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THE MIDDLESEX (“TYNDAREUS”) STONE
DAN WATERS
For those of you who can picture Hong Kong's Victoria Peak, on the small, flat, grassy, sitting-out area in the saddle between High West and Victoria Peak, there used to lie a Boulder. This sitting out area complete with pavilion is close to where Lugard Road joins Harlech Road. The Boulder used to lie just above where Hatton Road joins Harlech Road. A ring of small stones roughly three metres in diameter, partially overgrown with grass, still marks the position. The Boulder is in its natural state except for one side which was flattened to take the original plaque. As far as can be measured the Stone is 110cms x 130cms x 71cms and it is estimated to weigh a little less than one tonne.
Then suddenly one afternoon I spotted it was missing. While trying to find out what had happened to it, over the next week or so two letters appeared in the South China Morning Post. Both writers expressed concern. One letter, dated 8 April 1994, from the late Martin Booth the well-known author who spent time in Hong Kong as a child - but in later years lived in England - was headed, 'An outrage.' He said the Stone also celebrated, by association, those men of the Middlesex Regiment who so valiantly defended Hong Kong in 1941 against the Japanese. Booth went on to say that the monument was also of interest because it was erected by Lieutenant Colonel John Ward "whose prompt action, military efficiency and strong sense of humanity saved many during the disastrous Happy Valley Race Course fire. This took place in February 1918 and has been well documented. Booth states the death toll in the fire was 570. 'That [the "Middlesex Boulder"] has disappeared is an outrage to local history and an insult to those it commemorates. A patch of newly seeded grass is all that remains.'
The two letters were followed by another from R I Goodwin, Director of Public Relations HQ British Forces Hong Kong, dated 18 April 1994. He stated he wished to reassure Mr Booth that the Middlesex Stone was in good hands and that it was en route back to the Regiment's safe keeping in the United Kingdom. Goodwin then went on to mix up the whole issue. He took the figure of 570 lives lost in the Hong Kong Racecourse Fire in 1918 (as quoted by Booth) and quotes this as the number of lives lost when the troopship Tyndareus was mined off South