A one man rugby tour to launch a book

I left Heathrow late Monday night, bound for Hong Kong on flight VS201, squeezing into an economy space for the 660 minute flight. I read through my presentations feeling nervous about the busy schedule once I hit the ground. After a few hours sleep, Hong Kong arrived, passing through immigration, the bags took a while to appear on the belt, customs passed by and the airport express rolled into view.

The rain was falling by the time I left Tsing Yi and continued through Kowloon station and onto Hong Kong station. I tried the taxi queue but as soon as rain falls in Hong Kong the familiar Hong Kong smell arrives and the taxis disappear.

The queue is motionless and so I leave it and head for Central Station with two bags in tow to negotiate the metro lines. Changing at Admiralty, I leave the train at Wanchai and enter the wet streets in search of my bed. I find Mingle by the Park and enter reception. The key I am given is a fifth floor room. I am told there is no lift and so carry two heavy bags upstairs. There is a problem with the key, cursing, I carry the bags back down to reception, now more wet from the sweat than the rain. I change my key and still dripping I leave a trail as I return to my room.

On entering the room I am pleased that I didn't bring my cat... The bed is shorter than me unless I lie on it diagonally. There follows a restless night as the air conditioning unit competed with the storm outside, the wind whistling in the space between my building and the next.

An early start, the drizzling rain did nothing to improve my mood. A McDonald's big breakfast filled a hole and the metro beckoned. Taking the blue island line to the terminus at Chai Wan I exited the station and headed for the hills walking through real Hong Kong, away from the wonders of Wanchai and madness of Mongkok. The rain gets heavier, my sandals slipping on the pavement as my feet slip in the sandal. A newly purchased umbrella keeps me less wet and I pass the first of several cemeteries heading higher up the road, expecting a dead end.

My arrival at the Sai Wan Military Cemetery is accompanied by a clap of thunder and bolt of lightning. I check the grave reference and step from my temporary shelter to walk amongst the pristine Commonwealth War Graves, a tribute to the sacrifice made by those lying there. L G Shellam's final resting place appears through the rain at the end of a row of graves which are as straight as a ruler.

Major Leslie George Shellam died on 28 September 1945 aged thirty-two. He had played a few games for the Rugby Club in the 1938 – 39 season. In March 1945 when serving as Lieutenant Colonel in the 11th Sikh Regiment, Shellam was recommended to be awarded an MBE ‘for outstanding service and devotion to duty behind the enemy lines, and for initiative and leadership in difficult and trying conditions.’ He had been responsible for training Chinese troops in Eastern and had become cut off from his base behind Japanese lines. He and his party became dependant on the intermittent supplies that could be dropped to him by plane. The commendation concluded that he had ‘made a material contribution to the maintenance of British prestige in this country [China].’

Amongst the hills and the not so distant skyscrapers the inscription on his headstone reads ‘Their memory we honour while through troubled times they sleep’, a fitting and prescient epitaph given China’s subsequent troubled history.

Trekking back down the hill I nod to another man walking past me in search of a hero. At the bus station, I catch the mini bus to Stanley, the bus wends its way up the road that I had just walked up and down, not a dead end after all, but a passage across the island through land where many who lay in the cemetery had fought and died.

From Stanley bus station avoiding the market, I took a short walk; the rain had stopped, leaving the pavement steaming, past St. Stephens College and up two flights of stairs to the preserved graves of more victims from 1941 and beyond.

The gravestones are not the normal Commonwealth style. Stanley Cemetery's graves are a stone with crude lettering which just as effectively conveys the information that here lies the body of Vandeleur Molyneux Grayburn, a banker, a knight, a rugby player in his youth in Shanghai. A man of his time, but not of today's. He was adamant that marrying between the races was wrong for his employees but heroically and futilely resisted the Japanese who through his mistreatment killed him, aged 62. The sun shines as I head for the bus station, the sea battering the beach below, as it did 70 years ago

when hope was fading but not yet gone.

The bus journey to Central winds its way past more scenes of fighting now forgotten by most. The Repulse Bay Hotel had lived up to its name in 1941 when the Japanese were repulsed for many days. It is hard to imagine the scenes of brutality, heroism and death that were once its guests.

Back to the land of the living, the fully laden streets of Hong Kong beckoned. Now onto the other blue line terminus, Sheung Wan. Back to some of my history as I visit the office where I worked for four years, I see my old colleagues, so much has happened since I spent my days there.

Time is passing and so I head back to Mingle by the Park plodding up the stairs to prepare myself. Pack a bag, double check and then set out on a fifteen minute walk to the place where Grayburn had been a pre war President in happier times. The Hong Kong Football Club would be unrecognisable were he to enter its doors today. I am taken to the Lockhart room, an apt place to deliver a lecture about the rugby games played between Hong Kong and Shanghai. The room is laid out perfectly, and the sign at the door announces my presence.

