke English, they were all very friendly. We had Chinese vegetarian
food with chopsticks, then went to bed on trestle tables with an inadequate mattress, earthenware pillows and mosquito nets.
I don’t think I shall become a Buddhist.
17th October
We got up at six to watch the
monks at their prayers. Then I went down to have a look at Tung Cheung with the Stanley
boys. They were going to walk back to Silvermine Bay, having come from Tai O yesterday, but my feet upped and told me that from their
point of view it was a bad idea to walk that distance, so I haggled with a sampan to row my feet and me to Tai O, and left
the others to it. Apart from a couple of fish ferries before dawn, there is only one boat from Tai O, and it was pretty crowded.
A three hour journey, observing the characters among the other passengers. A good weekend! Worth .every blister of it!
20th October
I audited Stonecutters accounts
practically on my own: Major Clapham got too drunk at lunchtime to direct me.
25th October
As Battery Boxing Officer (hollow
laughter) I had to go to Stanley to support our entrants in
the inter-troop boxing competition eliminators. All I have done as boxing officer is to say to gullible thick-heads ‘We
need you to volunteer – but I wouldn’t if were you.’ But I have to admit that at times I found myself getting
quite excited.
27th October
We held a photographic competition;
I would have got a prize in hadn’t been disqualified as Battery Photographic Officer. I was appointed Officers Mess
Secretary.
4th November
A new subaltern, Brian Parkinson,
arrived today. What we shall do with him I don’t know, there were too many of us already.
5th November
I tried my hand at enlarging
in the battery dark room.
6th November
Remembrance Sunday. The cathedral
choir assembled in the Supreme Court building among the bigwigs, and were passed by the entire diplomatic corps in full morning
dress – they must have baked, whereas you don’t need to wear anything much underneath choir robes. The Pakistan consul was in Nehru dress, Robert Ho Tung and other
Chinese were in mandarin garb, we saw formally robed generals, admirals, the lot. The army was drawn up round the cenotaph
and the service was as usual but hotter.
8th November
I went to see ‘Love is
a Many Splendoured Thing.’ There are some quite good shots of Hong Kong, and it conveys
something of the atmosphere here. But I have read the book, which I think is very well written, and in the true story you
may think the authoress was unwise but she did seem sincere and there was a certain depth of feeling, whereas the film was
just another romantic love story.
9th November
‘Exercise Diehard’
began; we are confined to camp and stand to in slit trenches at dawn and dusk. Four of us take it in turns to do duty officer,
sitting by a telephone in the control room; there is the occasional plane flying over to point the guns at, otherwise very
little happens. At times there is quite a warlike atmosphere with phones ringing and wireless crackling, and anyway it all
makes a change. When nothing is happening in the middle of the night the wireless operator tunes in to Indian music, and I’m
developing quite a taste for it. One of the officers, after being given a few drinks in the sergeants’ mess by sergeant
major Watkins, universally known as ‘Jungle Watty’, decided to use up a few rounds of.38 revolver ammunition which
he held illicitly. He decided to let them off into the sea. But one must have ricocheted off a rock over the head of Sergeant
Woods, who was dozing quietly in a slit trench during dusk stand to on the gun site. He, turning to Sergeant Finnemore, said
‘That was a bullet!’ The latter replied, ‘You’re right, it was,’ whereupon they both flattened
themselves at the bottom of their trenches and didn’t reappear for half an hour. This was reported to Captain Frank
King, who surmised someone had been playing around at Lai Chi Kok. The guilty officer rolled in, not realising what had happened,
mumbled that no, he hadn’t heard any rifle shots, and rolled off to bed. Frank informed the police who came over to
take statements the next morning, when the culprit at once explained. The result was an interview with the colonel and 28
days confined to Stonecutters.
18th November
I went out in a jeep to prepare
a map-reading exercise; the temperature must have been about 50, which compared with what we have been used to was a bitter
cold day. We explored a new part of the New Territories to me, up the Castle Peak Road, turned north up Twisk, to a ridge
north of Tai Mo Shan, the highest peak in the colony. There is a good view and you can look into China in the distance. A shame I shall never be able to enter China, it being communist and all. Then down to the Sek Kong Valley,
where I found a vantage point for my test.
24th November
We went into winter clothes today.
We had a cocktail party in the mess. When most of the guests had gone we tried unsuccessfully to persuade one of the girls
to go skinny dipping in the light of the searchlight which some Chinese troops, known as Hong Kong O.Rs., have mounted on
a promontory to shine on the boom which is stretched across the harbour. One of the orderly officer’s duties is to command
it to be lit at different times each night, but we thought illuminated night swimming was a better use for it, though it never
got beyond paddling.
SAI KUNG PATROL
30th November
I led out a Sai Kung Patrol.
