Below is a fascinating email received today from Ms. Mary T. If anyone has info on Nicholas Fitzmaurice, plesae share it (it would be fun to see the old photos she alludes to).
Bill Brown
Xiamen University
www.amoymagic.com
Dear Mr. Brown,
I plan to visit Gulangyu in March this year with my
daughter. The Consulate General Residence was my first
home. I was born in Peking in 1937, Nicholas Fitzmaurice’s
daughter. My husband and I toured China in 1994 and finished our
travels on Gulangyu where, with the help of the Museum Curator and a charming
girl with some English from a small hotel, we eventually located the sad-looking
house – almost unrecognisable from the childhood photographs I had taken with
me. It was smothered with 50+ years of sub-tropical jungle, very
decrepit with crumbling walls and ceilings and damaged light fittings
etc. I was just thrilled it was still there and had survived the
Japanese, who interred my father with Murray MacLehose, his ‘No. 2” at the
time and who, in the 1970’s, was one of Hong Kong’s most successful
Governors. Also I wondered if Mao’s Red Guards had sacked
it.
My husband took masses of photographs of the place and when home I sent
copies of 1941 and 1994 to the curator and Hua Chung Wha (?sp) as a
thank-you for their help. I didn’t expect any response from them, so
imagine my delight and surprise when I opened my daily copy of The Times to see
a photograph of the Consulate! It was being “opened” after
restoration by the Chinese Government and looked almost identical to the
photographs I had sent. It was a huge thrill for me and now an
opportunity has arisen which will enable me to return there. P &
O have a cruise from Sydney to Hong Kong in February and amongst other
ports they are stopping for a day in Xiamen with an excursion to
Gulangyu. My daughter lives in Australia and she is also
very excited about the memories she has heard being brought to life.
I have a feeling that in the last 20 years, Gulangyu is very much more developed
than when I was last there, but so is everywhere else!
My father knew the Japanese were going to invade Kulangsu as they were
firing on the beaches and as it was almost impossible to get passage to Britain
then, we were evacuated to Dunedin where some of my father’s cousins
lived. It was not until 1943 he joined us there and we returned to
England via the Panama Canal and across the Atlantic without a
convoy! Great excitement for my brother and me, living in
life-jackets and lifeboat drill every day.
Are you able to advise me what the Consulate is now being used for? I
found a website which said that it is a coin museum but has not been updated
since 2007 and I wonder whether that is still the case. I am not
clever enough to identify it on any map. I should be grateful if you
would have time to help me with this. I leave for Australia on ...
Best wishes,
Mary Txxxx (nee Fitzmaurice)
Fun Anecdote about the Consulate: it was built on a bluff atop Zhangzhou Road in Tianwei--the best fengshui on the islet. Chinese were furious but could do nothing. It was originally two floors, but after a typhoon blew off the upper floor, the British declined to rebuilt it, and it is one story to this day. The Chinese took the typhoon as evidence of God's judgement on the invaders, and chuckle about it to this day.
Bill Brown
Xiamen University
www.amoymagic.com
