01.7.14 - Guest editor from 1949: RN Telegraphist George Flanigan

This picture dropped out of a big envelope of snaps from my granddad’s time in the navy, when we were going through his and my nanny’s things earlier this month. After squinting at it a while, I realised this was no random exotic skyline. The shape of the Peak struck me first…many fewer lights than today yes, but this had to be HK.

So here was the surprise I mentioned in the last post – my granddad’s naval career at the height of post-war Empire had taken him to HK. The more photos we sifted, the more HK scenes popped out.

This was fascinating, but I thought ultimately frustrating – no labels on the pictures, so I thought we’d be doomed never to know what took him there or for how long. Or so I thought.

After more digging, we found a yellowed typewritten script which explained all. Not only had he been to HK, but he’d lived there for a year. It was very emotional to read a familiar voice talking of a place I know so well now. It was, frankly, spooky when the account showed he lived in and took pictures around HMS Tamar (now the PLA barracks) a stone’s throw from where I work, and that even his passtimes and mine - including the photos and writing - overlap entirely.

Anyway, enough of me. Let’s hear from George Flanigan, RN Telegraphist, writing about his service in HK in 1949.

The outline of Hong Kong. As we drew closer, we could discern the Lyemun Pass and the waterway which leads directly into Victoria harbour…We glided into the harbour proper, with a mighty blast of the Tairea’s siren [the ship he travelled in]. Looking from left to right was the great hill looming over the city of Victoria, crowned by the white building of the Combined HQ British Forces Hong Kong. Directly in front, junks of every size both sail and motor propelled, and ships of the Far East fleet dominated by the bulk of the cruiser Belfast.

Off watch, we soon settled into the sybaritic life of a British Serviceman on foreign service.

We had the full gamut of sporting life, but in much more exotic surroundings. As we found our feet we’d change into civvies (white shirt, grey trousers, blue socks, with sandals in summer and black leather shoes in winter) and we might go to the Fleet Club, a mini-skyscraper overlooking the harbour, for a cool “San Mig” before maybe taking a stroll down Wanchai. Little shops crowding one another out of existence each side of the street. The smells! Joss sticks, chicken being cooked, Chinese vegetable meals, musk, sweat, jasmine. The trams whizzing to and fro, bells clanging, packed out, with people hanging onto the running board and window frames. Rickshaw boys plying their trade. And as ever, little lads touting “Master! My sister, cheap…”

Or perhaps one’s feet might take you up town to the central district, much more elegant, with the business centre forming an integral part of it. The Jardine-Mathieson building, Government House, Butterfield and Swire’s office block, air conditioned cinemas.

Or another time, a trip across the harbour on the “Star” ferry to visit Kowloon on the Chinese mainland where, looking back across the harbour in the evening, Hong Kong island would be outlined against the setting sun like a great crouching lion. As darkness fell, the jewel effect would re-appear with the neon lights of every colour and hue flashing on and off.

Sporting types might visit Happy Valley, down past Wanchai. There one could indulge in the gee gees as the colony’s long-established racecourse was there, together with a large complex of sports fields.

With this Imperial backdrop, it was hard to believe that only 4.5 years separated this time-honoured scene from the closing stages of the Japanese occupation. And only a total of eight years since the time of Hong Kong’s inevitable surrender to the invading Japanese on Christmas Day 1941. However, if one took the paths of the hills overlooking the harbour, one could find rusty guns, their concrete houses just beginning to crumble. Rifle emplacements with, scattered around in the undergrowth, old cartridge cases, bits of equipment, and various other small debris which proved it happened alright.

21.6.14 - Family history that explains a lot...

I was back in the UK last week for very sad reasons. My grandmother, Daphne Flanigan, had passed away at the age of 83; and I needed to go back for the funeral and to deliver the eulogy on behalf of my mum and aunts.

Tough stuff yes, and gruelling travel – but as discussed on here before, these are some of the things you have to accept when you move abroad.

I don’t actually want to linger on this. Suffice to say I am pleased I went; she was a wonderful old lady and, 

poring over her life for a few days, it was a privilege to pay tribute to her.

What I do want to share, is that I discovered some amazing things in the house she lived in since 1975 that explain a great deal of where I get the urge to blog, photograph and document from.

My grandfather, George, passed away in 1999. A fantastic storyteller and military enthusiast, I was his biggest fan as a little boy and teenager. But it turns out, he did more than tell stories to me. He had a miniature typewriter – still in the cupboard with lots of spare paper, ribbons and carbon sheets, waiting to be 

used – and wasn’t afraid to use it. Here are some fabulous things I found:

1-      Diaries for every year from 1964 – A typical entry being “Up, wash and shower. Breakfast. Work. Terrible weather. Home. Beer. Scrabble. Bed”.

2-      Sheaves of short stories about his life, some of which he’d had published – his upbringing as the child of an RAF engineer; his service in the navy; his service as part of the Queen’s honour guard at the coronation; his time as a prison officer; a dreadful tale about a murder in a pub that he tried to prevent (and failed) at great personal risk.