Every week a different unit sends out a patrol into a part of the Sai Kung Peninsula to ensure that there is no communist
infiltration, note any map corrections, and put in an appearance of efficiency to make the villagers loyal: it’s called
‘showing the flag’. I took a sergeant, twelve gunners, a medical orderly and three Chinese policemen. Patrols
usually go by landing craft but there was none available, so a truck took us as far as possible and we walked the rest. By
the time we had done a mile carrying heavy kit, we decided that the village we had got to was much more suitable for a base
camp than that two miles further on that we had originally planned to use. So we camped at Ki Lung Ha Lo Wai, at the end of
the inlet due north of Sai Kung. There was a concrete threshing floor here which we decided to sleep on. It was hard, but
convenient and dry. I tried a softer patch and sustained minor flesh wounds in an encounter with a wasp. We had brought a
wireless set with us which worked perfectly, but didn’t get us through to anywhere we wanted to speak to. Also a petrol
cooker which didn’t work at all. We cooked on a wood fire and used more petrol than any previous patrol, by bartering
it with the natives. We were to patrol approximately a fifth of the peninsula, so we did a short trip to the first village
in the area that afternoon. There the police corporal found the house of the head man, and we inspected any arms or ammunition
he had and questioned him on the population and so forth, while all the village gathered round the medical orderly, who dressed
such wounds as he could, and put gentian violet on the rest to pacify them. Our trail was marked, not so much by mountains,
as purple-headed children. They were in a filthy condition, but mostly seemed happy and were very pleased to see us. It was
the same routine in every village, and certainly was an eye-opener to most of the soldiers, who had never seen Chinese rural
life before. We returned to camp, where a stew was waiting, made from the tinned food we had brought with us. That night,
and every other, was bitter, and several people didn’t sleep a wink during the whole patrol.
1st December 1955
After breakfast we set out at
8 and visited half the villages in the area. At one we were greeted by a small imp shouting ‘Alleluia.’ This was
explained when we found a small Chinese church in the village. At another there was a travelling tinker soldering their pots
and pans with a blow-lamp. In one, most of the paddy had been destroyed by a large grass fire, and there were no inhabitants
to be seen. And in another valley there were about six houses left from a pre-war population of 300. Yet in several places
new paddy had been dug since the map was made. Houses varied from straw lean-to’s to a very smart school room, and some
of the headmen were immaculately dressed in collar and tie. We split into two half-patrols at one place and I took one along
the coast where the path suddenly petered out, which meant a hard uphill slog over rough ground. But the next village had
some minerals to sell, and even offered us beer. The weather was hot but not unbearably so; it is probably the best time of
year for walking.
2nd December
We climbed a ridge to visit some
more villages. There were some more on the other side, but as it would have meant climbing back up afterwards, and the policeman
had visited them the previous week, we took his word for it that it was pacified. That evening the gunners made friends with
the villagers at our base camp as only soldiers can, jesting with the head woman although neither knew more than a few words
of the other’s language. Then all the gunners had a sing-song round the camp fire, in which I was allowed to take part.
You are accepted much more as a human being in spite of your pips on a patrol than in barracks, and consequently find out
a lot about the gunners.
3rd December
By means of leaving behind all
the uneaten food we persuaded the villagers to carry our heavy kit up to the truck. It was a colossal weight and most of them
were carrying up a nearly vertical slope more than we could have even lifted off the ground. You could see the muscles in
their calves. All except one whom we named ‘My son hungry.’ He said he was out of a job, and however many biscuits
you gave him he still said ‘My son hungry’. Eventually he produced a singularly well-nourished looking infant
to prove it. He carried less up the hill than anyone else, and was the last to get there, then asked for a tip in addition
to the food we had left. The last we heard from him was a distant wail of - you guessed it - ‘My son hungry.’
Of course one gunner had to disappear just as we were loading into the truck and chase us on foot all the way to Sai King,
but we got home eventually.
12th December
I went for a swim and sunbathed,
in mid-December!
24th December
During the last week Roland Dallas
has got himself a part-time job announcing for Rediffusion (a radio-programme-by-wire company). He does about three nights
a week, three hours a night, and gets £25 a month for it; it is terribly funny to come into a room and suddenly hear his voice
coo-ing: ‘Give yourself a treat, have a Maars Baar!’
25th December
Christmas Day
was bright and sunny with a fairly strong wind. The officers got up in uniform at 7 am to take tea laced with rum round to
the men in bed. This being China, everything
including Christmas is celebrated with firecrackers, and there has been a continuous volley of them since yesterday morning.
I returned from church in time to meet all the officers and sergeants being marched by the junior subaltern to the men’s
dining hall to serve them their Christmas dinner. The cooks had provided a really first rate Christmas dinner, it is a pity
some of the men weren’t in a fit state to appreciate it. It is the only time in the year when the men are allowed to
call the officers by their Christian names, and there was a lot of good natured banter. Foolishly I thought I would amuse
them by walking round with a chicken leg in my mouth, not realising that they had been carefully counted and one of the cooks
had to go without in consequence. Somebody got their revenge by breaking into the officers’ mess and stealing the cake
my mother had posted from England, most
of which finished up in fragments on the path. But when the circumstances were explained I was more penitent than angry.
26th December
Football officers v. sergeants
in fancy dress. Then we had our postponed Christmas lunch with all the accessories, and quite well cooked by the Chinese boys.
