My Life as a News
Reporter in Hong Kong
By David Harvey
I finished high school in Hong Kong in back 1965 with few
qualifications and poor prospects. I had been disinterested and
lazy my last few years at King George V School, Kowloon. The
last year in particular, I would just dodge school and go to
the midday movies instead. They were very cheap. So I only
passed the British G.C.E. exams in three subjects... English,
Biology and Technical Drawing.
My father was a career journalist who had branched into
Public Relations, managed to wangle me a job as a cub
reporter on the South China Morning Post, which was then
in Wyndham Street, Central, Hong Kong. It was a one-way street
running steeply downwards from the HK Mid-Levels, crossing
Queens Road Central and joining Pedder Street.
I was just a young dumb kid, but the journalists and subs
(sub-editors) were kind to me. Senior journalist Jill Doggett,
a friend of my parents showed me how to tap out sentences on an
old Underwood manual typewriter, using just 2 fingers. And she
showed me how to use carbon paper to make multiple copies
for the editors, myself, and for the newspaper's
archives - known as The Morgue.
The first news story I ever wrote was about three
workmen being injured when a pump-up kerosine blow torch blew
up in their faces. I had heard the ambulance scream pass
the window with its siren wailing, and Jill showed me how to
phone the HK Government Information Services (G.I.S.) and ask
the duty press officer for details. He called the HK Police
control room, which handled all 999 calls, and gave me the
details over the phone.
I typed it all up with Jill Doggett's help, and I think it
made 3 paragraphs in the newspaper the next day.
There were many kind people in the paper who tolerated me,
and I am forever grateful to them for their patience and
kindness.
Here are some of my old news photos and the stories behind
them:
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