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These symposia were mostly held in the gracious old Hong Kong Club building, completed in 1897, which had a wonderful ambience. I fell in love with its splendid Victorian lavatories which, believe it or not, still actually flushed. In 1954 in England, a septuagenarian surveyor, Harold Palmer, said to me:
'When you get to Hong Kong, Dan, see if some of the buildings designed by my architect grandfather, Clement Palmer, are still standing.'
I reported back after I arrived here that the old Hong Kong Club building was still basking in its glory. Sadly, it was demolished in 1981. There, before World War Two, you had four waiters for a table of four guests. A fifth 'senior' waiter oversaw the four waiters.
An RAS member who lived in Hong Kong for approaching 30 years wrote a couple of years or so ago from his home in England:
'No, I do not miss the present-day Hong Kong one little bit. But I do miss the Hong Kong of the 1950s and '60s.'
To what degree does nostalgia creep in? Let us take a wander down memory lane. What was the Colony really like when our Branch was re-constituted in 1960?
Our first Patron was the then Governor, the late Sir Robert Brown Black, and he honoured us by chairing one of our RAS meetings. In his South China Morning Post obituary, on 7 November 1999, the heading read, 'Farewell to “Golden Days” Governor'.
A few months before he left Hong Kong, in 1964, a petition signed by many Chinese was delivered to the Colonial Secretariat to try to get the 'powers-that-were', in Britain at the time, to grant Sir Robert an extension.
A similar request for an extension had also been submitted in the case of his predecessor, Sir Alexander Grantham, Governor from 1947 to 1957, one of Hong Kong's early post-World War Two 'architects'. But certainly, in those days, everything was not rosy. After 1949 we had our 'backs to the wall' and entrepot trade with China had ceased.
236
These symposia were mostly held in the gracious old Hong Kong Club building, completed in 1897, which had a wonderful ambience. I fell in love with its splendid Victorian lavatories which, believe it or not, still actually flushed. In 1954 in England, a septuagenarian surveyor, Harold Palmer, said to me:
'When you get to Hong Kong, Dan, see if some of the buildings designed by my architect grandfather, Clement Palmer, are still standing.'
I reported back after I arrived here that the old Hong Kong Club building was still basking in its glory. Sadly, it was demolished in 1981. There, before World War Two, you had four waiters for a table of four guests. A fifth 'senior' waiter oversaw the four waiters.
An RAS member who lived in Hong Kong for approaching 30 years wrote a couple of years or so ago from his home in England:
'No, I do not miss the present-day Hong Kong one little bit. But I do miss the Hong Kong of the 1950s and '60s.'
To what degree does nostalgia creeps in? Let us take a wander down
memory lane. What was the Colony really like when our Branch was re-constituted in 1960?
Our first Patron was the then Governor, the late Sir Robert Brown Black, and he honoured us by chairing one of our RAS meetings. In his South China Morning Post obituary, on 7 November 1999, the heading read, 'Farewell to “Golden Days” Governor”.
A few months before he left Hong Kong, in 1964, a petition signed by many Chinese was delivered to the Colonial Secretariat to try to get the 'powers-that-were,' in Britain at the time, to grant Sir Robert an extension.
A similar request for an extension, had also been submitted in the case of his predecessor, Sir Alexander Grantham, Governor from 1947 to 1957, one of Hong Kong's early post-World War Two 'architects'. But certainly, in those days, everything was not rosy. After 1949 we had our 'backs to the wall' and entrepot trade with China had ceased.
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