31st December
At midnight all the ships in
the harbour blew their hooters together for half an hour, a splendid sound. Some of them started shining searchlights, but
we outshone the lot with ours.
1956
1st January 1956
Big panic this week. On Tuesday
we found the BC’s safe broken into and some ‘secret documents’ missing. So we have had several varieties
of police over questioning us, taking all our fingerprints, and searching the island. One man went absent without leave at
roughly the same time, so his photograph was circulated to all the military police in the colony. At first we were confined
to the island but that didn’t last long. The police seem most incompetent: the only fingerprints they have found are
their own. The London Sunday Express ran a headline that the security of the colony was at risk because top secret files had
been taken. Eventually the man was arrested, and then it was revealed that the only file in the safe was the list of those
soldiers who had venereal diseases, and his was the only name in it. But we couldn’t tell this to the press, because
we would have become a laughing-stock, so we left them with their story.
4th January
I am learning to drive in a 15
cwt truck on the narrow winding lanes and hills of Stonecutters
Island, under the tuition of a six foot cockney REME vehicle mechanic,
L/Cpl Harding. Apparently oblivious of personal danger, he gently reproves me by saying ‘Yus, sir, well if you would
go a little more slowly round that corner we would stay on the road more often. After all, that is the idea of roads.’
8th January
Bitter cold by our standards.
I got ‘Hong Kong stomach’ which cleared up with the help of a fire, a number of sweaters, and what the Chinese
mess waiters call a ‘Lum Olange’, and I even got the mess accounts to balance in time for the audit.
MACAU
14th January
Brian and I went to Macau. The weekend was a pleasant change of atmosphere from Hong Kong.
Nobody on Stonecutters would believe we had gone there for the scenery.
17th January
The Essex Regiment staged a demonstration
battle scene in the New Territories.
The wedding procession which passed through the middle of it did not improve the sense of realism.
28th January
Mrs Donnithorne took me to see
some of the conditions the Chinese have to live in, with Roland Dallas, Hugh Oliver, a National Service doctor, and a translator.
On the flat roofs of four-storey buildings some families have built themselves shacks because there is no other space. They
were very crowded and would have leaked badly in the rain, but they kept them very clean and seemed happy. There was a girl
doing drawn-thread work on some handkerchiefs, for which she got fourpence ha’penny a day. Then we visited a resettlement
area, where people whose houses have burnt down in squatter fires have rebuilt with subsidised beaver-board on Government
plots. Near this was an old squatter area with shacks clinging to a hillside with a single well at the bottom, and right next
to this some Government blocks of flats, with over a thousand people in each block, in tiny rooms along open verandas.
11th February
Tomorrow is Chinese New Year
and today all the mess servants went off for three days’ holiday with half a month’s wages as ‘cumshaw’
(honorarium). We had a Catering Corps cook in the meanwhile, who was pretty terrible. I have never heard anything like the
noise of the firecrackers, even from across the water; Brian went to Kowloon
and said he had to keep putting his fingers in his ears.
12th February
Fewer firecrackers today. All
the families are at home giving the children money in little red envelopes (‘ang pow’), hanging up lucky charms
written on red paper, and putting bowls of rice on the family altars. Even the junks are covered with bits of red paper, and
the streets are covered with the remains of the firecrackers like red confetti.
15th February
The CID have told us that 60%
of the Chinese population make their living from racketeering, but he says that shows they are human, compared with the communists
who are like machines. Going to prison is quite respectable for a Chinese, so there isn’t room in the prison for all
who are sentenced. More laws would only mean that the police made more money out of bribes. The criminals who are caught are
either stupid, or they are paid to go to prison by the big racketeers whom they hide. Wage levels are so low that some men
get paid one cent for stitching ten leather belts; the only way they could have full employment would be if wages were even
lower. And the government daren’t improve the living conditions or millions more would flock into the colony from China. All Chinese breed like flies and then cannot afford
to support their children; but the orphanages are full of children of rich parents who just can’t be bothered to look
after them … So what can you do?
16th February
After the regimental sports,
in which our battery did very badly even though I was one of the judges, I went to see Danny Kaye in a very funny film, ‘The
Court Jester.’ He has to memorise, ‘The vessel with the pestle has the portion with the potion, the chalice from
the palace has the brew that is true,’ and of course gets it muddled.
22nd February
Army pay rises came into effect
today; a regular gunner on enlistment now gets almost as much as a National Service Second Lieutenant. When National Service
was lengthened from 18 months to two years, they promised to give us regular rates for the last six months, but now they have
broken their promise. We went to Stanley for the Colonel to
tell us how well he is running the regiment, and on the way in the truck we were lectured by a REME Quartermaster Sergeant
with an accent of thickest Demshire cream: ‘Iniquitous, sir, that’s what it is, it’s not morally right.
We were being overpaid before. Now a gunner gets more than a schoolmaster. They’ll lay down their sickles and pickaxes
and come flocking into the army, but not the type you want, sir. We have a lot of highly qualified National Servicemen passing
through the REME, but not one of them will sign on, even now. But take Corporal Hope, he wears the most powerful glasses that
the army issues, but if you wave three pound notes close enough to his nose he will follow you anywhere. Mind you, sir, I
suppose I shall have to force myself to take the rise!’
