Hong Kong: Macmillan, 1983. First Edition. vii, 183 pages: illustrations; 29 cm. Ill. on lining papers./ Includes bibliographical references (pages 178-182). Very good with what looks liek a bindery flaw creas to first few leaves; minor edge-wear and slight roll; in a near fine jacket in archival mylar. Hardcover. ISBN: 9620302184; 9789620302183
Pictorial social history of expatriate life in colonial Hong Kong from the end of the First World War to the Japanese invasion, by a Hong Kong history teacher at Island School who was also a familiar newsreader on TVB, the colony’s main television station. The title plays on the Peak, the colony’s loftiest and most exclusive residential district. That district was long reserved by law for Europeans, and from it the British elite looked down, socially as well as physically, on the harbor city below. Gillingham builds his account largely from period sources: memoirs, the local press, private photographs and occasional verse, among them Robert Simpson’s “Come to the Peak, Ha! Ha!” from his Diversions (1933), a send-up of hill society. Illustrated throughout in black and white with photographs of colonial leisure, club, hunt and household, many from private albums, including the Fanling Hunt in full cry in 1938. Valued now as a source of otherwise unpublishedBritish in Hong Kong (China) -- History -- Anecdotes. China -- Hong Kong
