we are under our own roof, if camping, things are easier. Our new Chargé [Chargé d’Affaires rather than ambassador for the reasons explained earlier] arrives early tomorrow and I must be up early to bow low at the station. It is a marvellous place. Great gleaming steam engines towing huge trains to Shanghai, Harbin, Ulan Bator and Moscow.
OFFICE OF THE BRITISH CHARGÉ D’AFFAIRES PEKING
7 FEBRUARY 1972 CR
I am sitting at our dining table in the middle of the sitting room which the painters have just finished, surrounded by meagre pieces of furniture, and gazing out across the compound to a building opposite which looks not unlike a combination of Pentonville Prison and those Peabody Buildings with which I am so familiar. We have a wall around us and an armed guard at the gate. The buildings are grey but trees have been planted between them which should alleviate the drabness in the summer. This is our home for two years.
I will gloss over the journey which was as nightmarish as expected as far as Hong Kong. There we were warmly welcomed and had a lovely few restful days enjoying the place at its seductive best and seeing our few friends. Jamie was reunited with Ah Ling [the family’s amah when they lived in Hong Kong to learn Chinese] to whom he went with great joy and not a moment’s hesitation. We were there for four days and left from Kowloon station on Saturday morning very early on a 60-mile train journey which took us until late that afternoon. The Hong Kong train took us as far as Lo Wu, the border where we were escorted across the famous bridge to be greeted on the other side by smiling PLA guards in their green uniforms. We were taken to a clean and heavily anti-macassar’d waiting room, served with tea and then lunch, and finally taken to our train for the onward journey to Canton. The train was beautiful, and the countryside immediately resembled the landscapes of Chinese paintings one had tried so often to identify in Hong Kong without success.
We were due to take a plane immediately to Peking, but due to snow on the runway (or so we were told although there was in fact no snow in Peking that day) the flight was cancelled and we spent our first night in China in what must be the most desolate and terrible of hotels. Built by the Russians for 800 people and these days never having more than 12 guests. We were woken the next morning by revolutionary music and the hooting of lorries and filled in the time by visiting the local zoo, where we soon became more of an attraction than the animals. Parks and zoos are the main recreation source of the Great Masses – there is nothing else to do. Canton was a pretty city, but made drab by its buildings, and of course by the monotonous dress of the people, which however well one is prepared, comes as a shock. Every man and women in green or blue, and only the children adding a touch of colour here and there. The [revolutionary] posters and placards are another source of colour, dominating every street and building alongside huge pictures of the Chairman Mao. Our plane finally left late that afternoon after hours of inexplicable delay – a Russian Ilyushin turboprop (imagine my delight!) for 4 whole hours on a journey that would take a jet less than 2. No glamorous airhostesses here, just a huge fat rosy-cheeked girl in baggy trousers and the inevitable serge, serving us a truly disgusting meal of peanuts, sour bread, and sausage. Julia and Christopher Hum met us at the airport and we were taken to a slightly less horrific hotel than the one in Canton. It was good to see them. They are our upstairs neighbours now and have been a great help in all the confusion.
We were woken our first morning here at 5 am by the hooting lorries, and this continued every day for the fortnight we were in the hotel. Jamie screamed, I leapt from my bed to quieten him for fear he would wake the other people and was in and out of bed for the next two hours for the same purpose. There are few cars on the roads here, but literally millions of bicycles. None of them carry lights, which makes driving terribly hazardous, and produces this incessant hooting from lorries warning them of their approach. The noise begins in the dark and early dawn. Fortunately, the compound is quiet and that stage is past. My first impressions of Peking were of its flatness, greyness, the low buildings everywhere, the wide streets, the millions of people, and of course the dryness – so dry that each time you move to touch something or someone you receive a shock. My hands are already covered with sores, and I feel as though my face will crack in half when I smile. It is cold (about –10) but usually sunny too, so you get the clear crisp days reminiscent of the mountains.
Michael began work the very next day, leaving J and I to find our way around. Keeping J quiet and occupied in that hotel was my main obsession for two weeks. Not easy, but nothing to set beside other people who had been there for months and months. Julia was very kind and let us use her flat as a base. We borrowed a pushchair and spent an hour of each morning walking, and skating on the small ice-rink at the International Club. On one of the mornings we walked along Legation Street, past all the boarded and shuttered houses as far as Tien An Men Square, and saw for the first time the rooves of the Forbidden City shining in the sun. Michael returned for lunch and in the afternoon we would go to a park or have tea with someone in the Mission. There are no children of J’s age unfortunately, though I have since discovered some Canadians and Italians with two-year-olds. Julia gave a party for us to meet everyone else, about 40 people in all, a nice bunch including security guards, secretaries, wives and children, so we are a small group. I went to two wives’ coffee mornings and three dinner parties in that time. A baby-sitter came to the hotel and later turned up here as our appointed ayee. The parties were interesting – a complete mix of nationalities and Michael was able to use all his languages including Russian in one evening. A great bonus here is that everything ends by 11 and no lengthy drinking sessions beforehand either. I am so relieved and find I can manage much more as a result.
We moved into this flat the day our predecessors left. The painters came too, so we have been living in indescribable chaos with one plate and a knife between us. Anything is better than the hotel and J seems slightly more settled. I hope that once the painters go and his familiar things are unpacked he will be happier. He talks a lot about people at home and spent the first two weeks trying to identify familiar faces in the street. He cried for Ah Ling and still does because of course the faces are the same. It is so hard at this age to make them understand what is happening and why everything is so different and all the people he loved have gone. Dr Spock says never ever travel with a two-year old, and I can see why. It is agony for them and of course for us. His second birthday was rather sad. No presents and no party because there was nowhere to sit. But we found him a baby guitar which he loves and took him to the zoo, and I shall have a small tea for him as soon as I can. Our luggage has arrived and is being unpacked tomorrow, so at least I shall have the equipment even if there is no birthday cake.
The flat is quite pleasant, long and thin like a railway carriage, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a small kitchen, storeroom and a good-sized living area. The furniture and curtains (where they exist) are abominable – every colour clashing and everything filthy. Pale grey carpets covered in stains, no cupboards at all in the kitchen, and everything designed to make the battle we wage against dust quite impossible. We were presented in our first week here with an ayee who has never worked for foreigners, doesn’t know how to use a broom, and is the only Chinese woman I have seen who is not naturally affectionate with children. We have now been given a huge elderly cook who has just spent three years on the Russian border and cannot in fact cook! Neither of them speak any English, and I spend more than half my day gesticulating wildly to show the one how to wash a floor and the other how to boil an egg. Half our clothes have already been ruined in the washing, and most of our meals are unpalatable. I could do the work in half the time myself, and would like to do the cooking, but there is nothing I can do. They are allocated to us by the Chinese Government and we are stuck with them for two years.
Michael walks to work from here in his full-length coat and fur hat. The office is five minutes away and just next door to the Residence [Chargé’s house] – newly-built and furnished in execrable taste. The new Chargé arrived last week. We went to Peking station to meet him and J saw his first steam engine. The Chargé is a tall impressive man, a bachelor, and was Counsellor here from 1952–55. So he is delighted to be back. Michael incidentally has a beautiful piece of parchment signed by The Queen appointing him to be her Consul in Peking, of which he is very proud. The office has a tennis court and