25th February
Mr and Mrs Evans took me racing
for the first time in life, to the horse races at Happy Valley. Some gunners from our regiment were standing guard at the entrance, apparently
they get paid for it. Mr Evans, a solicitor, is a steward, so we sat in a private box in a brand new stand next to the judges’
box. The stand is a vast building with the only escalators in Hong Kong, restaurants, bars,
three balconies for spectators, and grills for taking bets on the totalisator. There are no bookies or tik tak men, so all
bets are made with $5 tickets on the tote. A network of wires takes the information on what bets have been placed from the
grills to the board where it is displayed electrically; it was nearly as thrilling to watch the board as the horses. Catering
staff served lunch and tea and a supply of drinks to our box. Mr Evans had to watch each race from the stewards’ room,
to see if any horse cut in, in front of another. All the horses are bought by the Jockey Club, and you can subscribe $3000,
your name is put into a hat, and if you are lucky you become an owner. The Government levies a tax on betting, and in the
long run it is the Jockey Club who win, though all the profits go to charity. So I didn’t bet, as I wanted to save up
for a trip to Japan in May.
28th February
There were nearly as many officers
as men on the island today; the majority of the troop have gone away on guard duty, and the CO came for an inspection, A court
martial was convened in the Medical Room on the bend halfway up the hill to the gun site to try the man who stole the ‘secret
documents’, and REME chose today to winch a new radar set down the hill for repair! It is a 1 in 2 slope, and they used
two great Scammel trucks. The first winched itself up the hill, then secured itself to a bollard and winched the other up
behind it, towing the radar. They quite sanguinely admitted that they were overloading the bollards by a factor of about two;
if the radar had broken loose it would have crashed into the medical room and taken most of the legal top brass of Far East
Land Forces into the harbour with it!
29th February
The Court Martial awarded nine
months imprisonment and discharge with ignominy, subject to confirmation. He was not charged with stealing the documents,
but with being in improper possession of them. He had described to Field Security exactly how he had taken them, but as he
had not been previously cautioned this was inadmissible as evidence.
3rd March 1956
The battery telephone exchange
has a ‘press to speak’ switch on its mouth-piece, which didn’t work properly today, so I overheard the following
conversation:
Me: Battery
Office, please.
Operator:
Battery office, sir. (Thinking I couldn’t hear him): He wants the Battery office.
A voice, (also in the exchange): Oh, you’ll get no reply, I’m duty clerk.
Operator:
What the **** are you doing out of the battery office then? You’d better get back there quickly, Mike wants you.
Voice:
Who?
Operator:
Mike.
Voice:
Gosh!
Operator (speaking into phone again): Still trying to connect you, sir.
(Pause during which I was in fits and having to stuff a hanky
in my mouth so that they shouldn’t know I had heard them.)
Voice:
Battery office, duty clerk speaking. Can I help you, sir? …
Thank goodness they don’t call me anything worse than
‘Mike’ behind my back.
6th March
We had a dinner night to say
goodbye to Phil Green and Major Lovell who have been posted to Stanley, and Derek James who goes home on Friday, and to welcome
Maj. Finch as our new BC. The Chinese ‘mess boys’ (‘boys’ indeed: several of them are older than I
am!) had put on a wonderful meal, and were quite disappointed when we ran out of appetite after about the seventh course.
We made up a song to the tune of ‘Much Binding in the Marsh’ about some of the funny things which happened at
‘Stonecutters by the Sea’.
9th March
Maj Gen Goodbody, the Director
Royal Artillery, visited Stonecutters Island,
which of course looked like a birthday cake with liberal icing of whitewash and paint.
11th March
To Stanley for church and a curry lunch with the DRA. The padre pointed
out what a ‘shower’ Jesus had had to turn into an efficient squad of Christians, and the Colonel thought this
was not the way to preach to a General at all!
13th March
Gave blood, for the first time
in my life, at the Military hospital, where a very anti-military National Service doctor bled us, and gave us a choice of
tea or beer afterwards: a pint for a pint!
15th March
The Cathedral Male Voice Choir,
which has been formed out of the fellowship, sang Stanford’s ‘Homeward Bound’ and Arne’s ‘Mists
before the sunrise fly’ in a competition, not very successfully.
