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essential. So my mother had come to the comparative safety of Hong Kong for the birth.
I cannot recall the event though by curious coincidence my first memories are of the Matilda. I was four at the time and had developed roaring appendicitis. It had to come out.
Now a journey up the Peak by the Peak Tram was no great novelty but to go up by a Peak Car was a great adventure. We went to the hospital and there I went through the traumatic experience of being gassed by ether poured on a mask held down against my protesting hands. No doubt a more modern anesthetic would have been less painful but it would have also been less memorable.
The events surrounding this experience allow me to take you to Cheung Chau for it was to Cheung Chau that I was taken for convalescence.
Cheung Chau and Summer Holidays
Cheung Chau, throughout the thirties, was a rest resort for missionaries from South China. In these days of universal air conditioning it is difficult to appreciate the trials of the summer in Hong Kong, let alone the hotter and more humid conditions in South China. The typical tour for a missionary was five years followed by a furlough in England during which the missionary toured the country speaking about his experiences. During the hot summers missionaries' families would descend on the resorts of Hong Kong. Two were particularly popular — Cheung Chau and Sunset Peak on Lantau
On Lantau a number of bungalows had been built and are still there. We slept in our bungalows but had our meals in the common dining room which was also used for meetings and services. As children we spent the whole time out of doors and swimming in pools in the streams. My most vivid memory of Lantau was being there in a typhoon. We must have had some warning of the approach of the typhoon as the shutters were closed, so that the lamps had to be lit there was no electricity of course. We did not have long to wait before the storm hit. The noise was terrific and the wind blew quantities of water under the door into the bungalow It seemed to go on for a long time. The next day the shutters were opened, the lamps put out and we emerged into a battered