Baguio, Philippines

May 15^th, 1947

Dear family,

Well, I suppose I might as well continue with the chronicle of my life. I haven't heard from anyone for ages, and I have been out of Manila for eight days, and don't even know what's happened to Phil. I suppose the office must be aware of his movements but no one has been thoughtful enough to pass the word on. As we are supposed to be taking a ship on the 20th, and I am by no means packed up, I am beginning to wonder and wonder.

I don't know whether I wrote that Phil was to go to Singapore on a short business trip, and was to have been back on the 7th. There seemed some uncertainty as to whether the man from London was going to be there on schedule, so I knew he might be late, and the day after he left, when some women came to see me, and saw Hugo covered with boils, they said why in the world didn't I go to Baguio. I had never even thought of it, but it did indeed seem a good idea, and one of the women made it possible for me to stay at the country club. I began packing that very afternoon, and worked hard for three days. Hugo got steadily worse, and we couldn't go out that weekend, or swim or anything and he was very miserable and uncomfortable. It was also about as hot as it ever gets. I realized that I just couldn't compete with all the packing - in fact just didn't have the necessary number of crates, so I asked Wilfrid to let me have one of the bedrooms. It is now a mess of cartons packed with all the glass and breakable things, and a bed covered with the things that got me down. All this will have to be attended to before we can take off, so you see why I wonder what is happening.

It must have been meant. There was no trouble about getting me the room, and the Sanguinettis drove up the very day I wanted to come, and brought us. Hugo's boils were gone within three days, and now the familiar scars remain. You remember how long Lee had his scars. It was just the same thing, I think. Prickly heat infected, but the doctor said it wasn't ordinary prickly heat, but a rash from his high fevers. He never saw the boils, as I gave up taking the child down to his office, waiting three hours, and having less than ten minutes with the doctor, and then, nothing done. But I was talking to a Filipino doctor I met in a shoe store, and he said penicillin shots would fix the child up within a week. I started the same day, not having a week in which to give him the shots, and that alone started the good work. But he is still running a temperature of 99.5 at noon. He seems well, and up here has an enormous appetite, and is beginning to get some colour. I reckon you are all tired of hearing about Hugo's sickness, but so am I. I have never heard of such a poor doctor.

It is lovely here, and reminds me of Karuizawa, though it isn't nearly as nice, and the views are all the same, with nothing but pine trees, which I love, of course, but whether you look down one side to the mountains, or to any of the others, it is all the same, and at that not as spectacular as the view from Tongi. And I like having the plain on the other side, and also Acawa being again something so entirely different. I have been telling Hugo a lot about Japan, and making myself quite homesick. I certainly hope civilians are allowed to go there before Janet leaves. She says Kempie goes home in the fall. Surely he doesn't retire for good, then.

I was talking to a man who is here starting a big air line, and he says the most popular spot in the East for their men is Japan. I asked him why, and he said it was something intangible. They are one of the first civilian enterprises to be allowed into the country. The Hongkong Bank can't even go in. This man also told me that that air line has on order four enormous planes for this run, and they will make Manila - New York in 34 hours. They fly via the Aleutians. He added another six from New York to London, making it forty to London from here. Isn't it something! Gerald Wilkinson wouldn't come out here for his firm after the war unless they promised to send him once a year, by air, for a month - also his No.2. He says you can't run a business these days unless you are in that close touch with the rest of the world. I may have told you this before. It seems a marvelous idea getting home every year. I hear all sorts of stories about Shanghai. Several sources now say it isn't as expensive as Manila. Specifically that is living in hotels, and eating in them. I got a long letter from Norah MacIntyre telling me a lot, and nothing seems cheap to me. She said she wouldn't bother to bring materials, then enclosed a sample of something she is making her sister - 28" wide, and a pound a yard - $4.00 in fact. $8.00 for a decent width. That may be cheap for pure silk, but I don't need pure silk. A whiskey soda at the French Club is $2.00. Or Shanghai $24,000. I certainly am not looking forward to going into that city alone. I think that is why I hated doing all the packing alone again this time - I kept thinking that I would also have to undo it alone. Phil didn't expect me to pack until he came back, but I would have had to start before now. I reckon he will be right surprised to walk into our house and find the Woodings living there. The sadness now is where we will lay our heads however many days and nights we will have to be there on our way out. The Woodings just haven't enough bed space. Maude did say to come there but I know she would rather not have company when things in the house are upset.