16th March
I wrote the following in a letter:
‘You mention that I show signs of the Indian Army Colonel, which makes me think. I suppose being the son of my father,
who although he only spent a couple of years in the regular army, has always been proud of a military outlook on life, there
are traces of it in my makeup. But eighteen months in the army, seeing at first had its pettiness, pigheadedness, conservatism,
injustice, triviality, self-centredness, snobbishness and Oh! so many other faults, have certainly cured me of any blind hero-worship
of its system. For up till now, being conscientious, I hope, by nature I have always tried to accept the fact that, willy-nilly,
I am a soldier, and therefore to be as good a soldier as possible. But there is a lot of discouragement, especially in a place
like this where there is very little to do which has any direct connection with the fighting ability of the unit. So most
of the time you are looking for little senseless tasks to keep you and your men busy, and your seniors happy. And the regular
officer, who thinks of little other than the army, doesn’t see it in anything like the same proportions as me, and I
have to abide by his scale of values. Nevertheless, I try to be fair. And the army has its good points; among all the bad
traditions is a noble thread of good ones. For I have tried, like most other National Service Officers, to be more lenient
and reasonable with the men I am responsible for than the regulars are. And the result? The intelligent ones, who work reasonably
hard whatever happens, are happier until the rest take advantage. They let their rooms and themselves become slummy, dirty
and infested. They damage, through carelessness or destructiveness, valuable clothing and equipment. They are insolent and
idle. So now – we bark, we bite, we charge them and give stiff sentences, we make them polish things that were never
meant to be polished and whitewash everything in sight. We have to, in self-defence. And of course the regular soldiers realised
this centuries ago and have evolved their system accordingly. And certainly they can produce far better results when necessary
than any idealistic civilian system could, in such things as smartness and routine efficiency, which is required in war. If
you are not a pacifist you must regard war as a necessary evil, and killing as a regrettable but essential part of it. And
to cause the least nett balance of suffering in the long run you must regard the training of an efficient killing force as
an act of mercy (again, in the long run.) And that’s what we’re doing, inhuman as the process is. It must revolt
the finer instincts, but I think there is justification for it. So probably you will be revolted – there is a lot of
the Indian Army Colonel in my nature. It is either that or a pacifist: I have a great respect for the latter, but their philosophy
is not for me. On second thoughts, how much of the above do I really mean? It is just as the pent-up gall flowed from my pen,
perhaps I am just a poor mixed up kid.’
22nd March
Two British aircraft carriers
are in port, so we had to get up at 4 a.m. for the usual palaver of getting telephones to work for ‘Operation Sea-Dragon.’
I spent most of my time answering phones, but we had plenty of planes flying overhead to practise aiming at, provided there
was no ammunition up the spout. All the office staff of the battery, storemen, clerks, exchange operators, and armourers lived
in slit trenches round the beaches, connected by a fantastic network of telephones, to protect us against a possible invasion
of frog-men. Every time one of them saw a rock which he thought was a landing craft that night he rang me up, because I was
duty officer, and I had to wake the troop up and put them in slit trenches round the site. By the time we started gun drill
at 5.30 next morning I was practically on my knees and wondering whether these ‘schemes’ are such a good idea
after all. Fortunately it was very foggy and they called it off a couple of hours later.
24th March
In the evening I saw ’The
Blue Continent’, a very educational underwater film. I almost bought a pair of flippers straight away, but Hong Kong Harbour
is so polluted, every time I put my head under water I catch a dose of otitis externa.
27th March
There was a dinner night at Stanley, so we dressed up in dinner jackets and took the ferry to Victoria,
but no lorry met us and we were blowed if we were going to the expense of a taxi when the fault was not ours. So we had dinner
at the Yacht Club, which was much more fun.
28th March
I did a route march with the
men round and round Stonecutters. This is part of the annual physical efficiency tests, and the mile run two days ago with
climbing up ropes and walls and so on. I had fondly hoped that I had finished with that sort of nonsense at Mons, but now
I not only have to march the distance but also dash from front to back of the column controlling the pace and encouraging
stragglers! In the afternoon I went to the police station to, have my passport endorsed for Japan; in the evening I saw an excellent film of Puccini’s opera ‘Madam
Butterfly’, but with, (can you believe it?): Japanese actors and scenery, Italian singers, English subtitles along the
bottom and Chinese subtitles down the side! It was a wonderful experience; I had never really enjoyed Puccini before.
3rd March
I took a bus up to Castle Peak, had lunch in the hotel, then strolled up to the Buddhist Monastery and back. In the hotel
were a couple of perfect American tourists: ‘We’re doing Bangkok on Monday and Tuesday’; ‘Sure this
food ain’t bad but do you know in Noo York there are seven restaurants right next to each other and they all do good?’
(a quarter hour’s description of New York restaurants); ‘There ain’t a drink m the world you cain’t
get in the States’; ‘I was going to buy a camera here, but I think I’ll wait till we’ve gotten home,
you can be sure of American cameras, and do you know why?’ (a quarter hour’s description of mass production);
‘Do you know, we have cameras which will take color pictures?’; ‘So you’re going to Kowloon,
I think we’ve done Kowloon, haven’t we, Elmer?’
‘Yes honey, that’s where we’re staying.’ ‘Oh gee, yeah, I sure knew I’d heard of it.’
5th April
We started firing practice today
at Brick Hill, having got up at a hideous hour to get there. As might have been expected all the equipment went wrong as soon
as we got there, and the RAF reported that the only plane which could tow a sleeve was grounded for a month.
6th April
We did some reasonably successful
firing today by fiddling the equipment so that we fired where the plane wasn’t. This autumn there will be hardly any
subalterns in the colony so senior NCOs are being trained to do our job and I had little to do.
