Captain Charles ‘Chic’ Eather, born 1920, has had a long life. A great part of his working life was spent in aviation and much of this was connected to Cathay Pacific, Kai Tak airport and aircraft maintenance companies at the airport post WW2 and up to his retirement in 1975. His biography Syd’s Last Pirate was published as a CD-Rom. […]
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IDJ has sent the link to a recent visit by the HK URBEX (Urban Exploration) Community. They describe themselves as “a group of urban explorers who want to photograph and immortalise the buildings and sites that have been abandoned – but also the items that people have left behind. What results is a uniquely divergent view of our city and […]
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HF: Shiu Wing Steel Ltd is the only steel rolling mill currently in Hong Kong and is located at Tap Shek Kok, Tuen Mun. It operates a scrap collection yard at 18 Tung Yuen Street, Yau Tong at which the scrap is loaded onto lighters. I presume these are then towed to its mill in Tuen Mun. Can anyone confirm this? I […]
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New information in red. Thomas Ngan recently posted these comments in reponse to the article, Lok On Pai “desalting” plant, 1975-1981. a) The main building still exists today. Only the chimneys and the generators have been demolished/removed. The lot has been occupied as a weekend/holiday flea market for quite a few years. Don’t know what might have happened in the past […]
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IDJ has sent a fairly detailed account of The Hongkong Electric Tramway which appears in a book published in 1908 linked below. This includes details of: – the construction of the Tramway, the consulting engineers being Alfred Dickinson & Co of Birmingham, UK, and the contractors Dick, Kerr & Co of London – the track dimensions and length, along with […]
» Read more HF: New Information in red. Desalination (or “Desalting” as it appeared to be called at that time) was a source of water in Hong Kong between 1975 and 1981. A large desalination plant was commissioned at Lok On Pai, near Tuen Mun, in 1975, but was decommissioned in 1981 because its operation was more expensive than importing water from Dongjiang in […]
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HF: In 1909 Sir AR Binnie and Son merged with another UK engineering consultancy to become Sir Alexander Binnie, Son and Deacon. Later later this company became Binnie & Partners and from the 1990s it has been part of the multi-national Black and Veatch consultancy. Binnie & Partners had a close connection to Hong Kong from 1930. The company was involved […]
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HF: I was told many years ago that Hong Kong had the most ferry routes of any city in the world. And that Sydney was second and Seattle third. If that was true back in the 1980s it may not be so in 2014. During this period I have seen several routes vanish, including Jordan Road to Central, a wonderful […]
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James Chan: I found this 1889 map while looking through an archaelogical assessement of the MTR West Island line. The map shows Kennedy Town. On it are a silk works betwen Cadogan and Davis Streets. And a rope works along Forbes Street between Davis Street and Smithfield. What does anyone know about either of these two works?
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HF: Elizabeth Ride has sent a number of BAAG reports about Taikoo Dockyard during 1943-1944. As she says this material is very raw but I think will be of great use to anyone interested in knowing what was going on there during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. Elizabeth apologises for the the state of some of the documents, which […]
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