My books arrive, the fruit of four years research and writing. I handle one, seeing it for the first time, running my hand over the cover and feeling its mass, a heavy book indeed, no longer a soft copy on my computer screen but a tangible, weighty document telling the history of rugby in Shanghai. By my side is a trophy, a solid silver rose bowl which was presented by Grayburn’s successor at HSBC and was held by two winning post war captains one each from Shanghai and Hong Kong.

People arrive; I am thrilled to meet Jan whose grandfather was a Major in the Shanghai Volunteer Corps and a major player in the Shanghai team of the 1920s and 30s. My old rugby friends do their duty, afterwards ‘Mussolini’ says my talk was more interesting than he thought it would be, ‘Jonah’ laughs, and we took it as a compliment. I sell my first book and make a mental note to keep the 500HKD bill for posterity.

A few beers and chat with more friends in the Sportsman's Bar with horses racing overhead. Back into the night, back to the fifth floor room still not fit for a swinging cat and lie down diagonally for another fitful night of sleep.

An early start sees me head to the airport. The downtown check in relieves me of one of my bags and the airport express rushes me to Lantau. Shanghai, a city I had left just ten months before was basking in a wonderful May Day. Blue skies welcomed me, accompanied by a refreshing breeze as a taxi transported me downtown to the City Hotel. The room was at least four times larger than the fifth floor hutch in Hong Kong. A glance out of my window rewards me with bird’s eye view of Moller’s fairytale house. An anachronistic vision when built that now seems perfectly suited to host Chinese weddings in its gardens; the house as it does, looking like a fairytale castle.

The weather remains perfect into the evening. I walk for thirty minutes to the place of my second lecture, the old premises of the Swire and Butterfield Hong; once a foreign Taipan’s domain and now hosting high ranking Chinese government officials and high spending tourists. Two boxes of books arrive and I plug in for another talk. The audience is attentive, interested enough to ask several post talk questions and buy books. I present a copy to Ed, the Royal Asiatic Society’s librarian.

My son Harry, visiting his second Radisson hotel that evening (!) arrived late but saw most of the talk and joined with his Finnish schoolmate Viktor for a post talk beer in Lost Heaven.

Feeling tired, I took a taxi to the hotel ready to stretch out in a bed that was all the more inviting that it could accommodate my height. The morning arrived too quickly heralded by my alarm. The ‘castle’ across the road looked splendid with bright blue sky behind it. I took a taxi to and dived into Starbucks to buy a Venti sized latte with an extra shot. Feeling fortified I walked over Garden Bridge pausing in the middle to admire the skyline.

Today was my ‘Peacock day’. Marissa arrived with energy of Tigger, bouncing along on a wave of excitement. The bikers from Insiders Experience roll in and the tour starts. Starting at the Astor Hotel, we go inside and confidently walk into the ballroom where numerous rugby club dances were held so many years ago. Marissa with local knowledge sneaks us upstairs to see where Albert Einstein stayed, next door to Edgar Snow, an unlikely pairing.

From the Astor Hotel onto Garden Bridge, following the footsteps of William Morrison Harvie's horse in 1892. The Union Church is next in line for a story and across the road the old Shanghai Rowing Club premises, the scene of scores of AGM's of the Shanghai Rugby Club.

We walk return to the bikes, basking in the glorious sunshine. This is what we had been waiting for. I squeeze into the sidecar and Tigger bounces onto the seat behind the driver. We set off to our next destination, camera in hand and GoPro recording our journey into the past for posterity.

We arrive at the house of horror, Bridge House, a destination which, 70 years ago chilled the bones of those who thought they may have to cross its threshold. We do so, imagining walking towards the terrifying torture chambers, the waiting interrogation rooms, the filth and squalor of bamboo cages not fit for one person let alone twenty. At least two rugby players suffered here, water boarded, hung up on stretched thumbs, feet barely touching the ground and bamboo batons beating out false confessions.

Squeezing into a lift to the top floor, our thoughts of horror are replaced by domestic contentment. On exiting we see washing blowing dry on the balconies, bedding and clothes, both of which previous inmates were deprived. Neighbours who had lived cheek by jowl for decades shared the sun as they chatted. The peace and serenity of the scene, a refuge from the cacophony outside, starkly contrasted with the screams that had bounced off the walls in the early 1940s.

Back on the bikes, and heading to another site of remembrance. The building looked almost identical as it had done on that fateful New Year's Day in 1937. As if weighted down by the tragedy of that day it was standing ten inches shorter. The last doorstep over which probationary police Sergeant Eric Murray Slayer had purposefully strode, passed under our feet as we entered the building.