7th April
Phone call in the middle of the
afternoon (I was in bed):
‘Hello, is that the Orderly Officer? Military Police here, can you tell It1e if Mrs Corr is all right?’
Me: ‘She lives in one of the married quarters on the
island, I expect so, why?’
‘We have a gunner here who says he has murdered her.’
Me: (in a voice a couple of octaves higher than usual)
…!! Says he’s what?’
Hurriedly I put on some trousers on and wake the Battery Commander.
He has locked his door to keep out the batman (who will clump about noisily) but eventually answers. He said later he had
never seen anyone look as white as me. He says:
‘If this is a joke I’ll give the man who’s perpetrated it six months.’
I go off to Mrs Corr’s quarter, and half way there regain
my sense of proportion, and faith that God guides all things for the best. I uttered a silent prayer for the Holy Spirit,
and though others might call it adrenaline, somewhere I got the strength to go on, and for me it is the proof of the work
of the Holy Spirit. If I had found her lying there in a pool of blood I think I could have taken it calmly. Moments like that
you realise what the peace of God means, and how much you have to thank him for giving you faith.
Actually the plump and pleasing Mrs Corr was serving lemonade
and buns to a children’s birthday party on the lawn! She said she had had a funny phone call asking if she was all right,
but assured me she was very much alive. I went back to the mess and the BC came down to earth again. We ’phoned up the
Military Police and established that the call was genuine. So they have put the gunner concerned in the psycho. ward of the
Military Hospital.
Roland Dallas woke up to tell us that the gunner concerned had been in a nervous state all week, ever since he had got drunk
over Easter and couldn’t remember what he had done. Actually he is a very nice chap, has been to university and was
going to be an RC priest. But he decided not to and was doing his National Service as a clerk. He ambles about puffing philosophically
at a pipe. His brother died about six months ago, which very much upset him. And he likes his drop of beer. Still waters run
deep, but this has completely flabbergasted us. We’ll see what happens. But what a place Stonecutters is, we had been
saying quite recently that the only thing we haven’t had here is a murder!
19th April
A group of amateurs from Stanley put on Christopher Fry’s ‘The Firstborn’ which
was produced and acted magnificently but not a very good play, very longwinded.
Friday 20th April 1956
My 21st birthday.
Work as usual, but we had a bit of a party in the evening. All the officers were there except Roland who is in Japan. Also present were one wife, two girlfriends, and an
RAF dentist I know in the choir. Round about 8 we went down for a swim in the dark. It was quite warm, and with the aid of
a rowing boat and the searchlight we filled a very jolly half-hour. The mess boys had produced vast quantities of hot dogs,
curry puffs and so on, intended to be eaten on the beach, but the weather was too gusty so we tucked into them at the mess,
but by the end of the evening seemed to have made very little impression on the mountain of food. They had also iced a cake
for me, which I cut ceremonially. We played records and danced a bit, finishing about midnight; a quiet evening but a jolly
one, and, I think, the best way to celebrate.
23rd April
The brigadier’s wife has
a plan to turn our lovely secluded beach into a lido for all the army families in Hong Kong,
and came over today to plan it. But last time she was here she saw some butterflies, so this time she brought a butterfly-net.
Frank King, the Battery Captain, was detailed to show her round, and every so often she would exclaim, ‘Oh, what a lovely
butterfly, please catch it for me!’ and press the net into his hand. The sight of poor Frank sheepishly clambering over
rocks with a butterfly net has had the whole battery chuckling.
4th May
A regimental cocktail party at
Stanley: an evening of being pleasant to a lot of braying
faces down which was being poured gallons of alcohol, which I was paying for, did not please me. The Deputy Assistant Chaplain
General was there, but he didn’t think subalterns (or anything else) were what they used to be, which put me off him
for a start. The rains are late so most parts of the colony have water for only two hours on alternate days. Stanley somehow missed it, so the only drink you couldn’t get at the party was water,
and people were washing in fire buckets. Last time this happened there were several murders following arguments at street
comer standpipes, and there is an army riot squad standing by.
INTERNAL SECURITY DRILL
8th May
An unforgettable exercise. We
got up at a quarter to four to take the landing craft across to Hong Kong
Island to practise cooperation with the police in internal security and
riot squad drills. There was no job for me, so I went along as unofficial photographer. We made an early start because we
thought there would be no local people up at that hour – some hopes! A small group of policemen in plain clothes, brandishing
broom sticks, pretended to be rioters; vast hordes of uniformed police moved in to deal with them and called for military
assistance. We marched menacingly down the street with rifles and fixed bayonets, to set up a position at a crossroads. Then
we blew a trumpet, raised a banner saying ‘Disperse or we fire’ in two languages, and loaded the rifles. Much
to our disappointment, within a couple of minutes the ‘rioters’ had disappeared, to re-emerge later in front of
another squad. The hordes of Chinese civilians on their way to market looked highly amused, and we were left with sheepish
grins on our faces.
10th May
I took a truck to Clear Water Bay,
the excuse being to test some men at map reading. The view was good and the beach perfect.
