Thanks to Andrew Suddaby for uploading over 200 of his photos showing Hong Kong in 1957-8:
Over to Andrew ...
An amazing year in Hong Kong
In 1957 I was half way through my National Service in the Royal Air Force. I’d spent the first year living in bleak wooden huts on various camps in England, but now I was bound for Hong Kong. It’s strange to recall but I even had to look up ‘Hong Kong’ in an atlas to find out where I would be spending the last year of my National Service. It wouldn’t be on yet another wooden-hutted camp in some remote and boring area of Britain; it would be to the exotic and mysterious Far East. Yes, in the 1950s Hong Kong was still both.
The end of October 1957 saw me going abroad for the first time and flying for the first time in a wonderful if somewhat noisy B.O.A.C. Argonaut. Three and a half days later it landed on the old runway at Kai Tak - the one that preceded the one jutting out into the harbour. My first, rather worrying, sight of Hong Kong was of people waving at us from their flats level with the plane as it dropped down literally between some buildings in Kowloon.
The day I arrived it was a glorious, sunny morning and, having been taken across the harbour to North Point by R.A.F. launch, a Chinese funeral procession passed by. So this is what the exotic East is like! And the R.A.F. camp at Little Sai Wan (Siu Sai Wan) was modern and so different to anything that I had previously experienced, with great swimming just round the Point. Yes, that spot is still there and nostalgia drew me back to it whenever I re-visited Hong Kong.
For the next year I marvelled at what seemed a different world. The sights, the smells, the unfamiliar sounds, the rat-a-tat of mah-jong tiles, the clanking of the trams, the exotic fruits in the street markets but, I’m afraid to tell, so little of the wonderfully different food. In Britain a purchase tax of 45% was still levied on most things but in Hong Kong, everything was a bargain. On the other hand, one couldn’t help but feel sorry for all those people doing their best to scratch a living in such a crowded place. I spent as much of my very limited pay as I could afford on rather expensive Kodachrome film and I have often wished that I’d had more to record Hong Kong before it changed for ever. I hope that you enjoy seeing my photographs, taken nearly sixty years ago. If you are old enough, they might even bring back some memories for you. Sometime soon, I hope to add more colour photographs that I took in 1981 and 1987.
Andrew Suddaby
(You can click any of the photos below to see other readers' comments, and / or leave your own.)
Central, The Peak tram
Ship at mooring
Star Ferry, new pier and car park
Star Ferry, upper deck
New Territories
1950s Hennessy Road
1950s Johnston Road
Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter
Central, Banks from Cricket Ground
Central 'Rogues' Alley
Central, Banks from Star Ferry car park
Central, from Peak
Central, butcher's shop
Central, Cenotaph from Jackson road
Central, Central Market, Queen Victoria Street
Central, Connaught Road and Law courts
Central, Connaught Road quay
Central, Connaught road, Blake pier
Central, Cricket ground from Cheero Club
Central, from Peak tram
Central, from Peak
Central, from Star Ferry
Central, Connaught Road Waterfront
Central, Connaught Road Waterfront
Central, Garden Road, Murray Barracks
Central, Ice House Street
Central, Kings Theatre, Queens Road Central
Central, Law courts and old Star Ferry pier
Central, Peak and old cannon
Central, Peak view over Central
Central, The Peak, Lugard Road
Central, Pottinger Street
Central, Pottinger Street
Central, Wellington Street
Central, Queens Road alley
Central, Queens Road
Central, Queens Road
Central, Queens Road Central, behind Central market
Central, Wellington Street
Central, Queens Road
Central, Queens Road
Central, 'Rogues' Alley
Central, street market off Queens Road
Central and the harbour from the Peak tram
Central, over to Kowloon from the Peak tram
The Peak, Mt Austin road turn-off for Lugard Road
Central, Waterfront from Star Ferry
Central, Wyndham Street lower end
Star Ferry, new pier and car park
Star Ferry, Old Pier
Star Ferry, Old Pier
Western District, Dragon boat races
Western District, Dragon boat races
Western District, Dragon boat races
Western District, Dragon boat races
Kowloon, waterfront from Star Ferry
Kowloon, From Castle Peak Road
Kowloon, Leaving Star Ferry
Kowloon, Leaving Star Ferry
CausewayBay from Tiger Balm Gardens
Wan Chai, Glouceste Road, Fenwick pier, U.S. Navy shore patrol
