Gweilo by Martin Booth

Author:Martin Booth [Martin Booth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409084563
Publisher: Transworld

Life on the Peak had as much in common with that in Kowloon as a bowl of fish soup at a dai pai dong had to a traditional English fried breakfast, with or without salad cream. First, there were no shops except for a small Dairy Farm general store. Second, there were hardly any people about except around an observation point where tourists with cameras mingled with touts trying to sell them packs of photographs of what they were themselves about to photograph. Third, there were no eating places except the Peak Café, a low, red-roofed building that I had spotted as my father halted to change gear on our first visit. Finally, there were very few buildings and those that did exist were either the houses of the rich taipans, secure behind walls topped with barbed wire or broken glass, or apartment buildings.

From a busy urban existence, I was suddenly catapulted into a pacific rural one, with a gamut of new experiences to undergo and new lessons to be learnt.

The morning of the move, we arrived at Mount Austin shortly after two dark-blue Bedford lorries with RN painted in white upon the sides. Half a dozen Chinese ratings leapt out, lowered the tailgate and began to carry all our belongings up to Apartment 8. To complement the general-issue furniture provided by the Navy, my parents had purchased a low Chinese coffee table with bow legs, reminiscent of an English bull terrier's, a Chinese dining-room suite and a bar – an essential for my inabstinent father.

As soon as the unpacking commenced, it was diplomatically suggested that I might like to go outside and play. With whom or at what was not an issue. Hardly believing my good fortune, I left the building and set off down the curving ridge road. At the T-junction I turned right and started to ascend to the summit of the Peak.

The road was steep and passed a derelict lot where the foundations of a building were laid out in the ground with a few fragments of wall remaining. It was, in effect, a cleared bomb site: I had seen enough of those in Portsmouth to recognize it. Higher up, several rather fine houses stood to the right of the road with magnificent views of the city below. I walked on, my legs beginning to ache. A few hundred yards on there appeared at the side of the road a small stone building not much bigger than my grandfather's garden shed. The door was open and the sound of voices emanated from within. I knocked and looked in. Sitting at a desk was a policeman. Another sat to one side, his chair tilted back. In a corner, a kettle simmered on an electric ring. They nodded a greeting. I expected to be invited in for a bowl of tea. That would have been Mong Kok protocol. I wasn't.

Beside the police post were some stone steps. I descended them and found myself on a path that, after fifty yards, crossed a small tumbling stream.

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