11th May
I was getting in some driving
practice on one of Stonecutters Island’s
quietest roads, when I shocked the driver who was sitting next to me by uttering a word he hadn’t thought I knew, and
jamming on the brakes. Twenty yards in front of us, crossing the road, was the biggest snake I have ever seen outside a zoo.
It was a dull grey and about five foot long. The driver yelled, ‘Quick, sir, run it over,’ but I was so terrified
I got the ‘bucking bronco’ effect, then stalled the engine, and the snake slithered off unharmed into the undergrowth,
to frighten somebody else another day.
JAPAN
14th May
[Most of this is of no interest
to fellow-gunners, except the following:]
I caught the company’s launch at 8 p.m. to take me to
the ‘m/v Hermod’, which is to take me to Japan, for which I have been saving my leave and my pennies, rejoicing
to know that I was going to get away from the army atmosphere for a while. Then, when I got on board, I discovered that there
are six officers from 27 HAA Regiment and a major from the New
Territories among the small number of passengers! (Colin Crabtree, Chris
Jackman, Frank Holborn, Willy Watson, Jerry Rowe, and me).
21st May
The ship came into Yokohama harbour. Many forms to fill in at immigration. I had bought
some yen in Hong Kong, but this is not allowed, and I only escaped arrest by getting them
to confiscate them and return them to me when I came back. I then got a series of trains to Nikko. To get away from the military atmosphere, the six officers had agreed to split up
at Yokohama, but we all met up again in the same compartment of the Nikko express. So then we split the points of the compass between us, and I set off to enquire
where there was a traditional Japanese inn. I was recommended a good one, the Hotel Mayonoshita, and when I had found my ‘bedroom’
(there was no bed, only a quilt on the matting floor) I heard voices and … you guessed it, we had all booked into the
same inn!
2nd June 1956
We docked in Hong
Kong at 11 a.m.; what a wonderful holiday!
FINAL MONTHS IN HONG
KONG
5th June
My plans for today were rather
upset by a typhoon warning 3, which was the worst we have had; there were gale force gusts, so I stayed on Stonecutters Island. I had to put on my bathing
costume on to go round shutting all the shutters as the rain was driving under the doors!
6th June.
I called on Dr Sturton of the
Church Missionary Society at Hong Kong Hospital,
Happy Valley.
He showed me round, with particular pride in all the X-ray equipment in his department. He showed me some rabbits with which
he is investigating cancer. He was one of the people who had worked on smoking and lung cancer and has some mice whose glass
cage is filled with tobacco smoke twice a day, poor things. He became quite certain many years ago that there is a statistical
link among humans between smoking and deaths from lung cancer. He had been a small boy in Cambridge
when Rutherford first discovered X-rays, and when he broke a finger, the Professor gave him
no choice but insisted on trying out his new invention on him. But as they had not yet discovered what dosage was safe, Dr
Sturton bore the scars of the burns on his finger for the rest of his life.
11th June
I visited Tao Fong Shan, the
Scandinavian Lutheran mission to Buddhist Monks at Sha Tin. Many who had become monks when they were boys because their families
were too poor to support them are not terribly keen on Buddhism, and when a Christian visits their monastery and interests
them in Christianity they can come and live in this mission, which is built like a Buddhist Monastery. There they can read
the Bible and attend instruction classes. Although no pressure is brought to bear, of about 5000 who have attended, some 500
have been baptised, and a dozen or so have become pastors. Those who are unable to get any other job after they have stopped
being monks stay in the mission and make hand-painted pottery with scenes from the Bible but with everyone in Chinese dress
among Chinese scenery. They also make plates showing monks looking up to Tao Fong Shan, which means mountain of the spiritual
way, with the inscription ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills.’
14th June
Back to ‘work’, though
I showed pictures to the gunners about Japan.
The colour slide of the geisha girl pouring green tea for me caused much amusement.
20th June
The 7th Hussars who are stationed
up in the New Territories have set up a
leave centre on Stonecutters Island;
today their band gave a concert. Their drivers delight to tease the gunner officers by pretending to misunderstand pier as
pee-er.
26th June
Our BSM is being posted to become
an RSM in Germany, though .his main talent
is making cups of tea; when we had the court-martial he delighted in providing tea by the bucketful. He asked me to photograph
a grave, for a friends of his, at Sai Wan military cemetery, a beautiful spot overlooking Lyemun gap; I am told the Japanese
swam these straits when they invaded the island.
30th June
On Radio Hong Kong’s weekly
requests hour, some of the gunners dedicated the song ‘Sisters’ to Parkie and me; all we could do was laugh. Presumably
it is because we spend so much time wandering around talking to each other, to disguise the fact that there is hardly any
work to do.
11th July
In the evening I climbed one
of the wireless masts at the naval end of the island, 360 feet high, and a most scared-making experience. The steel ladders
are quite unprotected, though there are some landing places to get your breath back. At the top is a very small platform where
you can cling on, admire the view, and gather the nerves to start the journey down.
