slice of life

From the South China Morning Post this week in 1964

Jawaharlal Nehru, builder of modern India and prime minister since 1947, died of a heart attack at his home in New Delhi. He was 74. A shocked Parliament heard the announcement: 'The prime minister is no more. The light is out.' Nehru - 'Panditji' to the millions of Indians who identified him with his country's progress since independence - had been in frail health since falling ill with high blood pressure in January.

Five days earlier, he said he had 'given some thought' to a suggestion he should retire as prime minister and act as adviser. But when asked about a possible successor, the statesman replied with a stiff smile: 'My lifetime is not ending so very soon.'

A Tai Po villager, armed with a shotgun, killed three police officers, including a European divisional superintendent, and wounded 12 other policemen in a six-hour gun battle. After holding more than 150 armed policemen at bay from a hideout in a ditch, the killer was eventually shot dead when he left his refuge and charged at two police officers.

The superintendent, armed with a machine gun, had gone into the ditch in an effort to capture the gunman. The villager leapt on him, grabbed his gun and killed him with a burst of automatic fire.

The gunman was the treasurer of a village co-operative in Hang Ha Po village and had a licence for the shotgun.

Typhoon Viola bypassed Hong Kong but brought sufficient rain to allow a relaxation of water restrictions to an alternate-day supply. The majority of residents had been on a one-day-in-four supply for 12 months. A total of 27.55cm had fallen since the colony began to feel the effects of the approaching typhoon two days earlier. This compared with 27.89cm received since January.