CFZ PHOTO ARCHIVE: Hong Kong in the early 1960s

The small child in these two pictures is me, and the lady holding my hand is my mother. The time is 1961 or 1962 and the place is two different beaches in Hong Kong. The top beach is Repulse Bay, called - I believe - after HMS Repulse, a Royal Navy battleship which was moored there for a while, However it might (according to Wikipedia) be named after the fact that it was the base from which the Navy "repulsed" attacks from pirates in the mid 19th Century.

The lower picture was taken at about the same time on a small private beach owned by H.M Prison at Stanley on theeastern edge of Tai Tam Bay, also on the south of the island.


The reason that I am posting them today, is not just because I am feeling slightly melancholy and nostalgic, but because these were two of the locations where I started my lifelong interest in natural history. Repulse Bay was where I saw my first seasnake, and the other location was where I first saw a Portuguese Man O'War.

On both occasions I say "first" but apart from museum and zoo specimens I have never seen either species in the wild since. However, the fact that I was confronted with such amazing, and potentially lethal animals at such a young age is, I think, the reason that I became so fascinated with animals at such a young age - a fascination which has continued for the rest of my life.