Shanghai July 6th 1947

My darling Mother

It is a long time since I wrote to you on a typewriter, in fact I think that it was sometime in 1926 when I sent you a sort of Who's Who of the Company! However I have no doubt that you will find that it is easier to read. My last letter was sent just after I got back from Peiping and I dictated quite a long note to Lee which I asked him to send on to you. As you may have gathered we both like Shanghai which is possibly the result of having expected the worst after all the dismal things we had been told about it. Of course people who were here before the war find that it is sadly changed but so is everywhere else; and the marvel is that the place is as good as it is. Everything is very expensive but the Company are very good and so far as I can see at the moment it is not very much worse than Manila after taking into consideration the High Cost of Living allowance &c. Things like Whisky are very high as the Chinese will not allow any imports and when you can get it it costs about £3 a bottle as compared with £1 in Manila. The currency has Marijane and me completely foxed. As the value of the Chinese Dollar is falling all the time prices go up almost every day. The newspaper costs $7000 about 3/- at the official rate! and the newspaper Office will not take more than one month's subscription in advance. A taxi costs $12,000 for the first 20 minutes on top of which you are expected to hand out 20% as a tip. Goodness knows how it will all end, but the Chinese are very remarkable people and will probably find a solution. We are still waiting hopefully for our luggage or I should say for the cases we brought with us the Customs finally decided that I would have to get a permit for the Frigidaire and the booze I hope to get it tomorrow. I find the job in the Office quite fun the set-up here is quite different to the old set-up in Hong Kong, I am looking after Gasoline for China and appear to have more or less a free hand to run things as I want, look forward to the time when I am really settled in, at the moment there are a lot of things that I must pick up first. I like Powell the No 1 who has just gone on leave and Bates the No 2. I believe Marijane wrote you while I was in Peiping about the house which is on the whole very nice indeed also touch wood we were lucky to take over three very pleasant servants. We have a Cookboy coolie and amah the last mentioned being the boy's wife. Incidentally their wages come to about one and a half million dollars a month.

One big advantage of Shanghai is the weather which is very much better than Manila. Everyone is complaining bitterly about the heat, and it is certainly very damp, but actually it is nothing like as bad as Manila. I am told that it is bitterly cold in the winter, and unfortunately the heating system in the house is not working, so no doubt we shall all sit around and freeze. It should however do us all a lot of good. Hugo is already very much better than he was in Manila, although he has at the moment a large boil on his arm. It is doing him a lot of good to have other children to play with as he has been with grown ups much too much. We arranged for him to go to school for the last ten days of the term and he is having three hours lessons every week with two other children in the compound.

I have just been put up for the Shanghai Club and have to meet the twenty odd members of the balloting committee sometime before the first of August. The Club was occupied by the Japanese Navy and is in quite good shape except for the billiard tables which does not interest me much in any case. Clubs are very much more expensive than before the war, and the entrance fee is twenty five pounds compared with only ten pounds before the war. There are also the French Club, the British Country Club and the Columbia Club, and we are trying to decide which one to join. Marijane is anxious to join something with a swimming pool as quickly as possible so that she can take Hugo swimming in the mornings. The company are quite decent about providing transport for the wives in the morning, not only for shopping, but also to go to the clubs. The house is quite big although the sitting room might be larger. We have three bed rooms and three bathrooms on the first floor, and four attics and a bathroom on the second. Unfortunately they are rather dirty, the attics I mean, and Hugo looks rather like a blackamoor after he has been playing up there.

I hope the stamps arrived safely, and expect Lee would like some of the duplicates as he asked us to put different values on the letters. Your letter saying that Lee was going to spend a week with you came a few days ago. I am sure that he will enjoy it.