12th July
We had a conference on the defence
of Stonecutters Island
in time of war. A couple of Brigadiers questioned an audience mostly of majors on how they would draw up a defensive strategy,
and I found it very interesting, till suddenly one of them turned to me, one of three National Service subalterns relaxing
in the back, and asked, ‘Mr Counsell, how would you carry out the plan if you were put in charge of defending such-and-such
a position?’ Caught entirely by surprise I stammered out, ‘Well sir, I’d put into effect a standard “infantry
platoon in attack” as we were taught at Mons Officer Cadet School,’ which I thought was a good answer on the spur
of the moment, but the Brigadier turned to the Major who had put forward the scheme and said, ‘There, you see, your
plan wouldn’t work because of the incompetence of your junior officers!’ Obviously I had proved his point for
him; he went on chuckling about it for the rest of the day, and I felt about two inches tall.
22nd July
Tim Beaumont produced a play
with members of the Cathedral Fellowship in the evening, called ‘The Emperor Constantine’ by Dorothy Sayers. I
had four different small parts, a general and three different priests, and after a bad dress rehearsal the performance went
well and the cast enjoyed themselves, but it was done without any cuts, and went on so long that when we peeked through the
curtains during the second interval we discovered the entire audience had gone home!
27th July
Some gunners were asked to write
their impressions of Hong Kong as an educational test. They thought it was the best posting
in the army, and Stonecutters Island
the best place in Hongkong, but their interests were mostly in swimming, beer, cinema and dancing. They admired the view,
but dismissed the Chinese as ‘dirty’. There were a number of complaints about having to take orders from National
Service officers who were just out of public school and younger than they were, and didn’t understand the working man,
which I have to say I sympathised with, but what can you do?
3rd July
For a week I am in charge of
a detachment guarding the transit camp in Kowloon, and live in Gun Club Mess; all I have to do is mount the guard at 9 p.m.
and turn them out once during the night. I returned to Stonecutters to take the Royal Life Saving Society’s Bronze Medallion
test; I and one other have trained up ten men, and we also took the test ourselves with an independent examiner. There are
some complicated land drills and theoretical questions, then by the time we had acted as rescuer and patient for four different
rescue methods, dived to the bottom and swum 50 yards on our fronts and another fifty yards on our backs, we almost needed
artificial respiration ourselves; but we all passed.
1st August 1956
The hottest day this year, max
93.8°F, min 82°F, humidity enormous.
4th August
There was another fire in a squatter
settlement. I found an area of almost vertical hillside where the huts had been, now nothing but a heap of ashes. Dozens of
former residents were scrabbling about in the dirt for the remains of buckets and the tin cans which they had used as cooking
utensils, and any bits of metal they could use in building new shacks. The fire-fighters had stopped the blaze along an almost
straight line, leaving the next row of shacks merely scorched. The trees on the road were brown and shrivelled; the heat must
have been terrific. The homeless were living under a temporary shelter on a nearby basket-all pitch, and are being given two
free meals a day until they are resettled. Today a European barrister was stabbed to death in broad daylight in a lunchtime
crowd outside the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. With the Chinese tradition of not getting involved, nobody helped him, and an
Englishman passing had to stop his car to detain the attacker. They are having to appeal for witnesses because people are
afraid a Triad Society may be involved, who would kill those who gave evidence. The police rang up a relative and asked her
to break it to the wife, but instead she went hysterical and the first the wife knew was when Reuters rang up to ask for her
late husband’s Christian names.
17th August
Timothy Beaumont and his charming
wife invited me to dinner, and were astonished that I had given up my last night in Hong Kong
to spend it with them, but I cannot think of a more pleasant way to celebrate my departure. Some police officers who were
also invited told us that the opium business is still very efficiently organised here, with watchers on the rooftops who give
the alarm as soon as a police patrol is spotted, and even a man in a telephone box outside the police station. One of them,
in the Marine Police, took me back to Stonecutters in a police launch, which is excitingly fast but apparently just a fraction
slower than the boat the smugglers use.
BACK TO U.K.
18th August
My final departure from Hongkong
was by air, as the troopships are being phased out, via refuelling stops at Bangkok, Negombo
(Ceylon), Karachi, Basra,
Beirut, and Malta, to Blackbush airport
near London. We left after lunch, wearing civilian clothes
so as not to alarm the natives of the places we pass through. My nickname to those who knew I was thinking of ordination has
been ‘the bishop’, so when my fellow-passengers on the coach to Kai Tak airport discovered that the hostess had
been an actress there was a lot of ribaldry.
22nd August
5.30 a.m. we landed at Blackbush
airport near London. England was looking like streaky bacon because of the low mist. I stood by the
open door of the airport coach admiring the green fields, and next day went down with ’flu! The dirtiness of the buildings,
drabness of the dress and tiredness of the faces of the English was an unpleasant surprise. The coach dumped us at a drill
hall near Charing Cross, where they gave us travel vouchers to Woolwich, so we struggled
with our luggage on taxis and trains. At Woolwich my intake were demobbed on the spot, the next lot were given privileged
leave until their demob date, so we were all finished with the army from that day on. The two years covered by this diary
have been enormous fun and valuable experience. But I wouldn’t want to become a regular, and spend the rest of my life
doing what other people told me to.
