Victoria
I didn't spend much time on the island, and sadly my blasted knee swelled up with an old rugby injury that hadn't recurred for 20 years or so, so I was unable to hike up the hill to Kennedy Road, where I attended Kennedy Road Junior School. The school has since moved anyway, to Pokfulam, though I heard the building still exists. I can remember playing truant from the extra French lessons my Father made me take and just hanging around the streets off Kennedy Road until my Mother, none the wiser, would pick me up. (I eventually had to learn schoolboy French. To this day I get great pleasure from speaking the language at every possible opportunity when I am in Europe, but it usually results in a horrified look on the face of whoever-it-is I'm talking to, followed by a reply in perfect English).
There was a street stall on Kennedy Rd that sold little plastic Chinese weapons, swords and spears etc.,
I ended up with a huge armoury, and whats more I've still got it. Shows just how safe a place Hong Kong was in those days though. I use to take, without hesitation, the buses from Repulse Bay round to Big Wave Bay and Stanley, where I could browse the toy markets. At the time Hong Kong was a major manufacturing centre - remember all those goods stamped "Empire Made"? - but now makes its living from import/export and financial services - its now much cheaper to manufacture stuff on the mainland. The toys were plentiful and dirt cheap.
The colonial boy (me!) visiting a Spitfire on display
by the old Hong Kong Club 1964?
This is the machine (VN485) now on display at Duxford
I also took a wander down Queen's Road in Central. Like everywhere else I saw, the old buildings have been torn down and replaced. If you walk here from the ferry along Queen's Road, it feels like you are entering a canyon of skyscrapers, much more so than in New York, even though the buildings are not as high (I think)- though I may be wrong. But the feeling is certainly accentuated because of the sharp slope up to the peak in Hong Kong, rather than the flat ground of Manhattan. I passed the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building - memories came flooding back of my frequent visits to the old banking hall with my Father - it was always nice and cool in there. My Father's old offices had been in the Man Yee building, but this too had been replaced. It was still enjoyable to wander up and down the ladder streets and see the sellers' stalls - many memories here and also the source of an occasionally recurring dream I have every so often about Hong Kong - involving finding my way round and walking up and down these steep, stepped, pedestrian thoroughfares looking for a kite shop - it's based on a real memory. I was never overwhelmed by emotion or anything like that, but it was definitely a moving experience to wander about here - I loved it.
Here's a typical fruit stall in one of the side streets that are stepped and run up and down the slope in town. Puts Tesco's into context, doesn't it?
This is a shot of a photo displayed at the Star Ferry terminus - Hong kong in the 60's when I were lad
A more modern view 40 years later - note the comparative height of the buildings!