Wan Chai, Gloucester Road, Missions to Seamen
Wan Chai, HMS Tamar and ships from China Fleet Club
Wan Chai, HMS Tamar from China Fleet Club Arsenal Street side
Wan Chai, Jaffa Road towards Methodist House
Tiger Balm Gardens
Tiger Balm Gardens
Tiger Balm Gardens
Tiger Balm Gardens
Tiger Balm Gardens, pagoda
Tiger Balm Gardens
Tiger Balm Gardens
Tiger Balm Gardens, Andrew
Tiger Balm Gardens, nearby terrace fields
Chai Wan from Cape Collinson Road
Chai Wan fields from Cape Collinson Road
Chai Wan fields from Cape Collinson Road
Chai Wan and Junk Bay from Cape Collinson Road
Chai Wan from Cape Collinson Road
Top of Cape Collinson Road
Top of Cape Collinson Road
Chai Wan War Cemetery
Chai Wan War Cemetery
Chai Wan War Cemetery
Chai Wan War Cemetery
Big Wave Bay
Big Wave Bay
Pottinger Peak
Shek O
Shek O
Shek O
Shek O
Shek O
Shek O
Shek O
Shek O
Shek O
Aberdeen, children on quay
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Cheung Chau
Cheung Chau
Cheung Chau
Cheung Chau
Cheung Chau
Cheung Chau
Cheung Chau
Cheung Chau
Cheung Chau
New Territories
New Territories, approaching Hin Tin
New Territories
New Territories
New Territories?
New Territories
New Territories
New Territories
New Territories
New Territories
New Territories
New Territories
New Territories
New Territories
New Territories
Yuen Long
Yuen Long
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories. Tai Po Market
New territories. Tai Po Market
New Territories.
New Territories. Sha Tin
New Territories. Sha Tin
New Territories. Sha Tin
New Territories. Sha Tin
New Territories. Sha Tin
New Territories. Sha Tin
New Territories. Sha Tin
New Territories. Sha Tin
New Territories. Sha Tin
Rev. Yuet Kai, 10,000 Buddhas Temple Shatin
Tai Tam Tuk reservoir
Tai Tam Road
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan from the Cape Collinson road
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan from the Western Headland
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan from the road above camp gate
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan. The camp gate
Little Sai Wan. The road up from the camp.The Royal Navy in Junk Bay
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan from the Cape Collinson Road
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan from the top of the camp road.
Little Sai Wan. Pals at the top of the camp road.
R.A.F. sign at the top of the camp road.
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan towards the gate from the N.A.A.F.I. stairs.
Lighthouse. Andrew.
Little Sai Wan aerial mast at the Point
Little Sai Wan fishing junks.
Little Sai Wan Junk Bay
Little Sai Wan Pals at the Point.
Little Sai Wan path to the lighthouse
Little Sai Wan The Point. Old buildings
Little Sai Wan The Point Andrew
Little Sai Wan. Pals at the Point
Little Sai Wan. Pals on the sunbathing rocks
Little Sai Wan towards Devil's Peak from the Point
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan. View from my room
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan. View from Room 53 balcony
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan sunset.
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan balcony view
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan view from Room 53
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan. A wet day
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan after the rain
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan. Andrew in his k.d.uniform
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan. Chung, our amah
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan. Inside Room 53
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan Andrew's bedspace.
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan. Pals on the balcony
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan. Christmas 1957, Room 53
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan. Room 53
Wan Chai. Gloucester Road quay, China Fleet Club.JPG
Wan Chai, Jaffe Road police flats.jpg
R.A.F. Little Sai Wan ex Cave Window
Cape Collinson Lighthouse ex Cave Window
1950s Roxy, Causeway Bay
Kowloon station concourse
Kowloon station on board the train
Kowloon station on board the train
Kowloon station platform
1950s Hennessy Rd / Queens Road East Junction
Thanks again to Andrew for showing us his photos. If you have any photos of old Hong Kong you'd like to share on Gwulo.com, please click here for details of how to upload them: http://gwulo.com/node/2076
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