SLICE OF LIFE
From the South China Morning Post this week in 1953
Sleeping bags laid out on the snow were the sign from the Mount Everest climbers to the rest of the party thousands of feet below that the summit had been reached. But after fine weather early on the big day, May 29, mist obscured the high Himalayan camps. Hence it was not until the following afternoon that the support teams knew the attempt had been successful.
Without satellite telephones, it was two weeks before the heroes were able to tell their story.
Sitting relaxed in a snowbound refuge inhabited by Buddhist monks, 34-year-old Auckland beekeeper Edmund Hillary said he felt 'good at the top, it was a beautiful day. As we got there my companion threw his arms around me'. This was 'Fierce Tiger of the Snows' Sherpa Tenzing.
Would they do it again? Tenzing replied: 'No, no seven times is enough. But I'd like to try K2, I think that could be climbed.'
Britain's newly crowned Queen Elizabeth seemed to pop up in nearly every story, even the Everest conquest. She bestowed a knighthood on Hillary while he must still have been slithering down Everest.
Her Majesty gave rise to Hong Kong's social event of the month, the Gala Premiere of A Queen Is Crowned, the rapidly made movie of the event. 'See the Coronation as closely and intimately as those who attended at Westminster Abbey,' the advert promised. Viewers were also treated to the Hong Kong Police band as a warm-up act, strutting their stuff live on stage at the Lee Theatre before the feast of pomp and pageantry began.
Dress circle seats and boxes were by invitation only.
The reviewer was impressed by the 'distinguished gathering' and narrator Sir Laurence Olivier.
The new Zenith all-purpose clock radio had arrived in the colony and its attributes were impressive. 'Lulls you to sleep with sweet music. Wakes you gently.'
The slimming product advertisements rivalled today's with their wild claims. 'New Paraffine Bath brings your weight to perfection without reducing other proportions,' one claimed.
It was easy to get on the wrong side of the law then. Able Seaman Morris Oswald Leighton of HMS Charity was 'observed in a drunken condition' near the Gloucester Hotel in Pedder Street and fined $10 for disorderly conduct. He had barged into a Chinese woman.
In mitigation Lieutenant Jack Cooper said Seaman Leighton had never caused any serious trouble. For his part, the defendant said he was too drunk to remember anything.
Just being poor was also a crime. After Cheung Yung-wah, 30, was caught snoozing in a car parked in Jaffe Road, he was charged with being destitute when he was found to be without shelter or means of support. How he could magically change his circumstances and prevent himself re-offending was not suggested, but at least his one-month prison sentence gave him time to think of something.
Meanwhile, the hand of Saint Francis Xavier was visiting the colony, though the saint never made it here in life. The Bishop of Malacca brought the religious relic from Macau and would take it back on the coming Friday. For three days the hand would be 'exposed to special veneration at the Colony's Catholic Churches'.