I have seen a lot of Maude and she is certainly much more fun than the general run of people. There is something about Americans that I can't put my finger on, but I like it. As long as I have known Pat Sanguinetti, and as much as we see of each other, we are on the most formal terms, and I wouldn't think of barging into her bedroom if I thought she was dressing, even if it were putting on the last wisp of powder, and our conversations are most impersonal. There is a woman here that I can't remember ever knowing, but she says she saw something of me when we took in that girl - Ruth Murray-Kidd (he being Lorna Dean's husband for a day or night). In fact she is her best friend. This woman - Marie Hill - lives in Manila now, and I have seen her three or four times, and she lends me patterns and so forth, and when I came up here where she was, you would think I was a long lost friend. And I do feel as if I had known her years, and I would ask her to do anything, or say anything I wanted, to her. She is very attractive, and very nice. So is Pat, just as sweet and kind as she can be, but my they are hard to get to know. Yet she loves Manila because the Americans are so friendly and says she has never called people by their first names so quickly. Maybe they would like to be and just don't know how.

I have written a lot of letters since I came up, in fact almost all I owe, though I have been putting Alice off, thinking to write her a very long one. It will probably end by being nothing. My list of correspondents is not great. One letter was wasted, because I wrote an officer on my ship to bring me certain records, and I see today in the paper that the ship leaves New York in ten days. He knew I wanted him to bring them, but I had never told him what. Silly of me, but time seems to whiz by. I am getting right much faster on the machine, but I don't know whether it isn't a mistake, for I am not getting any better, and the letters are not all the same colour. There hasn't been much to do here. Hugo has adored it, with other children and riding an hour and some times an hour and a half a day. He is improving, because when he first started he was led, and now he dashes around alone. I got up my nerve and played a game of golf, made a mess of my hand (blisters) and ached all over. I haven't done it again, mainly because it seems a lot of money just playing around by myself, and it isn't that much fun. $2.25 it costs. It is very expensive here - $15.00 a day for myself alone, and I think Hugo is half, but I hope the company is going to pay it. A guest to dinner is $6.25 and a drink is $1.50. or $2.00. There was a young man from the firm staying in the Baguio Hotel. He gave us a grand Chinese dinner one night, and I invited him here. The Sanguinettis have been here until yesterday, but Pat caught a violent cold and was in bed three days, and Jack spent most of his time with her. They are a most devoted couple. I didn't know for a long time that they haven't been married even a year.

The shops here are disappointing. I don't know whether I have already mentioned that you can't rely on the colours in the table linen and stuff any more. You may be lucky and you may not. Of course it costs much more than it used to. I paid $9.00 for a length of material (hand woven) and my boy who cleans the room said it use to be $2.50. Machi didn't you use to buy bolts and bolts of lovely striped things from the P.I? I can't find anything like that around now. I have bought two gee strings in nice heavy stuff, and pretty dark colours, and I should love an Igorot skirt, and even enough to make a counterpane would be grand, but it would cost more than the lovely candlewick ones you got from Maidstone. I did get a lovely queer shaped basket for a waste-basket. Another difficulty to pack. I hope Phil will get us in a company car.

Since starting this I have had a message from Manila, viz. Mr Patten plans to leave for Baguio tomorrow at 0700, and expects to get in at noon. The phone is army and that must have come via someone we know in the army in Manila. But I am wondering when Phil got in. I suppose it must have been this morning, as I don't think he would just sit there and say nothing but when Jack went down yesterday I said he must find out something about Phil and let me know, so I was looking for a message of some sort. I have been worried. Flying accidents have been fairly frequent out here - as elsewhere. No one has told me a thing about Scotty's new glasses.

Sunday

Phil arrived with a packet of mail including letters from himself. I think it is inexcusable that no one took the trouble to see that my mail was forwarded to me. Machi yours of April 27th was amongst them, and I was glad to hear and know you were all right. But how very busy everyone is. I was shocked to hear about Lucy Robertson's death. I've never seen Leslie Grey, but I know he must be very young. I should like to know what the autopsy discovered. You had written me about Tom Watson. Is she staying on there? I suppose of course she is, Joan does seem to be doing a lot of sewing. I am so sorry the mushrooms didn't come up. I have thought about them, and hoped there were thousands. Your chickens do seem to be a paying proposition and somehow I have thought they weren't really. I had a more grown up letter than usual from Lee. Poor thing he had read Dracula and stayed awake most of the night, sweating with fear. He had also seen the Outlaw which he said seemed like any Western film to him.

