XN000022-1995-09-02+03 — Page 9

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Rebuilding a community which was over the coming years to open its arms to wave after wave of refugees from dark events in China.

So we celebrated a remarkable story of human heroism and tenacity. A story which should inspire. Does it inspire us? It certainly inspired those who had come back to Hong Kong some for the first time in 50 years to take part in the services, the ceremonies and the receptions.

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It was interesting talking to them. The retired nurse who had tried to save another woman's baby and who met that mother, now well on in years, by astonishing accident across the drinks and the nuts of a British Legion reception. The widows visiting, 50 years on, the graves of young husbands in the typhoon season's driving rain. The old soldiers who recalled where they'd tried to hold the line. The retired education officer, now wheel-chair bound, who talked about the work of the civil service in getting Hong Kong back on its feet after all that bloody horror.

But what interested me most was what those brave survivors had to say about the present, not the past.

Some were back for the first time, literally agog. Others had made a return trip from time to time but were still amazed by the progress since their last visit. The buildings. The cars. The reclamation. The bustle. The way people dressed. The hospitals. The housing. The MTR. The universities. The smell of the harbour, true - but also the smell of success.

Would

you, could

you,

have believed it 50 years ago? Of course not. 10 years ago? Well, hardly then either.

Given the chance by all those heroes, given the freedom, given the opportunity to work and excel in an open society under the rule of law, just look at what's been achieved.

Not easily. Every so often there's been some new volcanic event on our doorstep to survive. Every so often some new so-called crisis of confidence to live through.

But Hong Kong has coped. Hong Kong people have built this city - believing in themselves, believing that men and women can make things better, can create a decent society, given half a chance. That's the sort of self-confidence we need for the future.