With the newspaper report of his murder in hand, we stepped up the stairs stopping on the first floor landing just as Slater had done. We imagined the robbers charging down towards us guns in hand. Shots exchanged, we walked back down the steps and stood where Slater was felled, a bullet in his twenty three year old forehead. He staggered backward from the lift into the building's doorway dying by the doorstep he had stepped over only a few seconds before. Now in a rush, back to the bikes, time running out, one last exhilarating ride back to the hotel, our melancholic thoughts dispelled by the joy of riding a motor bike in the Shanghai summer sun.

A second Peacock waits at the station. Angus, accompanies me to our first meeting held in a building that featured frequently in the background of photographs of rugby matches in the mid 1930s, games in which Slater featured before his early demise. Some kind words, and photos, a gift of my book to Dr. Guo Bei, a director in the Shanghai Sports Bureau, a friend of modern day rugby in Shanghai.

The second visit is to a Chinese school in Xuhui, 102 years old; it shared its Shanghai history with the rugby club but the history was lived in parallel, seldom, if ever crossing. Today the paths cross every Friday when some of Shanghai Rugby Club's Chinese coaches visit the school to teach rugby. What a joy! The excitement on the boys and girls faces as they passed balls, ran into space, tried to beat the coach, the laughter rang out as they learned to enjoy the sport that was first played in their city in 1867.

My final stop is the library. A venerable institute, the significant source of the information in my book. The space where I had spent many days turning old pages, photographing photographs, documenting, recording, discovering; it felt good to return the information from whence it had come. Its curator Jenfang Wang kindly offers us a special guided tour. We passed through an electronically controlled door into a room smelling of knowledge. It’s rows of wooden shelves, with Latin inscriptions, the ancient books, a gold mine for Jesuit scholars past and present which had somehow survived the excesses of the Cultural Revolution

and outlived the rugby club which had died in 1950.

Time for a well served drink. Mr Peacock joins me at Wagas, as does my daughter just arrived from Hangzhou. We share a bottle of wine, toasting the success of the day and the publication of my book.

Angus leaves us to pick up Marissa while Becky and I head to the hotel. Talk of where to eat, the lamb restaurant is chosen, an old haunt and family favourite. A new outside patio area is the perfect place to eat and to watch Shanghai pass by as we catch up on our news. Later, after devouring several plates of Xinjiang lamb and five bottles of Tsingtao beer, Becky's friend arrives, a few more bottles of beer and I head home leaving the ladies to plan their late night. I sleep well, a busy day, a perfect day.

I had just sat up in bed, extracting myself from the sheets to start my lazy preparation to head out to the rugby club for my book's official launch. The phone rings and I am needed one hour earlier. Skipping breakfast, another large Starbucks plus shot does the job, helping the taxi journey pass. Arriving at the rugby club, Ashley and his team have done a great job. Piles of my book are on the front counter ready for sale. The wall sized Guinness poster is supplemented by huge blow ups of the book’s cover.

At the club, men's and children’s rugby is being played. The youngsters come into the room for the presentations. They seem over awed by the sight of me wearing number ones and standing next to a blow up of my image. Photos taken, cups presented, I settle down to sign the books. Trying to think of an appropriate comment to accompany my signature required more creativity than did the writing of the 700 page factual book.

Later, I present the story of the US Fourth Marines rugby days in Shanghai and realise that this story when supplemented with extra research will be a great second book. The lecture requires a break as half the audience needs to leave to play a game of rugby. Returning hot and sweaty, bloodied and muddied they drip through the last ten minutes.

Then I can relax. I sign a few more books and down a few pints. I watch the tournament final. It was a delight to see a team from Wuhan, previously known as Hankow. The Hankow team in the 1920s never made the journey to Shanghai whereas Shanghai travelled by boat up the Yangtze on eight occasions. The predominantly Pacific Islander modern Hankow team had flown to Shanghai and acquitted themselves well sadly losing in a hard fought and feisty final.

Another cup presentation followed by a cap presentation, placing it on the head of the departing current Club Captain who was soon to be returning to his home, to the land of the Fourth Marines. Sadly the Peacocks will be flying later this year. Angus also received a coveted traditional black and silver cap, a small gift with a big meaning thanking its recipients for their valuable service to the rugby club, adding to it their own pieces of history.

Kicking back with some more beers chatting about rugby, the bus arrives and the modern day Club President and I travel with a Guinness to keep us company, catching up on the last ten months, laughing about our previous chance meeting in Australia and exchanging family war stories.

What a tour, a one man tour, to launch a rugby book.