Ruth Murray-Kidd wrote me about curtains too late - and the house sounds very drab in colour - blue rug, beige curtains and chair covers, but she says the pieces are such monstrosities she thinks it just as well. I had hoped the things would be pretty for winter, and I had bought curtains for summer only, to go with the Manila straw rugs. All the plans have been changed. Phil had arranged with the Frosts that Hugo and I would stay with them until Phil had finished his travelling. I should have loved that. But a cable has come telling Phil to come straight to Shanghai, so we will all go together on the 26th, and I am afraid the ship isn't even going to touch Hongkong. That will be most disappointing. Phil had a grand time in Hongkong, seeing so many friends, and he loved Singapore, which seems a grand place to live. and houses clubs, etc. all untouched by the war. Hongkong he swears was cool, which seems queer and even Singapore cool compared with Manila. I am sure Manila is hotter than necessary, without sensibly built houses, and so much dirt and dust, and no grass or trees. Phil is staying up four days then we will stay in a men's mess in Manila while we finish the packing, and get off. They say the Chinese customs is awful, so I've got to cut up my curtain cloth and sew it into bags or counterpanes.

I probably won't be writing again until I get to Shanghai. Phil lunched with Chappers and Cecil Skinner in Hongkong, and Barny O'Hea in Singapore. Did I tell you Gordon Waller is in Shanghai? Dick Frost has a wonderful job in Hongkong, with a huge salary - a very prominent member of the community and knows everybody. Phil was thrilled to see him, and says he is just the same.

Mollie

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Hongkong May 28th, 1947

Dearest Claudia,

I want to get off something off from here as it ought to be so quick to England, but it will probably be in patches, as we are pretty much on the go. It is our first clear day (we arrived three days ago) and I hate to do anything but stare out the window. Hongkong is even prettier than I remember it, and I feel now as if I wish I never had to leave it again. I've never seen anything so gorgeous, what a pity that anyone ever has to live in an ugly place. Manila seems more and more awful the longer I am away from it. Our last few days there were far from comfortable. We stayed way out of town (with Gompertzt!) in a house that had no screening, and the mosquitoes were as nothing compared to the flies. At least you go under your mosquito net at night, but there was no escape from the flies - and Manila seemed hotter than I've ever known it and the flies stuck to you. There was no water if there was no electricity, so often you had neither. I had not realized before how lucky we were to have had those two essentials where we lived. We finished up our packing in one terrible day, and that left nothing to do all the other days, because there was no way of getting anywhere, so Hugo and I just sat in this empty house, he with no toys so I couldn't read in peace, and both of us fighting flies. We got down from Baguio to find the plans changed again, and Phil was to come to Hongkong, and that was fine, but the ships we were booked on went straight to Shanghai, and every day in the paper what ships there were were put off from day to day, and we finally decided to go by air. That necessitated much trouble about the luggage, and we had to do with less, but finally things were fixed and we were to leave Monday, the 26th. Saturday noon there was a report on the radio that Hongkong airport was closing for twenty days! We spent the weekend in terror, but heard nothing from the air line, and were packing slowly at five a.m. when the phone rang to say that if we weren't at the airport by six the plane would leave us (we had been supposed to be there at seven). We threw things around. What wouldn't go in we pitched into a kit bag that never was shut and arrived in Hongkong that way - nothing missing so far. The port was a long way out and the drive was quite terrifying, but we made it.

And not one single solitary official turned up to that air port until seven o'clock. I'll never know why we got that phone message. We hadn't had a bit to eat or drink of course. We were practically the first people there, and a few more came in, but there were no planes in sight, and everyone had heard this rumour about the port in Hongkong being closed, and we didn't know until the very last minute whether we were to take off or not. There seemed to be no organisation, and my heart dropped when I got in the plane and compared it to the P.A.A. It looked like it had been put together by a kid, and no attempt at the insides being cleaned up or anything, and you couldn't see out except for little peep holes - but Phil assured me they were all like that, and that the air lines were running to make money and not for the fun of having a beautiful plane. I didn't bother to point out that usually the comfort of the passengers was a money-making advantage. When after forty-five minutes of riding, the pilot came in to say he had been ordered back I wasn't as surprised as I was when I heard we were to go. I must be a Jonah on a plane. Remember we were turned back in Puerto Rico. This time the radio in Manila that was to keep the plane in contact until we could contact the Hongkong station was broken.