ALL AT SEA IN HONG KONG - By Judy Evans

I was posted to the British Military Hospital, Hong Kong in September 1976 as a midwife. To say that I was a reluctant midwife would be an understatement so when I was summonsed to Matron’s office during my nights off about six months after my arrival, I was surprised and a bit worried about what she wanted to say to me. In fact, she made my day as she asked me to go on detachment to HMS Tamar to work in the Families’ Medical Centre.

HMS Tamar was undergoing a huge redevelopment so the Medical Centre was temporarily housed in Victoria Barracks, Headquarters British Forces, just up the road from Tamar on Hong Kong Island. I was to go over to the barracks the next day to meet the other staff before packing up my room in the mess and moving across the harbour to my new home for the next six months.

The British Forces Medical and Dental Services on Hong Kong Island were largely the responsibility of the Royal Navy (RN) with civilian support. There were three or four medical officers who worked as GPs. The practice manager was a RN Chief Petty Officer with locally enlisted medical assistants to run the pharmacy and treatment room. Nursing support was provided by a Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service (QARNNS) sister, a Chinese sister and a QARANC officer. Next to the medical centre was the dental centre and a SSAFA health visitor completed the team.

The nursing staff’s role was to care for the wives of the servicemen, both Army and Navy living on Hong Kong Island and also the female service personnel posted to the Island. We also looked after UK civil servants. We held family planning and ante-natal clinics, vaccination clinics and worked in the treatment room as required. I was also told that a lot of the wives, being very young and away from their family network in the UK, needed support and just popped in for a chat and advice. This they did very regularly, and it was good to feel that we were making a difference and helping. Their husbands were often either at sea if they were in the RN or on exercise in the New Territories if they were in the Army.

 

I assumed that I would be living in single officers’ accommodation – the Wardroom in naval parlance but as there was none available for females, I was to share a hiring with the QARNNS sister and Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) officer who worked in HQBF. Transport would be provided to and from the Barracks as it was situated a few miles away, on the west side of the Island. The moment I saw it, I was blown away and recently saw that the one we actually lived in was on the market for the equivalent of £4m (2020 prices). There was a balcony with a view over to Lamma Island and facing west, the sunset each evening was amazing. We had an amah who came in five or six days a week to clean and do our laundry.

I was welcomed into the fold, made friends and enjoyed the busy social life of HMS Tamar.

There were regular events held in the Wardroom ranging from film nights to drinks parties and mess dinners and on Sundays, there were trips on a banyan boat - a naval launch, often to one of the outlying islands where we could swim and barbecue.

I was expecting to return to the BMH after six months but when I was asked to go for an interview with Matron, she told me that she wanted me to stay on for a further six months and in the end I stayed for eighteen months, until I came home in September 1978.

At that time there were no female officers or servicewomen serving on board ships, of which there were four patrol craft in Hong Kong. They were converted minesweepers with their main role being to search for illegal immigrants from China. We were allowed to go on board for family sea days and it was on one of these that I was transferred at speed from HMS Monkton to HMS Beachampton via jackstay – a jolly exciting experience!

On the last Sunday of my posting in Hong Kong, I went on the usual day out on the ‘banyan’. We went out to the west and on our return, at the entrance to the harbour, the banyan master asked if I’d like to probably be the first QARANC officer to take a RN vessel up the harbour and berth it at HMS Tamar. Of course I did, and so ended a wonderful tour but I was soon to have my comeuppance with a posting to DKMH, Catterick which was a bit of a shock after cosmopolitan Hong Kong.

Judy Evans

Note: It was during my time working with the Senior Service in 1977, that the QARNNS became fully affiliated to the RN and its personnel subject to the Naval Discipline Act. It wasn’t until 1995 that officers and ratings began to hold naval rank as opposed to QARNNS rank. That is why I have referred to my QARNNS colleague as ‘sister’ rather than ‘officer’.