kevin sinclair's hong kong

Better than new, Norman Hill once chuckled, pulling up his sleeve and proudly displaying his artificial arm. Won't fall off like the last one. It was just as well the amiable Bomber Hill had a sense of humour. He needed it after the dreadful misty night in March 1971 when his right arm was blown off as he tried to defuse a bomb outside the Central Government Offices. The bomb disposal squad had been called out when a suspicious object was found on the steps. It was Hill's night on duty and he answered promptly. He proceeded with his customary cautious valour. Protected only by a thickly padded jacket covering his chest, he carefully approached the parcel. It looked like hundreds of other fake bombs he had dealt with in the four years since the tense days of 1967 when he handled scores of deadly devices. But the package that night outside the symbol of British justice was no fake. Within a minute of kneeling down in front of it and gently probing the parcel there was a muffled explosion. Hill reeled back holding the stump of his arm. It had been blasted off below the elbow. I never heard him once complain. After doctors cut off the shattered bone, Bomber was fitted with a new limb. He went cheerfully through the frustrating process of learning how to use his artificial arm. Then he went back to work. Friends said farewell to Hill last weekend. He died earlier this month at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, aged 84. It was a quiet goodbye to a genuine Hong Kong hero. His wife, Lai-kwan, died many years ago. They had no children. Hill lived the last years of his life alone in Hung Hom, his life given meaning and joy by his friendship with Pauline Chung and her daughter, Lillian. It takes a very special kind of man to become a bomb disposal expert. It's not the sort of job that gets a lot of applicants. The pay is not vast, the hours are onerous, the stress is enormous, the prospects bleak. And I hate to think what it must be like for the families of men who choose such a perilous and lonely calling. At the end of the day, they are alone, crouched in a street, hands held steady as you can get them, your pliers extended towards an object that in a second can maim you, blind you or send you to an untidy death. They tend to be quiet, reflective men. But then, I suppose they have a lot on which to reflect. So when his colleagues and successors sent off Bomber Hill last weekend it was a quiet gathering at the Police Officers Club. They spoke of Hill and other friends, past and present, members of a very limited society of the brave. The incumbent head of the bomb squad, now named the explosive ordnance disposal unit, is Dominic Brittain, known universally as Bones. He is the fifth head of the unit since Hill retired from the force in 1975. Mr Brittain recalled that when Hill arrived in Hong Kong in 1954 he was already an expert in explosives. After army service in Burma in the second world war, he joined the Palestine police, carrying out bomb disposal duties. He served in the Malayan police before coming to Hong Kong. As a man with rare capabilities, Hill was swiftly posted to the Ballistics Office, which handled bomb disposal. In 1967, just as Hong Kong was to go through the long hot summer of bombs and tear gas that marked the disturbances, he was named senior ballistics officer. During the months of sustained tension he defused hundreds of homemade bombs. Some were clumsy bundles of fireworks, others were cunningly devised weapons designed to kill and maim. Day after day, Hill was on the front pages and the television news, calmly donning his protective armour, approaching suspicious objects, carefully making them safe or, if they were dangerous, blowing them up. That was when he earned his nickname, Bomber. Hill's rare knowledge was too valuable to lose. After he retired from the Hong Kong police, he was employed as a specialist consultant by Avesco, the airport security company, until he finally stopped work in 1998. These days, the men who deal with explosives are equipped with sophisticated robots which trundle under remote control towards suspect bombs and detonate them safely. In the era of Bomber Hill, the job was done by slight men with mighty hearts. 'These days, the men are equipped with sophisticated robots. In the era of Bomber Hill, the job was done by slight men with mighty hearts'