3-      Draw upon drawer of photos – including literally hundreds in black and white from his service in the navy.

4-      A huge folder of his correspondence from 1980s on – He kept a carbon copy of every letter he ever  sent [who does this and why?!], ranging from writing to television presenters he disagreed with on historical minutiae, the Daily Mail editor (many times) and his friends about his family. 7-year-old me is recorded as “a card” in front of whom he cannot swear or I repeat it immediately.

5-      Lists and records that had

a.       Multiple sub headings

b.      Little to no discernible purpose

c.       An unbelievable level of detail.

My favourite being a book of all the social engagements he and my grandmother went to between 1968 and 1998…so now I can pointlessly tell you that they went to the pub or the British legion 990 times in this period, apart from in 1985 when, recorded in block capital red letters, they inexplicably did NO PUBBING.

Clearly, this explains a great deal. Keptman is genetic. 

I should probably write a letter about it to someone. Then keep a copy of said letter. And store it with all my other letters. Then write a story about it.

But there was one last discovery that really blew me away…which deserves a whole extra blog of its own. Watch this space. 

04.6.14 - Kung Fu Pandas cause Pandamonium with a Gung Ho display of pa(n)d(a)dling

Claire and I jostled along Stanley beach amongst a mass of people dressed in Panda hats, processing behind a blow up panda the size of a small car that was held aloft like some kind of pagan idol. The panda magically parted the sea of people -  3500 competitors, triple that number of supporters and onlookers -squeezed into a usually sleepy seafront.

We set the panda down in front of a line of 12 long, thin boats dressed up to look like roaring dragons that were drawn up on the beach. Each one held 18 paddlers, seated in 2 rows, wielding canoe-like wooden oars. The occupants all had matching outfits – ranging from the sprayed on sponsored lyrca of serious sports, to workplace sides in corporate tops to boats dressed as punks, Red Indians and superheroes.

We and our giant panda awaited our turn to swarm into the boats in our turn while a noisy ceremony to paint on the dragons’ eyes (as old as the 2500-year old sport itself) took place to the soundtrack of each boat’s drummer hammering away.

And under a sweltering sun. In 33 degree heat. 80% humidity. Anarchic, colourful chaos.

Welcome to the annual Stanley Dragon Boat festival – but not sozzled on a junk this year. We’d got into the thick of it and were about to paddle with our team, the Panda Paddlers.

We were keyed up. I ran over in my head the ideal paddling motion. It looks much like a piston action, with much of the effort coming from twisting as you reach forward and pulling your whole frame into the stroke, rather than brute arm strength.

As we saw the latest batch race back to the beach, I was reminded that this is a sport where it’s not necessarily the born sportsman/woman or musclebound chap(esse)s who will win. A single excellent paddler cannot carry a team, nor can one individual win the day with a singular bit of dash. It’s about the teams which can do the strokes together, with the best technique; act as one, listening to the captain’s voice.

As was evidenced by the race unfolding in front us. A common sight all day was a boat full of shouting determined paddlers, gunning away at a frenzied pace, with their blades all over the place, pulling so hard they look like they’ll bust…being serenely overtaken by a boat paddling together, piston-like at half the rate.

As we clambered aboard and settled in, Claire my (much more competent) paddling partner, the captain ran over our drills, rhythms and calls as we gently stroked to the start. Energy saving was key – we’d been stuck on the sapping beach for ages, and had been up since the team’s open-topped buses had picked us up at 7am. The final races would end in the gloom around 630.

Our local steerer heaved us into place into the starting line, and we assessed the competition. The Kung Fu boat, without us due to an overly large squad, had topped its heat, which put us in a daunting line up. Some would vie for the top 12 overall, and some were likely international standard. They had trained multiple times weekly for months, not 10 tens times at weekends like us. And I doubt their training involved beer afterwards. Anything over 6^th would be an achievement.

The start, with a boom of a gun, was sudden. But we swung into practiced, synchronised motion…

5 deep strokes; 5 fast; 5 very fast; slow into the ‘chug’, the bulk of the race where he/she who keeps in time and digging deep into the water prevail. Halfway there, lungs, arms and core burning. Older hands said later we were losing timing by this stage, but compared to the other races in scratch boats we did that day, it felt great.

Last 20 strokes. A call for deeper, harder strokes to finish. The boat lifted as one, and stayed in time. The surge forward was palpable. We held off a coupling of challenging boats at the death, and sucked in the stifling air as we crossed the line.

In 4^th. Which meant the boat would be tussling for 13-24^th out of 200 places in the second top final.

Sadly, as the squad size had swelled on the day, Claire and I did not make the cut for the top 18 for that race. But that didn’t stop us cheering the guys on as they stormed to 5^th, 17^th for the day and a record for the team in its 7-year history. And, given we’d played at least some part, that didn’t stop us showboating with the trophy when it arrived.

Addictive stuff. We’ll be back for more next year.