28/9 CRE 31453
K C Price Esq
CRE 2
Department of Trade & Industry
1 Victoria Street
London SW1
22 June 1971
A further step was taken in the establishment of the Hong Kong Polytechnic with the naming last week of the first Director. He is Mr C L Old, M.Sc., a graduate of Manchester University and Imperial College, London. Mr Old, who is over 60, was Principal of Colleges of Technology in the Midlands from 1948-57, and for the last 13 years has been Group Education Officer for Vickers Ltd.
Mr Old is now in the UK, but will be coming to Hong Kong in September to take up his new appointment. It occurs to me that it would be most useful if at some stage before September you could have a meeting with Mr Old, at which you could obtain his thinking on the opportunities for providing British equipment for the Polytechnic.
At the moment I am fairly hard pressed doing both Kenneth Blackwell's job and my own. However, in early July the position will improve with the arrival of the Information floater', and after that I shall make a point of contacting the Polytechnic Planning Committee. They, incidentally, suffered a grievous blow last week with the sudden death of their Chairman, P Y Tang, a highly respected member of the Hong Kong business community.
I have copied this letter to Michael Laird in the FCO.
DCR: jms
DC Rounthwaite
Acting Senior Trade Commissioner