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There was a great deal of respect for Britain in the 1950s and when I bargained with a stall holder to buy a piece of electrical equipment he said to me: “This is not Japanese you know. It's best quality. It's British!' As late as the mid-1960s one of my Chinese staff, teaching surveying, refused to use a theodolite because it was made in Japan. War time memories died hard!
Almost wherever one went in the colony during the 1954-55 winter one could hear the song, Whatever will be, will be, blaring out over loudspeakers or being hummed or sung. I was told that I should not tip more than 20 cents for odd tasks and, at the end of the month, I should tip my hotel room boy and my waiter each $10. I could go out then and have a haircut, a shave, a shampoo and a manicure for $2.80, and, being a generous sort of chap, I gave the 20 cents change as a tip. As I have said, I did not arrive immediately after the Second World War when people were prepared to work for two bowls of rice a day.
There was no income tax in Hong Kong until 1939 when a 10 per cent "war tax" was levied. This was supposed to come off when the war ended but it never did. When I arrived in the mid-1950s the maximum salaries tax one could pay was 12 per cent. It had been increased from 10 per cent in 1950.
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I started teaching at the old Technical College in Wood Road, Wan Chai. On my first visit a "big man coolie team" was grunting and manhandling heavy engineering equipment up the stairs. We did not move to Hung Hom until 1957. With the help of "academic drift” my old College became the Polytechnic University, on the Hung Hom campus, in 1994.
Shortly after I arrived in the colony there was a rumour a leopard was on the prowl in the New Territories. It was probably no more than a rumour but I do believe that there were instances of South China Tigers briefly visiting the New Territories in the 1950s. If you don't believe me you should read The Hong Kong Countryside, by zoologist GAC Herklots (1951).
I was taken the rounds of Hong Kong by a Yorkshire colleague within a few days of my arriving. First we went to the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (as it was known then) where I opened an